The Preemptive Dutch Hall of Shame of 2013: Ready Your Facepalms!

Hope and optimism are for self-hating pussies. You don’t need to be Nostradamus to predict that some things are not going to end well. Here are five people/groups who will be sure to embarrass the Netherlands on an international level over the course of this year. As a bonus, each entry will feature a Dutch word of relevance that will surely prove to be useful sometime in the future.

1) GEERT WILDERS: Never one to miss an opportunity to stir up controversy, Wilders has been pissing people off left and right ever since he assumed office in 2006. Having never read or understood the dictionary entry on ‘irony’, Wilders’ political party, the PVV (Partij voor de Vrijheid, lt.: ‘Party for Freedom) is hell-bent on banning the second largest religion in the world. Some of his former attacks on Islam include comparing the Quran to Mein Kampf and proposing that women who wear head scarves (which he affectionately refers to as ‘head rags’) should pay € 1,000 in additional taxes on a yearly basis. He is also notorious for traveling around the world and spewing his ill-formed clusterfuck of fear mongering ‘ideas’, as well as having absolutely no understanding of how said world actually works. Case in point: his proposal to end the Arab-Israeli conflict by simply changing the name of Jordan to ‘Palestine’ and moving all Palestinians there, because hey, they’re all Muslims, right? So it doesn’t matter where they live.

Dutch Word of Relevance: Steenkolenengels [lt.: ‘charcoal English’] Poor competence in the English language by a Dutch native, named after the crude pronunciation and grammar which Dutch port workers used when communicating with personnel of English coal ships in the early 20^th century.

2) BADR HARI: Hari has risen to fame for employing his tremendous talent and skill in, and lust for, fighting. On a slightly less well-known note, he is also a super heavyweight kick-boxer by profession, though he is mostly active outside of the ring and inside whatever night-club is scared enough to let him in (then again, his conduct inside the ring isn’t exactly jolly good sportsmanship either). Hari is one of the best kick-boxers in the Netherlands, which automatically makes him one of the best on the planet. Kick-boxers and Moroccans are two groups with a reputation for being violent degenerates, and Hari, living a worst-of-both-worlds lifestyle, has made it his life’s mission to firmly cement both prejudices into reality. There’s currently a total of nine criminal charges against ‘The Bad Boy’, eight of them being violent crimes (thus making him the second most prosecuted Dutch citizen named Hari by a small margin). It’ll be a matter of time before the Amsterdam police opens a special hot-line for Badr-related incidents, and they’ve probably already got a special ward in every hospital. So unless 2013 is the year when he finally calms the fuck down, we’ll see him further pissing on the legacy of Dutch professional fighting.

 Dutch Word of Relevance: Draaideurcrimineel [lt.: ‘revolving door criminal’] Derogatory term for repetitive delinquents, named so because they’re back in prison mere moments after being discharged.

3) CHRISTIAN CONSERVATIVES: I’ve touched this subject before (and not with a ten-foot pole), so I can be brief here. Whether it’s the denial of scientific truths proven beyond reasonable doubt, the  suppression of women’s rights, or proving that they failed sex ed in high school (because if you believe that a virgin can get pregnant, it only makes sense that you believe that raped women cannot), christian conservatives rarely make a good figure of themselves in politics. It’ll be only a matter of time before they make a fool out themselves again, and we’ll be there to mercilessly pounce on them.

Dutch Word of Relevance: Plaatsvervangende schaamte [lt.: ‘Substitute shame’] Experiencing profound and genuine shame merely by seeing another person commit him/herself to an embarrassing act.

Bonus Dutch Word of Relevance: Droeftoeter. [lt.: ‘gloomy-horn’] Insult of the face, indicating a certain combination of physical appearances and facial expressions which, paradoxically, incite both great empathy and an almost irresistible urge to slam said face into a wall. (See also: inteeltkop [lt.: ‘inbred-face’]).

4) THE DUTCH NATIONAL SOCCER TEAM: “De bal is rond” is one of the most overused catchphrases in Dutch sport, which is saying a lot. It literally means: “The ball is round”, because we love stating the obvious. This thought-terminating cliché is meant to do away with seemingly inexplicable changes in sport hierarchy, such as the embarrassing ass-whooping that the Dutch XI got at the European Tournament of 2012. For the first time in history, our national team exited the tournament before the knock-out phase with precisely 0 points to show for itself, losing its group matches to Denmark, Germany and Portugal in succession, all this despite being the runner-up in the World Tournament two years prior. Somewhat fortunately for the Dutch XI, 2013 only has qualification matches to offer, so any further embarrassments will hopefully fly below the radar.

Dutch Word of Relevance: GODVERDEKUT!!! [lt.: ‘God-cunting-damnit!’] Vulgar portmanteau, combining two of our favorite cusswords, probably Brabantian in origin (go figure). Must be yelled at the top of your lungs.

5) DUTCH YOUTH: Last year, the Netherlands made international head-lines with Project X: Haren. Starting rather innocently, thousands of people accepted an “invitation” for the sweet sixteen birthday partly of a Dutch girl who had forgotten to check the ‘private’ box in the FaceBook invite. Despite not being welcome, thousands of people marched into the city of Haren, Groningen (population: ± 19,000), ready to party despite/because of the absence of any party. Needless to say, the situation escalated quickly. Following the truism “It’s funny until someone gets hurt, then it’s hilarious”, hundreds if not thousands of youngsters blocked roads, set fire to whatever seemed inflammable, got into fights with riot control, and looted local supermarkets.

Dutch Word of Relevance: Chromosoomverzamelaar [lt.: ‘Chromosome collector’] An insult implying that the other person has a bad case of trisomy-21, or in more everyday terms: Down syndrome.

Dear Netherlands, I honestly hope that I will wake up on January 2nd 2014 (I haven’t experienced a January 1st since I discovered alcohol) and realize that I was wrong on every single issue here. But since I am immune to optimism, I will not fret much over this.