Thomas Erdbrink, like Arjen Lubach, left VPRO for RTL, but yesterday he went one step further and ended up in Today Inside. “Islamization!” shouts Johan Derksen next to him.
From VPRO to RTL to the conservative clubhouse of SBS 6: presenter Thomas Erdbrink made a striking debut yesterday at the talk show table of Today Inside. You would rather expect him at the table at Pauw & De Wit than at a table where Johan Derksen is grumbling about the Islamization of our country. How did it go?
Honor killing
Johan makes negative comments about Islam several times a week at the table at VI. “I find it serious that I read in the newspaper this morning about the increase in honor killings. More than 500 cases already in the Netherlands and that is simply the result of Islamization in this country, because it is mainly the Syrians who do it…”, he says in yesterday’s show.
“And the Turks and then the Moroccans. It’s a culture we don’t know, isn’t it? We now have a similar case in Drenthe with a man in Meppel. His daughter had already been removed from home by child protection and placed in Utrecht. Then he went looking for her and found her without a headscarf.”
Flow
What happened then? Johan: “Then he sent messages to her by telephone: ‘Either I or your brothers will go to prison, because you will die.’ Well, they arrested them immediately, but that is considered very normal within those circles.”
Wilfred Genee tries to provide nuance. “It’s often a movement within Islam, isn’t it? It’s not that Islam as a whole thinks that way, right?”
What does Thomas say?
How does Thomas thrive at such a right-wing populist talk show table? “They are also cultural things,” he says. “You also see it a lot among Kurds. In Iran we often have cases of honor killings and they are often Kurds, because it often happens there. Yes, if you come from far away, you may bring certain things with you that do not fit here. That is of course true.”
Johan: “Yes, but all cities have invested a fortune in iftar and Ramadan and eating with those people. They do everything to please Islam and we must also understand honor killings!”
Whole group
That is very exaggerated, says Wilfred. “Well, no one can understand honor killings!”
Thomas feels obliged to admonish Johan somewhat: “Of course no one has that! But of course it is true… Of course you can’t address the entire group about it. There are people who do it and you always have to adapt. I went to Iran and I also adapted. I don’t go on the streets there with clogs either.”
Johan concludes: “Of course, that is normal. But all those communities do not visit all the Catholics at Christmas to have dinner or eat Easter eggs with the Protestants, but with Islam!”
