ohPinie’s colleague Nadia Ezzeroili coined the word “class populism” in X last week. A surprising name for a phenomenon as Dutch as chocolate chips. She came up with it in response to the tasty riots surrounding the departure of columnist Eva Hoeke, who labelled her former colleagues nepotistic canal belt girls, while she herself looked after herself from the Zaan favelas.
When I think of class populism, I am most reminded of a ridiculous exchange between Frans Timmermans and Ronald Plasterk last February. Plasterk, who wears a stylish boomer hat in the Concertgebouw, boasted that he was born in a “flat with a porch,” where he “learned to speak The Hague.”
Timmermans replied that Plasterk only saw these workers from afar, but that he actually knew them himself! A disgraceful performance by two prosperous and highly educated people, over 60 years old, who wrongly suggest that it is more important who their parents were than who they are.
Class populism is self-deception, a widening of a small gap between the rich and the even richer, by idealizing and exaggerating a vulgarity that almost all Dutch people possess; otherwise it would not be ordinary. Meanwhile, the class populist does everything possible to leave this ordinaryness behind and, worse still, often thinks that all unusual wealth belongs to him. Because of that ordinary birth.
Normality is the best that can be achieved in a country that has twice as many recreational boat owners as poor people, but which nevertheless pretends to be common en masse. Sometimes it is out of spite… There is always a bigger boat – but mainly because the populist class feels that with privilege comes responsibility, self-reflection and other forms of maturity. And we don’t expect that.
The Netherlands is a country where the masses are rich and pampered, but they cling to grandpa’s flower bulb stories and the journalistic route of the past to justify their own selfishness. But when does that simplicity expire? I would say: as soon as the unusual presents itself.
I got my first scooter washing dishes and in a chicken slaughterhouse in Goor, worked 80 hours a week as a pizza maker after an unhappy time in Zuidas and managed to become a successful entrepreneur and media creator without any relevant training or network. And as icing on the cake, I have a column of Volkskrantlike a country boy from Twente!
But however true all this is, the crowd will always start talking about my last name, the silver spoons and an inheritance that, thankfully, thanks to my parents’ lively nature, I have yet to see anything of. Exhausting, but the advantage is that it will never occur to me to downplay my privilege or my happiness. I have long since accepted my unusual character.
Joris Luyendijk once took away one of my seven tick marks when I was a guest on his podcast. Luyendijk thought that growing up among others of your own kind was a prerequisite for having seven fingers, and in fact I didn’t do that; I was the only boy within a 20-kilometre radius. In fact, during the long bike ride to school I had to be careful not to be run off the road by a farmer’s son in an Opel Manta, who wanted to teach the boy “from the castle” a lesson.
As forgiving as this relegation was, I prefer to remain a proud seven-piece player. After all, there is nothing worse than denying one’s own fate. To the rising bourgeoisie I say: welcome to the elite, dear people! There is plenty of room and we love simplicity. Although we prefer to see it in the present than in the distant past.
About the Author
Sander Schimmelpenninck is a journalist, entrepreneur and columnist. of VolkskrantHe was previously editor-in-chief of AppointmentColumnists are free to express their opinions and do not have to adhere to journalistic rules of objectivity. Read de Volkskrant’s guidelines here.