The Queue starts with Q
By happenstance one was found in a queue exiting a health club which was about to close for the day. The queue was about 30 deep and one was positioned around the 22nd.
Suddenly, someone determined to jump the queue through came along but I refused point blank that he pass by me, stating the fact that we were not all idiots destined to spend the whole day there and that each person had to take his turn in a civilised society.
For which I got a tirade of unspeakable abuse that was completely unwarranted, anyway, I did not budge one bit.
Unbeknownst to me, this was causing quite a lot of discomfort for some further along in the queue and I was advised to let the queue-jumper through since I had made my point.
I retorted and upbraided the speaker for condoning such anti-social attitudes and solicited support to condemn outright the queue-jumper's behaviour, thereby sending him back to the tail of the queue; to which a few nodded but none acted.
The culprit finally paid up after me and then went on to threaten me on the street for my effrontery, I deigned to call the police, but after a while the culprit walked away.
Gaining Understanding
For weeks I marvelled at the experience and the fact that no one felt it right to properly speak up against a wrong-doing and take action to enforce civility and social manners.
One relation of this experience then gave insight; in this society, it might be fine for people to speak up about an anti-social attitude but it is not customary to do so. When one does, just the mention of it should suffice, but no action should be taken to enforce the good. If the offender takes offence, you withdraw your challenge and let the misdemeanour through.
However, if you do still intend to enforce the good, you are labelled the trouble-maker for speaking up for civilised behaviour and then trying to enforce civilised behaviour.
This society believes in freedoms, freewill without let or hindrance and the freedom to exercise your rights which might impact on others, but they can bear the situation as long as they suffer with others.
Another area where this is exemplified is on the very narrow Amsterdam
In that setting, to hoot with the intention of hurrying up the driver who might be acting oblivious of others is considered uncivilised.
Then again, shoppers fall into all sorts of categories. In my case, I do all my research and get all my information before I leave home, armed with the details of what I want. If the shop allows self-service, I pick up the required goods and go straight to the counter.
Only that at the counter, I have someone completely opposite to me; they know nothing of what they want and use the tiller as their research, knowledge and detailing agent for their requirements.
Nothing wrong with that, but in the queue are "ready-to-pay" customers who have made up their minds and are already fed-up of the scenery. Just then, the tiller leaves the till to devote their whole time to the whims of a customer who might eventually not even purchase anything.
Dare I complain? Everyone seems to be happy with the fact that they are not being served.
This informs the sociology of the next point I am about to make.
What is the real defence of free speech?
Early last week a well known but unpopular and utterly virulent commentator and film maker was murdered on a main street in Amsterdam
Apparently, this man was killed by a mixed-race minority with extremist Islamic values. One of the stabbings which left the knife in place held a message decipherable as Arabic and a host of other expressions threatening the lives of other similarly expressive and very controversial personalities, whilst declaring an Islamic Jihad on the Netherlands.
I must get one thing straight right here - I DO NOT CONDONE VIOLENCE - against the person, against property, against a people or an ideology.
However, actions like these do not occur for that sake of a whim, there are genealogies, histories, circumstances and situations that bear witness to the manifestations that make front-page news. Unfortunately, that is lost in the sensationalism of the tabloidic approach to the coverage of news.
Pim Fortuyn
When Pim Fortuyn was murdered by an animal rights activist in the quest for protecting the vulnerable, many did not agree with some of his views, but the making of Pim Fortuyn was the unconscionable pulpit messages of a certain Imam in his home town of Rotterdam that condemned unequivocally the liberal Dutch culture, gays and a host of Dutch values.
Pim Fortuyn reacted and developed his message on the simple theme that evokes the right of a host to expect and demand courtesy of his guests; being able to lord it in his house without hindrance.
The Imam questioned that common sense view of host and guest where the Dutch were the hosts and the immigrants were the guests – that was enough to inflame any host. Pim Fortuyn embodied those host values.
However, to broaden his appeal the policies he adopted about Europe and his at times egotistical manner did not play down well with many who reported his views, but tacitly, the general populace warmed to those views.
Nine days before the elections, Pim Fortuyn was gunned down and a pall fell on the country, voters went out and gave a sympathy vote to a leaderless party with no ideology other than 'we are the hosts' and plunged the country into political turmoil that did not get resolved for over a year.
Another van Gogh
Now, Mr Theo van Gogh was cremated yesterday, but not until the whole saga behind his death had spun off some confusing thoughts about what really happened.
Dutch Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende said "It is unacceptable if expressing your opinion would be the cause of this brutal murder". "On a day like this we are reminded of the murder of Fortuyn. We cannot resign ourselves to such a climate" he added.
Then another colleague says "He was a controversial figure and a champion of free speech"
This is my beef; Mr van Gogh who happens to be a relative of Vincent van Gogh, the famous painter was a very expressive and controversial figure who rubbed people up the very wrong way. He had already been sued by the Jewish community and was to appear in court soon for some of his intemperate views.
I do support the inalienable right to right speech and freedom of expression, but to use it as an instrument of reckless controversial propaganda that divides, alienates, castigates, berates, denigrates and condemns people and their views is gross irresponsibility and incites responses which might include violence.
Why is it that in a world of free speech and freedom of expression we have laws of libel, sedition, slander, defamation and probable incitation to violence?
All those are expressions of the rights that include free speech, but sanctions are imposed where that right is abused.
Mr Theo van Gogh might have unashamedly exercised his right to free speech, but he was no champion of the responsible use of the freedom of expression, rather he used the tool to unsympathetically attack minorities and their cultures with the view to de-culturalising them for wholesale assimilation in the Dutch society.
The fact is, if people belong to many cultures they represent all those cultures, portraying the good and bad of that whole setting.
The death of Mr van Gogh is both a result of the complacence of a society that allows people to offend with impunity on the basis of free speech and the hardening of society which is polarised on the cultural divide of value systems of the Dutch and their immigrant population.
Both ends of the spectrum are bad for this society and until people condemn rather than condone the psyche that allows people to ignore civility in the pursuit of self-interest, 2 political deaths in 2 years would represent the tip of a continental iceberg.
Meanwhile for now, one wonders who will rest in peace, the murdered or the Dutch - till another controversial firebrand snuffs away thier lives on the sacrificial altar of free speech. Even I am also caught on the horns of this dilemma.
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