Together for the Netherlands – NRC
You should always pay attention when an action group claims to be ‘Together for the Netherlands’. From: ‘Now for freedom’. Not last week yet? Whatever you think about the New Year’s Demonstration in Amsterdam on the Museumplein that was banned by the council of B and W: it is worthwhile to see how that action-right is being fished in. ‘Together for the Netherlands’ immediately strikes me as suspicious, because anyone who does not agree with that statement is immediately outside the Netherlands. It is by the way not necessary at all for a country to last the duration of a match, and after that it must also be over, otherwise you will fall into a dictatorship.
Another, rhetorical trick: ‘Together for the Netherlands’ wants to be the voice of that composite country, but why don’t millions of people come to the capital? Are those people too scared or too lazy, but desperately wanting a few hundred of a thousand others standing there taking them? Or is this a minority with a minority point of view? There’s nothing wrong with that, but then there will be little left of that ‘together’. Here a minority spreads itself so broadly that they are all formed, even older ones who do not want to be represented.
I am now reading the call in the Facebook group of the same name. In any case, they do not advocate Dutch there. ‘Halsema is confused’ is stated in the first sentence. Then it is stated in a punctuationless manner: „The favorite not chosen by Amsterdam [sic] Mayor F. Halsema […]”.
Any teacher would draw lines there.
But what really fascinates me is the game the Group is playing with the idea of minority and majority. Actually, the action group speaks names throughout the Netherlands, and interprets the majority point of view, but it is also clear that the Group thinks it is better informed than all those lazy bastards, did not show up and continues to be misled by MSM (the ‘mainstream media).
In that sense, the Group is a self-conscious minority, an elite of thinkers and prophets, who cannot wait for that sluggish, silent mass. They are forerunners, with an imaginary procession of followers. And this self-conscious minority is also ‘threatened’ by the Covid measures.
I propose a different definition of an ‘endangered minority’. NRCcorrespondent Bram Vermeulen said goodbye to Cape Town this weekend. He casually mentions: “Until 1936, you could even get a hunting license from the government in Pretoria to shoot San herders in the Cape, like game in their own country.”
My mouth fell open. Talked about.
Stephan Sanders writes a column here every Monday.
A version of this article also in NRC in the morning of January 3, 2022