Normal

(also available in Dutch)

I remember lying in my bed. I was young, five or six years old. The sun came in through the windows, you could hear the gentle whisper of the wind in the giant poplars across the street. A balmy spring wind, it told you. Cool, with the scent of morning. I listen to the sounds of the world behind my window. The coo-ing of the doves on the roof. The peacock in the petting zoo. And far off, ships traveled the river Waal; the low thumping of their engines calm and reassuring. From behind the tree the town church rings its bells. It was a sunday, I knew. In the garden of our neighbors the appletrees blossomed. A cloud of light pink petals covered our gardens.

That is how I remember the sunday mornings of my childhood. Calm and beautiful, saturated in a slow light. Going into town with my father for a cup of coffee in 'De Gouden Leeuw', The Gold Lion. I got a lemonade and knibbled on the coffee cookie my father left for me. I looked outside: on the steps of the church Rieske greeted churchgoers loudly and exhuberantly. Rieske was a boy with Downs syndrome, or, like we called 'm, a Garenvelder. The Garenveld was a sprawling care facility for the mentally handicapped; a phenomenon in the wide surroundings. Their patients, the Garenvelders, decorated the streets. You'd usually see them walking around in small groups; one supervisor with three to five jovially drooling protegés. The 'better' cases, like Rieske, were allowed to wander the town unsupervised.

The towns inhabitants had welcomed the Garenvelders into their hearts; no criticism about them was accepted. People from outside, who dared to joke about 'retards' when seeing Garenvelders, were sternly told off. Our Garenvelders were people too, and even if they were somewhate eccentric in their behavior, and even if they looked kind of strange, they were very easy to live with. The towns inhabitants felt deeply responsible for the welfare and wellbeing of the Garenvelders. At the bakery all customers helped with reading the shoppinglist of a Garenvelder, or with counting the change, and there was always someone to explain to a Garenvelder in which slot of the mailbox a letter could best be posted. And sometimes, when the behavior of a Garenvelder threatened to become too eccentric, the towns inhabitants did not hesitate to intervene: 'Hey Rieske, behave yourself! You call that normal?'

That was less then 20 years ago. But who still knows what is normal? When I walk into my town now, the inevitable conclusion forces itself upon me: The Netherlands is gone and will never come back. The Garenveld, together with the petting zoo and the Garenvelders, disappeared from the town. "Cost-saving decentralisation" it is called. The freed land has been filled to the brim with cheap appartment blocks, predominantly occupied by allochtones; their satellite dishes aimed at a wavelenght they apparently can't find in their host nation. The new suburbs in the west of town, built when I was a kid and at the time fresh and sunny looking, have become depressing and grey. Houses lack upkeep, the paint on window frames flaking and gone, the vandalized busstops not being replaced anymore. Groups of youth hang out with their scooters and spit automaton-like on the ground; the shade of their caps hiding an angry and distrustful expression. Veiled in gray, bent women hurriedly walk by, as if they are running from something, or have to be in before curfew. Is that normal?

One of the bars in town is now managed by what the locals call the 'Turkish Maffia'. Autochtones are not welcome there, except to buy stolen goods or drugs. During the European Championship Football in 2004 a small incident got completely out of hand; an autochtone townsman got into an argument in the Turkish bar and had to flee into the Gouden Leeuw. His attackers were stopped at the door and turned away, only to return with reinforcements. Eventually the riot police had to be called in to clean out the towns centre. The Gouden Leeuw, the café where I used to drink coffee with my father, was treated to a molotov cocktail a couple of days later. Is that normal? And: none of these incidents ever made it to TV news or even the papers --- how normal is that? Because of these incidents the town closed up definitively; the last remains of the old spirit have disappeared. People have become closed, cautious, frightened.

There is a force active in the Netherlands, that lives on this fear; a force that savours tearing apart the textures of traditional society. It is the force of the progressives: it hates contentment, it hates the citizen that dares to be statisfied with his life, it hates the soap bubble of safety that the common man wishes for himself, it hates the tranquility that the status quo gives to the citizenry. This force has always bothered the citizen with so-called progressiveness. Women's Lib, gay marriage, long hairs, legal weed, etc., etc. Ofcourse I have nothing against feminism or gay marriages, but I distrust the motives of the progressivos that all of a sudden feel the urgent need to defend gays or women. These people are not *really* interested in the elevation of humanity, they are only interested in Schadenfreude. Time and again they have laughed at the stupid, frightened bourgois asshole who was forced to tear down yet another one of his sacrosanct views and make sense of something he did not know, did not understand. The desparate fear of the average citizen is the food and drink of the progressive. Self-satisfied he can conclude that he is capable of embracing a world view that is frightening to the average citizen.

Look, you bourgois asshole! See our world, and look at your small, petty bourgois asshole existence. Our world is greater and deeper then yours; our world knows suffering, our world knows hunger and death and violence. Our world knows grand ideals. Our world understands criminals and pedophiles, our world understands terrorists, our world understands everything. That is why we are superior to you and to prove it, we will force our world upon you and we will feed on your fear, and we will laugh as you go down screaming. Because how do you *dare* think you can be content with yourself? Everytime you think you have neared us, we will widen the chasm further. Everything we can find, we will smear in your face; all your certainties we will undermine, everything that makes you feel safe, we will contaminate. Your arch enemies we will welcome cheeringly and house them under your noses. Everything we will take away and we will make sure there is nowhere left for you to turn. If you protest, we will insult and belittle you. If you resist, we will sentence you. We will manipulate you and lie to you untill you have no thought other then the fiery wish to be absolved of your guilt and affectionately seal your own definitive downfall. We will transform your world into a hell; that serves a higher purpose, although we don't have a clue what that purpose actually is.

The progressives have done their destructive work well; with islam as a crowbar they have broken the spirit of the Netherlands for good and are tearing down the last of the traditional structures. Housing, labour, education, manners; nothing is what it used to be. Nothing is natural or obvious anymore, everything has become guilt-ridden and corroded. Who knows what is normal anymore? Who knows anymore what behavior may be expected, or even demanded, from fellow citizens? The average citizen, who time after time tried his or her hardest to adapt, is completely lost. All that he knew has been taken away, all the ways he could arm himself have become powerless. We are made to walk as if on eggs through our own society, yelled at by the propagandists of the progressive congregation, who tell us it is all our own fault.

But there is nothing to reproach. From the way the Garenvelders were included in the town community a lesson can be learned: Citizens are accomodating, there is a lot they can get used to. The Dutch were heartily willing to also get used to their new compatriots. I don't see what more a populations should be prepared to do; in our willingness to adapt we have gone much further then reasonably could be expected from any group of people. Oh, how intensely I hope that this realisation one day sets in, that in the head of my fellow citizens the light rekindles! Surely I can't be the only one that aches for the Netherlands of my memories? How I hope that the (Danish) cartoon brouhaha, that has promptly been used by the PC gestapo to question the freedom of the press, finally makes clear to the Dutch that they've been manoeuvered into a position that is not normal; a position they must not accept. Because you should not enter into a discussion with retards that think that their Allah is more important then your sense of humor; such retards should simply be admonished: 'Hey muslims, behave yourselves! You call that normal?'

(translation provided by kleinverzet.blogspot.com)