Alex MazereeuwNovember 30, 2023, 4:54 PM
Nicolaas Veul and Tim den Besten have barely moved into their temporary home in the Laak district of The Hague for five minutes when their neighbors speak scornfully about ‘immigrants’. The presenters are in Laak to work as social workers for a hundred days, so that they can see with their own eyes what the problems and challenges are in this ‘forgotten neighborhood’. This is clear to their new neighbors: in the past you at least had contact with the neighbors, but now everyone was ‘on an island’. Thanks to the ‘immigrants’.
“Wow,” Veul responds a little later in reflection. But then again, what should he have said back to his new neighbors? “You can’t say that, can you?” They see him coming.
The timing of 100 days in the forgotten neighborhood, in which Veul and Den Besten re-enter a complex problem world after 100 days in the classroom and 100 days in your head, could not be better in that respect, now that the inciters are appearing from all kinds of corners to emphasize that the NPO has eagerly contributed to the gap between ‘people’ and ‘oat milk elite’. For example, in recent years the viewer has been bombarded with ‘all woke shit’ (according to PowNed broadcasting director Dominique Weesie in a recent interview with the AD).
These are corners that are usually so short that the drivers themselves must have had a pain in their necks, but they undoubtedly had fun with a scene in which Veul and Den Besten have to visibly restrain themselves in a consumer house in Laak when ‘the immigrants’ come again. being blamed for all the problems in the neighborhood. The perspective gap with the regulars was palpable, but was ultimately closed with some jokes about oat milk.
Nicolaas Veul and Tim den Besten in ‘100 days in the forgotten neighborhood’. Image VPRO
The presenters themselves also realized that there was no point in playing the ‘moral pope’ for a hundred days. After all, they were in Laak to provide a balanced picture of the challenges in the neighborhood. An image of single elderly Lucy, for example, who had been suffering from a persistent rash for weeks, but could no longer call the doctor herself. She still made plenty of jokes, but she mainly laughed ‘so as not to cry’.
The greatest strength of the series lies in small portraits like this, because it shows how drastic the consequences of years of austerity can be in a neighborhood like Laak where making ends meet is mainly a luxury and three food banks are now needed.
At the same time, the picture was not just pessimistic. See all the social workers in the neighborhood toiling to take away some of the everyday worries, and you see a Netherlands that is more than false contradictions, hot election rhetoric and clashes between ‘people’ and ‘woke’. You would almost think that not everything is always black and white, but yes, of course you have to want to see that.
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2023-11-30 15:54:34
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