STRANGER THAN FICTION (22 july 2004)
At the moment, The Netherlands seems to be chairman of the European Community. In the newspaper we see Dutch Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende. When beholding his picture one tends to think it's a good thing he is not green -- or he could hardly be told apart from a frog.
Anyway, according to this newspaper, the Prime Minister said that people should not be afraid of Islam when deciding on Turkey's admission as member of the European Community.
I wonder if Islam is the greatest problem. When I was in Romania, it struck me how much corruption there was in that country. But I was assured that Romanian corruption was nothing compared to what Turkey has to offer in this field.
I could imagine that would form a greater problem than Islam.
I read that the Dutch customs caught a Chinese who wanted to leave the country with more than seven hundred thousand euros. He seems to have offered money to the customs officers to let him go.
Would that mean that offering money sometimes does help? Then what are the customs for?
More from today's newspaper: a murderer in the Dutch town of Zwolle seems to have asked the judge if he and his girlfriend could take a day off from prison to clear out their house. The judge was so kind (read stupid) to allow this.
They did indeed clear out ... and have not returned since.
A dangerous psychpath was released for a few days on probation. When his time was up, he was supposed to report back -- which he didn't.
So you'd expect they wouldn't just let him go the next time.
Nope! He was released again, did not return ... and abducted a young girl and raped her.
Radovan Karadzic is wanted for genocide and other crimes against humanity.
Do the Serbs hand him over? No madam, they hold demonstrations to show the world how much they admire him and will protect him.
Is there also good news?
I grew up shortly after the war. Understandably, Germans were considered a despicable sort of people ( click).
Today the newspaper reveals that a team from German television has come to Amsterdam to find out how the Dutch think about the Germans.
They appear not to have found even one person with a negative opinion of the Jerries.
One last question: which is stranger, reality or fiction?
