Alex Mazereeuw28 november 2023, 14:35
An unpleasant side effect of an election result is that “Listen now!” evangelists immediately appear from all sides. Ever since the Fortuyn period, the message from these types has been the same: once again, especially in the media, ‘the people’ have not been listened to properly, and yes, then you get a result like last Wednesday’s.
Yet the evangelists can be satisfied, because on Monday evening NPO 3 finally really listened. In the four-part documentary series Own People First (PowNed), Sahar Meradji searches for the people behind the extreme right-wing ideas. The AIVD intelligence service has been warning for years about an increasing threat from that corner, but who actually embodies that threat?
The series starts with a solemn statement, in which Meradji states that statements are made that ‘may be untrue, offensive or hurtful’, but that she does not necessarily intend to contradict that. ‘I think it’s more important to try to understand them and give them an honest picture.’
So listen to people who want to get rid of asylum seekers, shifting gender norms and Islamization, and especially want to protect ‘the Dutch’. What exactly the Dutch word is remained unclear, but given the many intermediate shots of the Zaanse Schans it will probably have something to do with that.
In the series, no moment is missed to show that people with the most extreme ideas are also just people with nice Xenos signs on the wall. Take Femke, for example, who is concerned about the possible arrival of a Nigerian neighbor, but had previously helped with the integration of an Eritrean neighboring family. Yes, okay, she was also one of the leaders of the extremist group Identitair Verzet, but this mother of six children probably didn’t mean it in such a bad way, right?
‘Our own people first’. Image PowNed
Our own people first therefore fits in with the broader trend of normalization that has recently started, in which critical questions, facts and context are somewhat too casually concealed under the broad carpet of ‘listening’ and ‘showing understanding’. And yes, you should not be surprised if the legitimization of extreme ideas ultimately results in an extreme exit poll.
The fact that the series makes it very easy to chat about impending ‘revolution’, ‘civil war’ or ‘race wars’ without too much context or contradiction, almost becomes dangerous, especially because the people who make those statements are presented here. as completely normal people. Meanwhile, Meradji emphasizes that we should not see reality ‘so black and white’, because her main characters say they mainly want to ‘do good’. At the same time we see images of protest groups at a demonstration against a reading afternoon by drag queens, with signs bearing slogans such as ‘Gender ideology is pedophilia’ and ‘Stop trans-terrorism’.
Listening is good and listening is important, but if listening threatens to result in legitimization, something is not going quite right.
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2023-11-28 13:35:27
#people #fits #broader #trend #normalizing #extreme #ideas
