Just as I read in horror that Filip Dewinter will be presenting his book in the street cafe where I’ve lived for more than a quarter century, the paper calls and asks if I’d like to write something about the new YouTube series about Conner Rousseau. My sighs are interpreted as approval and the paper resumes. Another day at the balls before it even arrives.
The last summer it consists of four eight-minute episodes. Something like this used to be called an episode, but then everyone had ADD, which is why the generic of a series will soon be considered the first episode. The Conner Rousseau episode The last summer he talks about his latest camp as an observer of Joetz, the youth association of socialist mutual societies, and I hold my breath.
I’m not talking about Rousseau. And at the same time again.
Like every Fleming.
The first image of this four-part episode shows perfectly why I don’t have it for him. We see a quick montage of a cheering Rousseau, followed by a overview shot starting with a television on which someone threw up his party night – or was an episode of FC the champions? – and ends with the ragged, half-naked president of a political party sniffing the Marcskeswalm in bed. “You won’t film me like that,” he tells the man who has been ordered to film him like that.
At the same time I like Rousseau because he knows his stuff. Because he knows that propaganda like this works. Indeed, it emerges well from this tetralogy. In fact, I believe that his commitment is sincere.
I just hate that something like that The last summer consists. Not because I don’t share the principle of youth associationism or the principles of socialism, but because the two are related to each other and the result is passed off as healthy television when it comes to simple advertising. Not even for Vooruit, let alone for socialism, but for Rousseau. Personal cult. Idolatry. Come on, and he.
And then I think back to my time in the youth movement, where after the passage of Bart De Wevers The smartest person more and more lions began adorning shirt sleeves, a practice that first began to proliferate among monitors, like an STI at a leadership weekend, and then spread among children. They won’t tame it, they sang innocently, and there is no photo of all that period without a Flemish flag that defaces the scene in the background or – as everything is done in those circles – proudly in the foreground.
And that’s why I handed over my shirt. Because children should be kept as far away from politics as possible. So that pleasure should have no color.
The last summer can be viewed on YouTube.
