For those who read my Letter to the Belgian ambassador on March 7th, or the Response from Belgian Ambassador on March 18th, the saga continues.
Christoph D’Haese, Mayor of Aalst, the Belgian city that endured some criticism for blatantly Anti-semitic imagery at its annual carnival, is taking a stand.
He was never very apologetic to begin with, but now he’s revealed himself to be downright indignant. It seems that all of the unexpected condemnation at the hands of less ignorant, intellectually evolved human beings was just too much to bear.
For those who missed the news, Mayor Cristoph, in a CNN interview announced that UNESCO, who condemned Aalst’s offensive Anti-semitic displays, can essentially (and I’m paraphrasing) suck it! His exact words, which we will get to shortly, expose underlying feelings of being treated unfairly. Awww. Were little Christoph’s feelings hurt? You’ll have to speak up. I simply cannot hear anything above the deafening irony.
But as a mayor, you must admire him for his backbone. After all, who are UNESCO to judge he and his citizens? For the record, it stands for: United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization. Well, shit! You lost him at “Educational”!
So yeah, he’s fed up of taking crap from people with rational thoughts, knowledge of history, common sense, beating hearts, etc. So D’Haese reacted as any reasonable child would: He threw the game board over, and poutingly stated “I don’t want to play anymore!”.
I mean, we really have to applaud this guy’s commitment. He’s the type that when placed before a mirror just shakes his head and says, “Nope. That’s not me.”. We have to admire a guy that sticks to his position long after his odiousness has been exposed. It’s actually far more entertaining than probably the carnival itself.
To recap, this year’s carnival included a float that featured caricatures of Orthodox Jews right out of a nazi propaganda poster, with sinister faces, big noses, rats on their shoulders, standing on bags of money. But he says it was all just good old-fashioned humour. Well, it was old-fashioned for sure. It was neither original nor clever. Simply a perpetuation of a ridiculous stereotype whose origins represent arguably the most shamefully sinister period in human history. But hey, good genocide humour is so hard to come by these days.
D’haese’s statement to CNN declared that “Citizens of Aalst are done with the preposterous insults. Therefore we take the most honorable way out and we no longer seek UNESCO recognition for Aalst Carnival.”
I’m sorry… What??
Did this guy just use the word “honorable”? Why, I believe he did. Holy shit on a Belgian waffle! What I wouldn’t have given to be a part of THAT press conference so I could say in my best Spanish accent a la Princess Bride, “Ehhh, you keep using that word… I do not think it means what you think it means.”
Then again, Belgium has such a history of deep-rooted racist perspectives, that its citizens wouldn’t know offensive if it hit their favorite slave in the face. Here’s a world-famous picture of an exhibit at the World’s Fair in 1958, when the African Republic of Congo was still a Belgian colony. They took great pride in this live display of black families in their “natural habitat” for the amusement of white Europeans in what has come to be known as the last “Human zoo”. And yes, the year was 1958, not 1658, or even 1758. Thirteen years after the end of World War II.
The country also has a colonial history of blackface. Once, Belgium’s Africa Museum even threw a party where all of the guests wore blackface and colonial-style clothing. Now, you might be saying, “Well, they probably didn’t realize it was racist at the time.” That was in August. Less than 5 months ago.
So I guess it’s just another example of “They know not what they do”. Because clearly the mayor and citizens of Aalst, a city with a long and storied history that has given the world nothing but some textiles, hops for beer, and their annual Carnival of fools, are satisfied to remain blissfully clueless.
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