“The masses respond most strongly to those who look least like them.” This idea comes from the German publicist Sebastian Haffner (1907-1999), who not only had A. Hitler in mind, but especially Walter Rathenau, a German industrialist, extremely wealthy, art collector, who became a minister in Germany just after the First World War, and who, according to Haffner, was at the same time a real working-class idol. It was precisely his exceptionalism that appealed to the masses.
The statement also applies to American President Trump, whose lifestyle is miles away from the majority of Americans. ‘Our’ Pim Fortuyn also fit effortlessly into this list: the gay dandy with slightly too elegant suits, the man who already had a driver before he had the chance to become a minister or prime minister. Fortuyn, murdered in 2002, did everything he could during his life to stand out from the crowd and was held in high esteem by a large proportion of ‘ordinary Dutch people’.
Who does not belong in this list at all: Rob Jetten, currently the leader of the largest party in the Netherlands, prospective prime minister and much more. As a Dutchman, he has an Indian background, he is not ‘white’, as they say, but to call him ‘black’ will also sound excessive to many people. Oh yes, he is gay, he wants to marry his Argentinian hockey fiance. Hockey was once considered an elite sport. But that reputation is also subject to wear and tear.
The special thing is that all these details do not detract from Jetten’s ordinaryness: he is the boy next door who has gone far, the man who works hard and is ambitious. The sexual and ethnic differences seem to be incidentals that do not essentially determine the image of Jetten.
There is already a pleasant atmosphere in various media around that nice, future ‘first husband’, a phenomenon that we are actually not familiar with in the Netherlands, in male or female form. There are some orthodox Protestant denominations that are concerned about “a prime minister who wants to marry a man” (Reformatorisch Dagblad). That is a minority, it can make itself heard, like all minorities, but that voice is not very loud in the Netherlands.
By the way: in the past the emphasis was on gay, in the so-called ‘gay marriage’, but now mainly on marriage. That also says a lot.
Jetten is colored, without necessarily admitting his color
Jetten has made what was once exceptional ordinary. He is the great equalizer, the man who is slightly different from the vast majority of this country.
There will probably be people from activists who believe that Jetten has shamelessly adapted, while as a gay man and a man of color he should have lit the fuse. That is also a small group. As a monument to integration, Jetten is unsurpassed. As a Teflon specialist, he has been compared to Mark Rutte, but although both share an Indian past, this is not reflected in the NATO boss.
Jetten is colored, without necessarily admitting his color.
Isn’t that a somewhat poor outcome of more than fifty years of emancipation struggle, of ‘ethnic and sexual minorities’ as they used to be called? Well, if you believe that someone’s sexuality or skin color also comes with an intrinsic revolutionary consciousness; such a person should be in the contramine, and by definition not in the government.
Not if you take seriously the consideration that emancipation is ultimately intended to result in everyday life.
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