Betty Neels Left On Time

One of my favorite fairy-tale (er… romance) authors is Betty Neels. Her stories are almost all alike. British woman, usually plain-looking, garners interest of (usually Dutch) rich, handsome, wonderful man. No s-e-x, just nice fluff. When I’m depressed or bored or flustered and need of calming, I pick one off my shelf and get lost in a world that is, for lack of a better term, gentle.

Her images of the Netherlands, especially, have made me believe that Friesland and Holland and the rest are just idyllic, peaceful places.

Too bad that’s a fairy tale, too.

Ever since the murder of Theo Van Gogh, I’ve noticed lots of stories about the issues of Islamists in the Netherlands. (Note that I don’t say Muslims. Islamists are, in this little blog, the crazy creeps who kill their daughters for being raped, who want to subject all non-believers to sharia, and who, in the end, are the big bad wolf.)

Now, the peaceful people of the Netherlands are not acting with cool rational. There have been riots when an ethnic police officer killed a native Dutchman. There are protests against a Muslim-only hospital which would boast gender-segregation and all the trappings of Islam.

This all reminds me of the incident of Bernard Goetz – the subway vigilante – who shot four young black men because he was afraid of them. Did he have reason to fear? Possibly. If he hadn’t been living in fear for years, he probably wouldn’t have been carrying a gun. Situations had forced a sensible, rational man to become paranoid and violent. The same thing is happening in the land of tulips and windmills.

Betty Neels died in 2001. She didn’t see all of this happening. I’m glad.

hat tip comments 32/33 in tim blair

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