Yesterday we posted a report by H. Numan on last weekend’s violent attacks against gay couples in two Dutch cities. One of the features of the piece was a photo of Alexander Pechtold, the leader of the D66 party, and his sidekick Wouter Koolmees walking hand-in-hand on a well-guarded street next to the parliament buildings in The Hague. The two progressive politicians had staged their moment for press photographers and videographers.
Today H. Numan sends two digitally modified satirical images based on news photos. Both are parodies on Mr. Pechtold’s photo-op.
The first shows Pechtold and Koolmees after walking hand-in-hand through a Muslim area.
H. Numan’s translation of the text in the second image:
| Pechtold: | Tonight we’ll walk hand-in-hand in a Muslim area. | |
| Koolmees: | Are you mad or something? | |
| Pechtold: | Just kidding! | |
| Bottom: | Hypocrites |
I never saw my parents (married since over 60 years) or anyone else in my family or in the neighbourhood walk hand-in-hand in public. The younger ones are too embarrassed, the older ones too mature for that. Seeing two adults in a suit behaving like toddlers is simply irritating. If you must provoke, bear the consequences.
Well, it would seem the B and I are toddlers then. We sometimes hold hands walking out to the car from shopping. I can’t get out much and to feel free enough to actually be walking outside on a beautiful day while not in too much pain, can make me inordinately happy…so we hold hands on the way back to the car, exuberant that I survived the trip. Especially if we’ve just wired up on caffeine.
Oh wait. I just noticed your British spellings. Maybe it’s a cultural thing after all.
yes, Dymphna. Brits don’ t have sex, they have hot water bottles.( W. Skakespeare, Much ado about nothing, act III.). My wife and I are toddlers too.
Well Herb, my beloved & I, both Brits, hold hands; I’m 69, and a lady’s age is her own business!
Could very well be. I recall my parents sometimes walking arm in arm, but never hand in hand. Cultures change, sometimes quicker than you think. Kissing three times a woman on the cheeks was something unheard of when I was a child. Now it seems to be the norm. People look surprised when I refuse to do that.
In Quebec, francophones do this, but only twice.
It’s not really the done thing among anglos, though.
This is the kind of amusing multiculturalism I’m all in favour of :-).
Re: the walking hand-in-hand thing. I don’t think I’d find it too odd to see, though it’s not all that common. But odd or not, culturally appropriate or not, it’s the kind of thing that shouldn’t be leading to a beating! Verbal reproach about how “We don’t do that here!” might be rude, but reasonably acceptable if not done in a threatening way. But threats and violence? People who do *that* should be walking hand-in-hand because they’re handcuffed together…
Dude in grey needs to see his tailor or his dietician. He looks like a stuffed sausage in that suit!
Maybe he was wearing a bulletproof vest…?
Dutch men hold hands in solidarity with beaten gay couple
In the above linked WaPo article, it mentions:
The beating in the eastern city of Arnhem was far from isolated in the Netherlands, long seen as one of the world’s most welcoming to same-sex couples. The city’s mayor conducted the world’s first gay marriages in 2001.
But it has touched a raw nerve in this nation whose tolerance on other fronts has eroded in recent years with the rise of anti-Islam and anti-immigrant populism and a crackdown on the country’s famed liberal drug policies.
…
Five suspects, all in their teens, were to be charged Thursday with causing serious bodily harm, prosecutors said, adding that they are still investigating the motive of the attack.
Only by deciphering their codespeak of, “the rise of anti-Islam and anti-immigrant populism”, can one ascertain that the assailants were 99% likely to be Muslim “immigrants” (i.e., economic tourists). Should there be any doubt, the additional qualifier of, “they are still investigating the motive of the attack”, is a dead giveaway that any suggestion of this being a terrorist attack will not be tolerated.
This has led me to create a new meme for Europe’s unrealistic hopes regarding Islamic assimilation:
The EU is pretending that if they invite the fox into the hen house, it suddenly will start laying eggs.
It is a paradigmatic example of the madness of political correctness.
The politically correct establishment wants pampers both gays and Muslims as ‘minorities’ that need protection from the supposed bigoted, racist and sexist ‘majority’. (Whether such a majority exists in the Netherlands, is open to question). And it blithely closes its eyes to the perfectly obivous fact that the greatest danger to gays comes not from old-fashioned Calvinist pastors or sexist middle-aged colonels, but from the supposedly oppressed Muslim migrants.
The PC crowd should make its choice between gay rights and promotion of Islam. Having both is like keeping rats and rattlesnakes in the same cage.