Youp van ’t Hek thinks the Netherlands is turning into a nasty little rightwing country and we shouldn’t stand for it.

So now Mauro has turned into Jossef and is living in Alkmaar. The boy is as Dutch as the town’s cheese market. The only reason he has to go is because he’s black, at least that’s how the sainted Cruijff would have put it.
The little man has lived in the Netherlands for eight years. How old is he? All of nine. The law says he should piss off. And as long as the PVV reigns the land, the law is the law. There are no exceptions to prove the rule. No one is eager to relent.
Ruthless
When did the Netherlands become so humourless and ruthless? Not a politician near the town of Alkmaar is prepared to risk his neck over the Jossef case.
Consequently, a nine year-old boy who has spent eight of his nine years here will de deported to his native country, Eritrea in this case. He has no business in a country whose only business will be to put him and his mother behind bars and torture them. Is this likely to happen? Yes.
The journalists of the Alkmaarsche Courant took pity on Jossef and decided to give him their full support. They dedicated a full page and a half to the case. It unleashed an immediate discussion on newspapers and their role. The usual number of tv intellectuals were trotted out to join the cackling chorus on whether a newspaper should take sides.
Pathetic
After the mudslinging match at Amsterdam Arena and the position of the Telegraaf in this sorry saga I think the question of papers occasionally taking sides is largely academic anyway but, actually yes, I think, occasionally, they must. Especially when it’s a matter of principle. A child from your town, not ten years old, is about to be deported because the law says so.
Where is the willingness to change this law? What happened that we are no longer flexible enough to even consider changing it? Why have we turned into such pathetic, fear-ridden citizens? How can we stand by and watch this little boy be put on a plane to join the starving millions in Africa?
Petrified Pensioners Party
Last week I read that an MP of petrified white pensioners party PVV is worried about the number of Christmas trees at Schiphol airport. The poor dear was afraid that the airport authorities had caved in to a threat from disgruntled Muslims!
Meanwhile, Schiphol was aglow with the lights of hundreds of Christmas trees. And when Sinterklaas goes home the number will be tripled. It turns out that the said MP had not seen off the usual quota of failed asylum seekers lately and that consequently he hadn’t been to the airport much.
While this was going on, a fellow petrified white pensioners party MP was busy attacking foreign minister Uri Rosenthal for being a Jew who doesn’t do enough to support the state of Israel. I read the piece several times. I still couldn’t believe it. It’s 2011 and someone has the gall to come up with this….
Nasty
This is what we have come to: frightened politicians who are too cowardly to back Jossef, an MP who gets excited about Christmas trees, and another MP who tells off a minister because he is Jewish. And not Jossef’s fate is loosening tongues but the question of whether or not the Alkmaarsche Courant is allowed to be partial!
In my opinion the Alkmaarsche Courant should not only choose sides, it has a positive duty to do so. We all have. We shouldn’t want these things to happen. We shouldn’t want foreign aid to be slashed to almost nothing or a minister held to account because of his Jewish background.
We shouldn’t want a defenceless child to be kicked out of the country. And if this is what we do want, perhaps we should take it easy on the Christmas trees for a while, not because we fear the Muslims but because we have turned into a nasty little rightwing country.
Youp van ‘t Hek is one of the Netherlands’ best loved comedians and writers