Let sincere apologies suffice for the recipient, do not demand that we kneel

Letter of the day: Making everything priceless has become the slogan

What do Rituals and Ford have in common? Both companies have developed a quality product for the middle class that was previously unaffordable. With Rituals, people with a lower income can also afford a piece of luxury. The masses were mobilized with the T-Ford.

It was recently announced that Ford will cease production of the Ford Fiesta in mid-2023. Like other manufacturers, Ford will focus on the premium segment. Nice, affordable cars will soon be a thing of the past. Just like in the 19th century, driving is becoming an activity reserved for the upper class.

The same goes for flying. In the past, flying was only reserved for the elite, but since a few decades Jan Modaal has also been able to discover the world. Unfortunately, that era is also over. KLM has just introduced the Premium Comfort Class, and not the Balearic Islands but the Wadden Islands are the Dutch Hamptons.

In de Volkskrant you will no longer find advertisements for C&A, but for Woolrich (with nice coats from the monthly net minimum wage). Mass consumption is seen as environmentally polluting and unethical, as evidenced by Dille & Kamille’s recent protest against Black Friday. Progress is bad. World trade must stop and everything must be produced locally, so that prices will rise even further.

Making everything priceless has become the slogan of the left. Mass consumption has led to a less unequal society, but funnily enough it is precisely the more progressive voices calling for a return to the ‘romanticism’ of the pre-industrial 19th century without the nasty, spoiled middle class.
Frances DethmersGiethoorn

Goons

In December last year, columnist Teun van de Keuken wrote about the human tendency to close off from all the misery in the world, such as corona, bad leaders, dangerous people. His closing sentence about the consequences of this escapism turned out to be prophetic: ‘If you listen very carefully, you can already hear the brown boots marching in the distance’.

It hasn’t gotten any better. After the tractor protests about nitrogen, we know that violent vigilantism in the Netherlands is an infectious success formula. Recently, a peaceful demonstration of Kick Out Zwarte Piet was ended with similar violence.

For the authorities responsible for enforcement, such as ministers and mayors, the constitution appears to be subordinate to short-term self-interest. It seems that they do not see the danger in this. The goals of malicious people can easily be achieved, if ‘the good guys’ look on and do nothing.

In the podcast De Kamer van Klok, Raoul du Pré and colleagues wonder how the disruptors of the KOZP demonstration in Staphorst can best be called. Let’s call it by its name: the right word for this is goons. In the Netherlands in 2022, racist thugs are successful, while the enforcers watch and do nothing.
Matthew KrooMaastricht

Apologies

How sincere are apologies if the recipient dictates them, according to Ger Lugtenberg in the letters section of 1 December.

However, no one wants to dictate apologies. People want to discuss the way and when apologies are made. That is quite normal in civilized societies.

Does it show taste, consultation and a sense of proportion, does it give cachet, that the Netherlands wants to apologize about the slavery past to Suriname through a descendant of enslaved people, Minister Weerwind? A curious split for a servant of the Crown.
_{Rinaldo van Rhenen}The Hague

Apologies (2)

Gemme van Burmania refused to kneel before Philip II in the 16th century because Frisians only kneel before God (‘Wy Frisians knibbelje allinne foar God’). Growing up in Friesland, this comment often crosses my mind when I read about the excuses that the Netherlands should make for our slavery past.

The list of how, by whom and when those excuses are made is getting longer, the difference between apologies and humiliation getting shorter and shorter.

Let sincere apologies suffice for the recipient, do not demand that we kneel.
Jan-Rob DijkstraWinsum

Apologies (3)

I read with surprise the message about apologizing about the slavery past. On December 19, ministers and state secretaries will travel to seven places in the Caribbean: Suriname, St. Maarten, Aruba, Saba, Curaçao, Bonaire and St. Eustatius.

Why not to Guyana? There, the Dutch practiced slavery in the former colonies of Berbice, Essequibo and Demerara for about 200 years before these colonies passed into English hands in the early 19th century.

As a result of the bad practices of Dutch slave owners, Berbice even hosted the largest revolt of enslaved people in the Caribbean before the Haitian Revolution (see also my book Blood in the River: The Unknown Story of the Massive Revolt of Slaves in a Dutch Colony). ). Hundreds of enslaved people lost their lives.

An apology for the slavery past would, I think, be very appropriate in Guyana.
Marjolein Karshistorian MIT History, Cambridge (United States)

Assistance

From 2024, people entitled to benefits may receive gifts of 1,200 euros per year, have income from the sale of items and provide informal care. The fact that it is only allowed from 2024 is because a number of legislative changes must be implemented. However, nothing stands in the way of municipalities – which carry out the inspection – from tolerating this from now on, as is often the case in the Netherlands.
Nick van DykeAmsterdam

Torture chamber

Culture of fear, social insecurity, undesirable behaviour, double abuse, boundaries that have been crossed, public executions, rifts, many pathetic people, and all this in the Netherlands: as a reader of de Volkskrant you sometimes imagine yourself in a torture chamber. And then suddenly there is Ibtihal Jadib, a columnist who doesn’t know it all better, but in a civilized tone, without moralism or cold hypocrisy, brings peace to all that misery. Tribute.
William BeusekampAmsterdam

Hero

A hero is a hero and you can just call him a hero, says columnist Elma Drayer. A truth as a cow. But who is a hero? Ask a hero if he is a hero and he will always deny it. That’s what all heroes do, even those in socks.
Baldwin OttenGroningen

Bandage

Page 2 of the newspaper of 1 December featured Marcia Luyten’s column ‘Many are also better off by protecting nature’ and the article ‘More and more Dutch people suffer from mental disorders’. Did the editors also see a connection here?
Corinne NelemanBreda

Scabies

Glad the article on scabies (First, 11/28) paid attention to the labyrinth that sororities find themselves in when they have to take action to treat scabies.

In our student house we have had to treat scabies a few times, but it is mainly the maddening contradiction of advice from GPs, pharmacists and GGD that cuts into it. At different pharmacies you get conflicting advice about the treatment, and the information letters provided come from different GGDs.

Remarkable detail: those letters do not come from the GGD in our own region. Anyone who then counts on RIVM to find out what the right treatment is, will be disappointed. The national institute again maintains different treatment conditions than the GGDs.

It is all very reminiscent of the beginning of the covid-19 pandemic, where government authorities were poorly able to assess the situation within student houses and to provide students with appropriate advice.

It is high time that the GGD takes action at a national level and coordinates the approach, as it ultimately worked well against the corona virus. Because the only one who benefits from the current policy is the scabies mite itself.
Jacob Uwland and Robin Roversstudents, Utrecht

Dead end

Finally someone has the floor who flawlessly touches on the pain points when tackling the impending climatic and ecological disasters. According to Paul Schenderling, wanting to become more sustainable at all costs without taking a sensible approach to our planet is a dead end.

As a resident of Germany, I live in a country where, in addition to the already considerable amount of wind turbines, new legislation makes it possible to realize solar and wind farms in forests and nature reserves. At the same time, a bratwurst costs less than a can of cat food and you can still drive 180 km / h (or faster) on highways.
John TampoboloneKranenburg (Germany)

Shell

In the spring I won a lawsuit against Shell before the Advertising Code Committee (RCC), which portrayed itself in an advertising campaign as ‘the driver of the energy transition’. Shell is using that slogan incorrectly, the RCC ruled: Shell still derives the lion’s share of its billion-dollar profits from fossil fuels, has no plans to change that and is still looking for new fossil sources to continue the business model.

My astonishment is great that the newspaper, on the opinion pages of December 1, gives President-Director Marjan van Loon the space to display more or less the same representation of affairs prohibited by the RCC.
Josh KingNijmegen