(”Are you voting left or right?”)
It’s often said that you shouldn’t give in to those who try to blackmail or threaten you with violence.
Appeasing Hitler led to millions of people dying in wars and concentration camps.
I’m not suggesting bowing & kowtowing to mad Mullahs will, in the end, turn Europe and the rest of the world into Satan’s Center Park (or a Disneyland for demons) but it’s still a very bad idea.
Giving in to the rabid demands of a relatively small number of Islamist groups will only lead to more insane demands – and maybe worse: It helps all kinds of xenophobic, racist political parties grab the kind of limelights & headlines that would have been out of their reach otherwise.
Anyway, here’s a bit of recent and quite shameful, Dutch history for you:
“Since artist-filmmaker Theo van Gogh was stabbed to death by a Muslim extremist in Amsterdam in 2004, there appears to be a new edginess in the Netherlands about art that could be provocative or offensive to certain groups in society. A major museum in The Hague recently removed from its walls photographs considered highly insulting to Muslims, claiming that a museum has a public function. A few weeks ago, a painting of bare-breasted women was removed from the main public area of the town hall of Huizen.”
Old history, yes.
Not as old as Mister Chamberlain and his umbrella, waving a meaningless treaty, after sucking up to the Führer but pretty old hat anyway.
Of course, as expressions go, ‘old hat’ ain’t exactly spring chicken soup material either – so, let’s try and replace that tired image with a more modern one….
‘The sagging tits of history’, perhaps? It has a certain ring to it.
Anyway, here are another few mummified sayings for you:
“The chickens have come home to roost”,
“What goes around, comes around”,
“As you sow, so shall you reap”, etcetera, etcetera.
So, it shouldn’t surprise anyone that Holland got (somewhat belatedly) severely punished for its cowardice, vis-à-vis those naked breasts.
What’s slightly weird, perhaps, is the way this happened. Not through more Islamist or ultra right wing madness and/or murderous mayhem but at the hands of Holland’s, mostly blameless Southern neighbours.
Here’s my translation of an article in one of our Dutch newspapers:
“Belgian publisher ‘The Free Press’ will have to remove many street posters, on which the breasts of Meike Schulte, the 2007 Dutch Playmate, are depicted. According to the ‘Advertisement Commission for Ethical Practices’, the posters are too offensive and show women as objects. Two women had issued a formal complaint.”
It’s not every day that you can say that Western feminists and bearded Islamists are united in their struggle against nakedness.
It is, on the other hand, yet another example that things in the West have gone more than a bit pear-shaped – or, if you must, tits up.
(Not EXACTLY a case of ‘Beards against breasts…’)
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment