God, and no one else, forbid that Ongehoord Nederland is thrown out of the public order. After all, that would mean depriving us of the most interesting column in Dutch journalism: that of Arnold Karskens, chairman of ON.
At the end of many broadcasts, Karskens preaches to the people at the top of his lungs. It’s top-shelf cabaret, just like the rest of the TV shows, by the way. You could even call it a form of cabaret that makes any other cabaret superfluous. This is satire that no satirist can surpass.
Karskens gives such a perfect interpretation of the type of the disgruntled, indignant, disgusted petty bourgeois that you can only look at it with deep admiration. He is distantly reminiscent of Archie Bunker, played by Carroll O’Connor, the perpetually angry, reactionary householder from the legendary TV series All In The Familybut Karskens is even better, because even more lifelike.
Everything is right: the diction, which is never right, because it puts wrong emphasis everywhere and wants to end every sentence with an exclamation mark; the way he squeezes his facial muscles triumphantly after each direct verbal hit and acts a scornful laugh as if you could hear him think: “That one!”
It is unparalleled, and then I haven’t even mentioned its bloated texts, because they are a story in itself – so special that the question arises whether this cannot be spoken of as a new form of literature.
Because a lot NRCreaders have undoubtedly been unwise enough not to listen to Karskens, here are some sentences from a recent column entitled ‘Mark, why do you hate us?‘
“Those who look closely, and are not afraid of the truth, know that the Netherlands as we once knew it balances on the edge of the abyss because of you… Those who want to start a family can forget about it because of your open borders policy… Because of your CO2crop reduction, our industry is bullied from factory to airport… You are the personification of the evil elite… You whip up wars that we can never win… On behalf of six out of ten Dutch people, I ask you: why do you hate us?… The originator of the doctrine of assured national destruction bears a single name, yours… Mark Rutte!”
In short, Karskens hate Rutte. That is also what he himself seems to prefer to do: hate.
Philosopher of law Eva Vlaardingerbroek was also a guest in the same broadcast. She called the Dutch government “ordinary thieves”, the Netherlands was “a country in which the farmers are chased off their land”. She was proud of a documentary she made with TV host Tucker Carlson on the subject. Vlaardingerbroek did not mention that Carlson – now even put aside by Fox News – deliberately participated in Trump’s lies about the ‘election fraud’; Of course she was not asked, because they do not like facts and verified information at ON.
At ON they prefer to cry about “freedom of speech” that is at stake if they are no longer allowed to broadcast, but the State Secretary who has to decide on ON actually faces another question: how far does “freedom of speech” extend?
A version of this article also appeared in the newspaper of April 26, 2023.