{"id":1275,"date":"2011-09-07T20:30:36","date_gmt":"2011-09-07T20:30:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/community\/diaryofawimpycatholic\/?p=1275"},"modified":"2015-03-13T15:04:02","modified_gmt":"2015-03-13T21:04:02","slug":"dutch-game-show-you-are-the-weakest-refugee-goodbye","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/diaryofawimpycatholic\/2011\/09\/dutch-game-show-you-are-the-weakest-refugee-goodbye\/","title":{"rendered":"Dutch Game Show: “You Are the Weakest Refugee — Goodbye!”"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

If you\u2019re a refugee, preparing to be deported from the Netherlands, you can become a game-show star.<\/p>\n

The show, called \u201cWeg van Nederlands,\u201d<\/strong><\/a> which can translate either to \u201cAway from the Netherlands\u201d or \u201cCrazy from the Netherlands,\u201d offers panels of five soon-to-be deportees a competitive arena in which to prove how well they\u2019ve assimilated into Dutch society. According to Salon, contests involve \u201canswering questions about tulips and bikes, identifying corny local pop tunes and carving an outline of the country\u2019s map from a slice of Gouda cheese.\u201d <\/p>\n

No, winners don\u2019t get a residency visa. (Nor, for that matter, are losers booted offstage by means of a giant wooden shoe.) Instead, they receive a plastic suitcase filled with $4,000 Euro. But the real point is that all participants are given the chance to acquaint viewers with the details of their lives \u2014 where they came from, how long they\u2019ve been in the Netherlands, and what they\u2019ve managed to accomplish with their time in-country. For example, one contestant, who calls herself Blessing \u2014 real names are not used \u2014 fled Cameroon at the age of 15, and is about to earn a degree in aviation engineering. <\/p>\n

She believes these facts will come as a surprise to the show\u2019s audience. \u201cWe are not just eating, sleeping and waiting for the government to do things for us, we are hard-working people, we\u2019ve proven to them that we are integrated into the system and we are ready to contribute and to give back.\u201d <\/p>\n

The show \u2014 and, indeed, the dilemma of the contestants \u2014 results from the recent growth of nativism as a political force in Europe. In the 2010 elections, Geert Wilders\u2019 Partij voor Frijheid,<\/em> or Party for Freedom, won 24 seats in the Dutch parliament, making it the third-largest party in the house. In return for Wilders\u2019 support, conservative and Christian Democratic parties have agreed to tighten immigration. <\/p>\n

At the very least, the show is a nice bit a black humor, a few grim laughs. But it could also represent the beginning of a very shrewd PR strategy. Geert Wilders is nothing if not media-friendly. When the British Home Office denied him entry into the UK, on the grounds his extremism constituted a threat to the public good, Wilders defied the ban, flying into Heathrow with a camera crew in tow. The stunt won him widespread support. In 2009, the U.K,\u2019s Asylum and Immigration Tribunal overturned the ban. Not only had Wilders gotten his way, he\u2019d gotten it by becoming, briefly, an open-borders activist. <\/p>\n

Dueling with bureaucracy comes naturally to Wilders, since his strategy has always been essentially populist. In this, says U.K. Guardian columnist Ian Buruma,<\/strong><\/a> he shares a basic orietnation with other European nativist leaders, like Austria\u2019s Jorg Haider. \u201cThey share a feeling of being dispossessed by foreigners, of losing their sense of national, social, or religious belonging, writes Buruma. \u201cNorthern Europe\u2019s political elites, largely Social or Christian Democrats, have often been dismissive of such fears, and their paternalism and condescension may be why the backlash in those liberal countries has been particularly fierce.\u201d<\/p>\n

Game shows are inherently populist; in fact, they\u2019re downright pop. And in Europe, the ones with an element of drama or danger have been popular for quite a while \u2014 more the norm than Fear Factor ever was here. \u201cSurvivor,\u201d says Gavin McNett,<\/strong><\/a> began as a \u201cconsiderably child-proofed\u201d version of the Swedish show \u201cExpedition Robinson.\u201d MTV\u2019s \u201cThe Real World\u201d had an equivalent in the Dutch show \u201cBig Brother,\u201d in which \u201ca group of nine strangers, ranging in age from the teens to the early 40s, was locked into a suburban house for 100 days and given $85 a week for supplies, including food.\u201d It had all the glamour of the Donner Party. <\/p>\n

Hopefully, the humanization of asylum seekers \u2014 the process of introducing them as individuals rather than as the realization of a particular party\u2019s nightmare \u2014 will proceed smoothly through the idiot box, unaided by any bureaucratic elites. I\u2019d hate to see producers have to up the ante and re-package the show as \u201cWin A Date with Anders Breivik.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If you\u2019re a refugee, preparing to be deported from the Netherlands, you can become a game-show star. The show, called \u201cWeg van Nederlands,\u201d which can translate either to \u201cAway from the Netherlands\u201d or \u201cCrazy from the Netherlands,\u201d offers panels of five soon-to-be deportees a competitive arena in which to prove how well they\u2019ve assimilated into […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":192,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[65,106,183,188,225,243],"class_list":["post-1275","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-culture","tag-geert-wilders","tag-party-for-freedom","tag-politics","tag-television","tag-weg-van-nederlands"],"yoast_head":"\nDutch Game Show: "You Are the Weakest Refugee -- Goodbye!"<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"If you're a refugee, preparing to be deported from the Netherlands, you can become a game-show star. 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