Last Wednesday I played in Wageningen. Play is too strong a word. In the afternoon I was overcome by a creeping flu, so I squeezed my words into the audience, wheezing and creaking. After the performance I immediately went to my hotel with a bad fever. There I fell into a deep sleep. Yes, I had received the election results, but it had not really sunk in yet. At that moment I thought I was slightly delirious. At that time it was still 35 seats. I thought: I will be better tomorrow.
At about six o’clock I woke up drenched in sweat. As usual, I picked up my phone for the latest news and only then did it dawn on me. We had now really become a scary far-right country and we had chosen it ourselves. Massively so. 2.3 million people voted for a bleached-blonde gentleman who despises our parliament, who wants fewer-less Moroccans, who thinks the press is scum, who wants to abolish religious freedom, who wants to ban books, who wants to close the borders to refugees and who thinks everything to do with the climate is nonsense. And he’s also in league with the Russians.
I read this in the Wageningen hotel De Wereld. Are there any readers who don’t know what once took place here? If not, Google it. Then you can read why this is historical ground. What important capitulation was ever signed here. That on May 5, 1945, after five years of oppression by a neighbor who excluded all kinds of people on the basis of their race, we were a free country again. A country in which everyone can think and believe what he or she wants. The hotel is full of memories of this important moment. I hope that Ukraine will also soon have such a place. I don’t think that Dutch Prime Minister Wilders is there as a wise mediator in one of the photos. Neither does Thierry.
Simple question: why have the other parties failed so much? That just keeps rippling in my cold head. GroenLinks-PvdA with their slightly overweight redundancy payment joker, the VVD with that one-liner-producing Kruidvatcassière, NSC with an apparently strong leader who soon turned out to be a hesitant doubting bitch and D66 with his lonely Robje, who neatly proclaimed what the spin doctors had for him whispered. Why hasn’t Geert had any serious opposition? Had the other parties been advised by Sven Mislintat, Maurits Hendriks and the entire supervisory board of Ajax? Did no one realize what was really going on in the country? What’s going on in Budel and Ter Apel? What has been neglected in Groningen? How wrong is it in healthcare? How few homes are built? And I could go on like this for another column or three.
But is that dissatisfaction a reason to vote for a man who ignores the Constitution? Someone looking for a scapegoat. I whispered it softly in the De Wereld hotel in Wageningen and fell asleep again.
I did have funny dreams. A sobbing Jan Slagter who begged Geertje on his bony knees to please spare his senior citizen broadcaster. He even mentioned a massacre in my dream. Or did that really happen? And Sophie’s son Khalid asking his father if he is going to be deported now? Not really happening, right? Otherwise we should indeed close down the NPO.
Anyway, we have chosen and Geert is going to try it. As a columnist I’m looking forward to it. Minister Graus with his animal manners will give me plenty of work. And I fear that some more tragic village clowns with a tainted past will appear. Take it from me: relive old LPF times.
I am now back in Amsterdam. With a train full of colorful, nice, real Dutch people. How do you actually recognize them? Does that Dutchman actually still exist? Only if he bleaches his head. And suddenly my voice worked again.