Today's word of the day is another unusual one. I'll just tell you the news and what's going on. It's an odd one out from the list so far, because it's slightly less about the linguistic quality of the Dutch language and a lot more about our politics and society. Our prime minister Jan-Peter "I wonder how many ways I can screw my people over" Balkenende has decided that the socialistic care-state that Holland, thank god, is, is out of date. He claims that citizens are now much more able to take care of their own business. "Our country is in need of a new ordening of society" he claimed today. He wants to get rid of the word werkeloos, which means unemployed. Instead, he wants to introduce "tussen twee banen in", which means in between jobs. Yes, this may sound old to you Americans and conjure up a sort of 'so what ?'-response, but here it's a big deal. The unemployment - and I will not stop using this word no matter how badly prime minister Harry Potter wants it to magically vanish - rate has been rising and rising, our economy is still going down the drain no matter what has been claimed (I should know, I work in the financial world, folks) and when he says that people without jobs should somehow arrange their own schooling so they can re-enter the job market on their own as soon as possible, I really get the feeling he thinks he's running the United States of Holland, instead of the lovely country that we call The Netherlands.
The spin-doctoring: he wants to fiscally stimulate people to do this, so in other words, the version he tries to bring across is that he wants everyone to work and to help our country. Sure, that's the 'nice' version. The other interpretation of what he's saying is that he wants the government to consider people who are without jobs as being fully to blame for that themselves, and say 'tough luck, now get some god damn schooling, get your thumb out of your ass and git ta work damnit !'. Now, perhaps it's the case for some, but you can't just take that attitude to all of them. It's simply not true. I've known too many people who got royally screwed over and are trying everything they can just to keep the tip of their nose above water, and this country is already not doing too damn much to help them out. The agencies that are supposed to help these people are majorly bureaucratic AND get subjected to all kinds of conflicting regulations that make it impossible for them, in most cases, to even properly pay unemployment fees to the registered unemployed or handle their cases, let alone handle their complaints, or pay advances where necessary. Again, I should know because my roommate and my brother both work actively in two of the major organisations that do this and I hear their debates on just how royally the unemployed get fucked up the ass due to the chaos in which this country is run.
So, here's my response to prime minister head-up-his-ass: if it is even slightly up to me, your 'new' term will be a completely useless label and the unemployed will remain the unemployed, and get your priorities straight, first make sure they might actually have justabout enough money for a roof over their heads and some food. Because a lot of people don't even have that anymore.
The least I can do is proclaim 'tussen twee banen in' as the Word of the Day and pray the term dies the useless death it should.
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