The use of the word “pussy” as a swear word is back. I think I last heard it in the 1990s. It must have been the Korenmarkt in Arnhem, a real place where people could find each other’s pussy out loud. But it could also be that it has never disappeared and that it is somewhere in a sinkhole in East-North Brabant has lingered and is now bubbling up again.
Mark van den Oever, the foreman of Farmers Defense Force (FDF) used it very naturally a few times in an interview with two pussy journalists from de Volkskrant† Quite a few readers were upset that their paper was giving someone they loathe free rein, but those pussy’s don’t know anything about news and clickbait. Because what Van den Oever was spouting was newsworthy.
We have to take into account many more farmers’ actions, such as cutting food supplies, blocking highways in Natura 2000 areas or towards Schiphol, and it is not inconceivable that ‘a lot more farmers’ will visit ministers’ homes.
Minister Christianne van der Wal (Nature and Nitrogen, VVD) said last week when her house was surrounded by angry farmers that her children were trembling on the couch. When asked by the Volkskrant pussy’s what Mark van den Oever thought of that, he replied that he thinks those children are pussy’s. A little further on, he found animal activists who, for fear of farmer reprisals, did not want to be named in the article, also pussy’s.
I think Mark van den Oever thinks a lot of people are pussy’s. PSV football players, Jews who have not actively opposed the Holocaust, officials who check farmers for nitrogen emissions… His own children are pussy’s. If they are afraid of something he is not afraid of, a large sheepdog for example. Or if they find something dirty that he doesn’t find dirty, a big bowl of shit. He also thinks that cows that don’t give milk for a day are pussy’s.
A few days before he received the Volkskrant pussy’s in his yard in Sint Hubert, he was still in hospital with meningitis among all the other pussy’s. He announced that the hour has come for You. His farmers are done with the nitrogen measures. He himself hardly suffers because he is mainly in pigs, sugar beet, pears and Christmas trees, a real pussy farmer.
Marcel van Roosmalen writes an exchange column with Ellen Deckwitz here.
A version of this article also appeared in the newspaper of June 20, 2022