Duo Kwast en Krietje has written a song about the spat between the leaders of the two liberal parties in Dutch parliament, Prime Minister Rutte and PVV leader Wilders, last September. Wilders told the Prime Minister back then to “behave himself” (doe eens normaal in Dutch) during a budget debate.
At the time Wilders’ behaviour was widely held to be inappropriate. Dutch parliamentarians are generally expected to be civil, behaviour that is monitored by the chair.
Carnival is a time in which traditional roles are reversed. Each Carnival association (each town has one, large cities often have more than one) elects its own ‘prince’ who pretends to have taken over from the actual government, and songs and floats often mocks those in power. The tone with which this happens tends to be very light-hearted though—carnival-goers tends to be fairly uncritical of authority in daily life, at least in my experience.
Kwast en Krietje are from the town of Wanroij in Noord-Brabant, near the Limburg border.
(Link: Omroep Brabant. Video: Youtube / Krietje)
The Freethinkers Room in the buildings of parliament has ceased to exist. The exhibition of endangered art was abandoned some time during the past months by government party VVD (People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy),