But eternity knows him
September 29, 2007Filled with joy I started making my supper today, as the Housing Corporation have finally agreed to perform their duty (returning my garden to a clean slate) after 18 months of sending letters, making phone calls, and so on. Anyway, with my supper on my plate, I sat down, turned on the TV - only to learn that Erik Hazelhoff Roelfzema has passed away.
Suddenly, my supper didn’t taste all that good anymore.
The personification, almost, of the Dutch Resistance during the Second World War. This man, known as the ‘Soldier of Orange’ (after my Royal Family, of which he was a very dear friend), fought for everything we as The Netherlands stood for. Of course the Resistance was made up of so many people who were just as great as he was, just as important, just as heartwarming, but that does not make his achievements any less impressive or less important.
And as disrespectful as it may seem, his passing could not have come at a better time. I am happy for him, that he will not live to see our modern Dutch society wither and die. Everything that he as a Dutch freedom fighter held in high regard - freedom, tolerance, respect, understanding - is being threatened in this day and age, by right-wing anti-Muslim extremists like Geert Wilders. It must have made the Soldier of Orange so sad that the very forces he was combating over 60 years ago, are now gaining ground again in new forms, with fairly large support among the “Dutch” populace. Between quotation marks, as any one voting and supporting Wilders is not a true Dutchman at all. I am ashamed that this anti-Dutch movement, who defecate on our Constitution, gained 9 seats in parliament.
It’s goddamn treason.
The Soldier of Orange, immortalised due to the film Paul Verhoeven based on his life, lived to see the respectable age of 90. He passed away peacefully in his sleep, in Hawaii.
Gathered from the hilltops in bright summer colours
And the brown earth bleached white
At the edge of his gravestone
He’s gone…
But eternity knows him
lyrics by Don Mclean ……..?!
Comment by bouke — September 29, 2007 @ 9:10 pm
Yup :).
Comment by Administrator — September 29, 2007 @ 9:16 pm
You’re guilty of the same “treason” they are; Being intolerant of something inherently intolerant.
Smells like hypocrisy to me.
Comment by Andrew — October 1, 2007 @ 9:57 am
My biggest issue with Geert Wilders is that he cannot run for President of the United States ;-)
Comment by -kf — October 1, 2007 @ 5:56 pm
We have to be intolerant of intolerance, not when it is expressed as opinion, but when it tries to make its way into policy.
Wilders is saying stuff that he would have gone to jail for in the nineties.
Apart from comparing Muhammad to Hitler and the Qur’an to Mein Kampf, he and his fans are constantly accusing everyone of being “leftists”, even managing to accuse the media of having a leftist bias, which is something as far from the truth as I am from the Andromeda Nebula.
The goddamn Dutch press is mostly a sheeplike grey mass of lazy bums, that noone should dare to tape the label “critical” on.
One thing you learn though: the way fascists take over democratic societies, and how the sheep allow them to.
Comment by h3rman — October 2, 2007 @ 1:06 pm
h3rman, you say you have to be intolerant of intolerance. Are you by any chance familiar with Islam’s stance on homosexuality, and what the Qu’ran has to say about it? What about its stance on apostasy?
Is the murder of homosexuals and apostates a traditional Dutch value?
Comment by Andrew — October 2, 2007 @ 8:01 pm
Andrew,
The bible is just as bad when it comes to these issues. That’s because the koran an the bible are written 1700 and 1400 yrs ago respectively. The problem are not those books - the problems are the people still taking them literally.
And yes, extremist Christians exist too. Take a look at the US bible belt for instance.
Comment by Administrator — October 2, 2007 @ 8:05 pm
Thom,
oh, I agree.
Christians fundamentalists are every bit as bad as Muslim fundamentalists. I think that as a whole though, they are relatively few and far between, outside of America and other third world countries. Christianity has been reduced to a sort of benign tradition — and lets face it, if the whole anti-Evolution, anti-science, anti-Gay culture pops up (and expands) in your country, I very much doubt it’ll be coming from “Christians”.
I think it only makes sense to combat the fundamentalism, which dominates the majority of countries the majority of Muslim immigrants come from, before they (fundamentalists) become a powerful political bloc.
A remember reading a few years ago, that the Dutch were considering adding tests which would turn the fundamentalists away, nullfying the need for people like WIlders. Did that ever happen.
Comment by Andrew — October 3, 2007 @ 4:38 am
I think it only makes sense to combat the fundamentalism, which dominates the majority of countries the majority of Muslim immigrants come from, before they (fundamentalists) become a powerful political bloc.
Muslim immigrants where, in Holland?
Or elsewhere?
As for the Netherlands, that is incorrect.
Moroccons and Turks are the main group. Morocco and Turkey are definitely not dominated by fundamentalism. Au contraire, in Turkey it is, unlike in Holland, not allowed to wear a veil in a.o. universities. Those in Turkey that oppose the presently enforced secularism are generally traditionalists, not ‘fundamentalists’.
In Morocco, the cultural and religious picture is very diverse. Moroccon Berber culture is most definitely different from the neo-traditional wahabism of Hejazi that is the press usually represents as “Islam”, and arabistic islamists are a (vocal) minority.
How, then, to “combat” fundamentalism? I have no idea.
How do they combat Christian fundamentalism in the US?
I have not seen any evidence that Muslim fundamentalism poses a threat to anything other than corrupt, undemocratic regimes in countries with traditional Muslim majorities. In countries like (western-sponsored) Egypt, where any political opposition is banned, people are likely to turn to islam(ism) as a last resort, because no ruler would dare proclaim ‘islam’ itself as the enemy; unlike various -isms that political opponents might embrace.
Comment by h3rman — October 3, 2007 @ 7:17 am
&*% I forgot to check my last post.
“Moroccon Berber culture (many if not most Moroccans in Holland, including many of my neighbours here in Rotterdam, are Berber, not Arabised Moroccans) is most definitely different from the neo-traditional wahabism of Hejazi origin that the press usually represents as “Islam”, and arabistic islamists are a (vocal) minority. Actually, a wahabist would typically call their traditional form of islam contaminated, impure, full of pagan influences.”
Comment by h3rman — October 3, 2007 @ 7:22 am