I’ve been warning for years now … the Dutch right-wing Islamophobes … and what the Republicans and Trump supporters will bring on … one could argue, under the Obama presidency latent racism steadily drifted and floated upward throughout US “new culture” and society. Social media brought it faster and stronger … the blessings of Internet.
Nevertheless, the Bush years and the War on Terror became the accelerator, the catalyst of fear, anxiety and believers in fake news and conspiracies. I have thrown two son-in-laws to be out of my house because the younger generation is quite susceptible. It must be because of a void in historical knowledge, plain wisdom or just stupidity combined with a different focus on life and the meaning of a social being.
Dutch race hate row engulfs presenter Sylvana Simons | BBC News |
The images of a black Dutch TV presenter’s face super-imposed on the hanged bodies of victims of a lynching are too nauseating to look at. And yet a video featuring the mocked-up pictures has been widely circulated online here.
Sylvana Simons has for years been a familiar presence on Dutch TV and radio, and the attack on her has highlighted a debate bubbling inside the Netherlands far removed from its reputation as a liberal tolerant nation.
A former presenter on talent show Dancing with the Stars, she recently joined the political party “Denk” (Think) and is running in the next election.
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Sylvana enters Dutch politics (Credit: VARA)But it was her criticism of the traditional festive character known as Black Pete that unleashed a backlash of death-threats and misogynistic, racist abuse, which quickly escalated from unpleasant to outright shocking.
The video that circulated online also featured a song entitled “Oh Sylvana” including the lines “why don’t you pack your bags… why don’t you go and emigrate”. But the song-writers insist it was a party anthem about a Russian woman and nothing to do with Sylvana Simons.
The self-proclaimed creator of the video has now handed himself in to police, but the sentiment among a small but significant section of society appears to be – if you question our traditions then you are fair game.
When a football show host suggested that Sylvana was “running around proud as a monkey”, a colleague suggested he had meant to use the phrase “proud as a peacock”. But he was adamant: “No, she doesn’t look like a peacock.” Then a famous radio presenter played gorilla grunts on air and said “be quiet, Sylvana”.
○ Sylvana Simons gets protection due to specific death treats
○ Sylvana Simons should get out of politics, says Wilders
Opinion at another blog about the ugliest form of Dutch racism …
A reminder that we are sharing some vary common problems across nations. The fake news phenomenon is one that has definitely taken a life of its own. There have been some efforts here in the US to try improve media literacy, but those are really in their beginning stages. This site has a very partial list of sites that are little more than clickbait. I have personal friends who on the surface are highly educated (and they have the fancy alphabet after their names to prove it) who have fallen for clickbait sites on social media. I usually consider it wise to keep bookmarked several fact checking websites as something of a tonic. There is another site up that has some advice for how to recognize when a news source is suspect. The author for a while had a spreadsheet up with tons of sites listed, many of which I was familiar. That is down at the moment, but will probably be revised and made more user friendly at some point in the future. Personally, I prefer to see a story sourced in multiple news outlets, and read as time permits from various perspectives rather than rely on one outlet. I have my preferred news sites for reading, as I suspect most political junkies do. Mine may or may not overlap with others here, but variety of perspectives from generally trusted sources (i.e., they generally get their facts right, and are on top of it when they get something wrong) is an absolute necessity. Right now my worry is our own collective media literacy lags way behind technological developments and way behind the increased saturation of information that has followed course.
○ Australian MP Emma Husar
Just as social media has been used in the various ground-up revolutions seeking an end to politically repressive regimes, it is highly useful to the racists and hate mongers to organize and cheaply spread their horrendous message to all corners of a nation. The internet bears all traffic indifferently.
Fake (internet) news is the final nail in the coffin of the Enlightenment idea that “marketplace of ideas” will ensure that the “truth will out”. The “marketplace of ideas” (in the sense of proving factual accuracy) has not the slightest hope of prevailing in the current digital environment of mass pollution—it’s an unstoppable “fraud on the market”.
What’s the next Western European election and country to fall to rightwing reaction? France?
Interesting personal anecdote about Dutch youth being susceptible to the lies of the reactionary right. The young are pretty much as addicted to the new digital apparatus as it is possible to be—until humanity actually does morph into the Borg, haha. And all accomplished in less than a decade! The world’s plutocrats never dreamed it would be this easy….
‘ For we’re like sheep.’
wow! thanks for posting
My spouse was in a long, painful post-election series of FB exchanges with a cousin whom she is close to but who holds radically opposed political views from ourselves. (The cousin is addicted to right-wing shock jocks and websites.) When I asked my spouse about 10 days ago if she and her cousin has gotten to the point of agreeing to disagree, the response was, “I’m not sure I’ll ever hear from her again.”
The cousin is someone who is clearly very uncomfortable around people of color and who jumps to negative conclusions about them. Basically, she’s just fearful of people of color. My spouse, on the other hand, has for more than 20 years worked in a setting where people of color are a majority, or close to, and has had many non-white friends. She’s terribly distressed by the way the cousin is just reflexively fearful and distrustful of non-whites. The two cousins have been at loggerheads before, but always managed to come back to expressing a mutual love and a commitment to avoiding political arguments. As is obvious, that commitment keeps breaking down. I don’t know, maybe this time they’ve well and truly managed to destroy their relationship. I guess time will tell.
When you stated that you had thrown your daughters’ future husbands out of your house, what first came to mind was, “What did his daughters think about that?”. I sincerely hope you have not ruined your relationships with them.
People who know me for all those years here @BooMan are aware I’ve worked tirelessly for nearly a decade to support my grown-up daughter. An abusive husband (and lawyer) from a Dutch Reformed background (paternalistic) filed for divorce after giving birth to their first son and through fear for his anger fell into PPD. He took the 14 months old and threw her out of their home.
After 9/11 and the rise of racism and Islamophobia in Dutch politics and society, family and friends were split across a new divide. I thought I knew my spouse of 30 years … apparently not. I cannot tolerate racists remarks, pro-Wilders one-liners and just very stupid line of thought in a place I try to call home.
Yes, that makes me angry. It has become very personal.
I’ve only been looking at this blog for about 8 or 9 months. I didn’t realize you were writing from The Netherlands, and I’m very sorry to hear about how politics and racism has affected your family.
Thx .. appreciated! 🙂