No, it was not Sophie Hermans’ best reaction to Geert Wilders’ “bag carrier” insult, but it was the most humane. Giving lick for piece would have been better, but that’s not given to everyone.
For those who missed it: Wilders asked VVD party leader Hermans in the House of Representatives “how long she still has the ambition to remain an assistant, bag carrier of Mr Rutte”. Hermans, former assistant to Prime Minister Rutte, had not foreseen such a personal attack and was overcome with emotions. On the verge of tears, she managed to squeeze out: “I’m fine with the debate on the content, but please on the content, not on the person.”
Wilders enjoyed it. He repeated the insult a few more times and added with satisfaction: “It looked like a good question.” At such moments you should be able to give him back an insult of your own accord, a fierce you-bak, something along the lines of: “Rather Rutte’s bag carrier than Putin and Orbán” or: “That’s what someone says the curly boy from Bolkestein has been.”
This requires innate wit, preferably combined with clear diction and some vengeance. In hindsight it is always easier thought than said. How often does it happen that the right response to other people’s proletariat does not occur to you until it is too late? Esprit de l’escalier it’s called wit on the stairs. (That staircase, invented by the philosopher Denis Diderot, does not stand for ‘after a staircase’, I read at Our language, but refers to the stairway of stately eighteenth-century residences leading out from the front door. Whoever descended such a staircase had already said goodbye to the company.)
It is rather naive of Hermans and her advisers not to be prepared for such attacks by Wilders. Those who, like Wilders, have already been convicted of group insult, are more likely to opt for individual insult. Wilders is a predator, including the accompanying instinct for the weaknesses of its prey. He only has respect for the evil venom of some other animals, such as the bad luck bird. You have all kinds of predators: felines, bear-like animals, sea predators; I would like to classify Wilders among the felines, not because he resembles my house cat – imagine – but because the hyena also belongs to the feline.
After such a notorious incident in the House of Representatives, the Dutch people, as usual, split into two furious parts. In this case: those who think Herman’s crocodile tears (also a predator, by the way!) and those who consider her a pitiable victim. The first group generally votes on the right, the second group on the left. A complicating factor here is that Hermans must be counted as one of the right; so far Wilders mainly attacked left-wing women, such as Halsema and Kaag. (Ploumen had already fled.)
What now?
Just patiently waiting for Wilders’ next attack? I think it would be better that Sophie Hermans takes tutoring with Pechtold, that Kaag learns all of Wilders’ praises to Putin, Orbán and Trump completely by heart, and that Attje Kuiken is fully aware that she is next on Wilders’ hit list, if only because with such a name Wilders hopes for a defenseless animal.
A version of this article also appeared in the newspaper of June 17, 2022