The American Muslim comedian trio going by the stage name "Allah Made Me Funny" is currently giving away free tickets in Holland to everyone named "Henk and Ingrid" who wants to see their show.
So what's the catch?
No catch really, just poking fun at Geert Wilders who recently hit a home run with one of his typical divisive remarks as an attempt to drive bigotry down the infield. In his remark, he used the names "Henk & Ingrid" to describe the average Dutchman/woman and "Fatima & Ali" as the average Muslim immigrant, basically saying that he wants to see to it that the native Dutch are taken care of for a change instead of Muslim immigrants all the time.
As outlandish as Mr Wilders often sounds and as much as I'd prefer to dismiss him as Ahmadinejad and Kaddafi morphed into one and nothing but a clownish hater that makes me laugh with some of the insane things he says, he really does bring up sensitive issues at times that do call for further examination and objective scrutiny. Too bad his populist ideas are mostly ill-intended and always aim to alienate and marginalize specific segments of the population.
There is no doubt in my mind that Mr Wilders does address some legitimate concerns and fears which exist among the native Dutch population, and not without reason, but to actually come out and say that Muslims and immigrants get favorable treatment is completely bogus. I'm thinking he probably doesn't read the same newspapers that I read.
Funny thing is, what Mr Wilders fails to understand is that the Dutch system, as it is right now and has been for many years, is already set up for the native Dutch to receive special treatment in so many ways. For one, Dutch authorities require that everyone in The Netherlands carry an official form of ID on them at all times while in public, but - as much as it pains me to say so because my love for Holland and the Dutch people runs deep - what really does (and probably will continue to) promote segregation in Dutch society, is the fact that everyone living in The Netherlands is required to register at City Hall with their most current place of residence, along with all kinds of background information. This is done not only with the intent to have every legal citizen accounted for, but it also sets up the government to generate revenue in order to maintain the system and keep it running. That in itself may not be a problem, but the fact that for all sorts of official business (i.e. travel documents, birth & death certificates, drivers-, business-, residence- and marriage licenses, etc.), you're also required to obtain a transcript generated from this registration (for a nominal fee), which also indicates your birthplace and nationality, and more than likely is a major contributor towards preferential treatment and segregation, which will remain ingrained in society for many years to come if it stays unchallenged.
And in case you have more than one citizenship, this transcript as well as the Dutch passport will indicate all your nationalities, it doesn't matter if you were actually born in Holland, neither does it matter if you were born in for example Morocco or Israel, with a simple piece of paper everyone is always going to be "ethnically branded" so to speak, and either treated favorably or unfavorably, often depending on one's outward appearance and background, but also contributes sometimes to questioning one's level of patriotism and loyalty.
Unfortunately there isn't all that much balanced and objective material out there on Geert Wilders and his effect on Dutch society, but if you understand German or have a translating tool handy, you ought to check out journalist Falk Madeja's blog. He does a fantastic job reporting regular updates on Wilders with an objective view.
If you ask me, Geert Wilders should not be simply discarded as Holland's enfant terrible who is good at giving his country and Muslims a bad name. He is in fact the direct result of what's wrong with the Dutch system...and that includes factoring in the bad economy, as well as letting radical Islam get out of hand to the extent that it did in recent years.
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