Soundos El Ahmadi feels discriminated against by AvroTros. The comedienne was rejected when the broadcaster was still called AVRO and is still pissed about it. “We don’t want you here!”
Anyone who saw Soundos El Ahmadi at work as the resident comedian of De Wereld Draait Door would never have imagined that she is now successful in both the Netherlands and Belgium. A major achievement and she is anything but modest about it. In between all her chest-beating, she asks The Telegraph whether there is anything left on her bucket list.
AVRO said no
Yes, Soundos answers. There is still something she would like to make. “I always wanted a program for children in groups 7 and 8. That is a great age: they are not yet recalcitrant teenagers, they are not yet really aware of themselves and the world. But they are curious and you can have conversations with them.”
She pitched that idea to the public broadcaster in the past. “I once submitted a plan to the AVRO, but I was rejected there. I was about 25 years old and was told that I was too old. But I already heard that when I was sixteen, that’s just code for ‘we don’t want you here’.”
Insecurity
What does Soundos think of the current climate in the Netherlands? She said she felt less safe after the PVV became the largest party in our country. “That feeling of insecurity remains. Yes, I am now in a position where I really don’t have to worry about things like money. But at the same time, I am still a woman of color.”
She concludes: “In the Netherlands, positions of power are still mainly dominated by white men who enjoy putting women in their place. You only understand that feeling, I think, once you have experienced it yourself all your life.”