Could it be that with the tone of his column last Monday, Sander Schimmelpenninck tried to provoke additional evidence for the statement he makes there? According to him, ‘everything outside the Randstad is starting to lean en masse to the populist right (…) at most there are differences in how right-wing people are.’ A flat, but tantalizing statement.
Well, and then: ‘The countryside [zijn] beyond the shame. Really, there will also be humane Albergers, after all there are also really nice Russians, but a lot of people walked along in a Klu Klux Klan-like march with inverted flags.’
About the author:
As a researcher at CMO STAMM, Herbert Rolden focuses on various social issues in Groningen and Drenthe.
Such comparisons will provoke strong reactions from rural readers. Reactions of dismay and injustice, to say the least. Reactions that will probably confirm to Schimmelpenninck that the mouths of rural people only serve as a conduit for their strong gut feelings (after all, decency is hardly any more in the countryside) – feelings of fear, which in the majority of rural people express themselves in xenophobia, and feelings of hatred (reread the hyperbole of the Ku Klux Klan).
Jerk to the right
But perhaps the columnist does not expect violent reactions at all. Perhaps he assumes that people in the countryside ignore ‘the vinegar messenger’ en masse because of the pull to the right.
In their Atlas of the Netherlands Dropped Out Josse de Voogd and René Cuperus show that ‘on the periphery’ there is indeed more right-wing voting over the years. They place the development of this voting behavior in a broader context. For example, voter turnout during elections decreased, confidence in politics declined, and rural residents became less politically active. Incidentally, they see this as evidence of deteriorating social conditions, not as evidence for a kind of rotten soul that was previously only exposed when one ‘imagined oneself unseen.’
De Voogd and Cuperus also note that voting for outsider parties is associated with ‘deprivation in work, income and health’. The establishment parties, or, as in the Atlas referred to as ‘established parties’, ‘are strong in areas with much higher education, higher prosperity and greater social cohesion, especially in the center and east of the country.’
Footnote
It is striking that the east of the country is also mentioned here. If Schimmelpenninck finds it difficult to visit Twente, the region where he grew up with ‘contemptuous thugs’, then based on the findings of De Voogd and Cuperus, I would certainly not recommend a trip to the north or south of the country.
What is not expressly stated in the Atlas of the Netherlands Dropped Out comes up, but what De Voogd did point out during a conference in Heerlen is that the media reinforce the feeling among rural people that they are not being heard. In newspapers and TV programs it is mainly about the Randstad, as if Amsterdam, Utrecht, The Hague and to a lesser extent Rotterdam belong to the heart of the Netherlands. Everything that happens out there is a footnote.
Polarization and tunnel vision
Fortunately, the footnote can also be cheerful, although a lack of respect can also be seen through it. ‘Our correspondent traveled to the distant [vul maar in]. It was very green, and the people were very nice but sometimes difficult to understand. A series of at least five seasons about this magical event will soon be released on Amazon Prime. And now back to the raw reality. That of traffic jams, air pollution, and street gang violence.’
Schimmelpenninck’s column does not help, of course, his contribution only polarises. Denouncing rural people as retarded xenophobes when they protest, or as cowards when they don’t call their fellow rural people to order, undermines the discussion, to say the least. It is also based on tunnel vision and misinformation. Incidentally, that is exactly the behavior against which he himself fulminates in his column.
But somehow I feel a glimmer of hope. I read in the same newspaper about former ministers who have to answer for the further opening of the gas tap when the lives of Groningers were at stake. In any case, ‘we’ are no longer ignored.