Insane asylum seeking

Last week I went to a meeting about language coaches for refugees in Leiden, the town I live in. I heard that in the month of August between 70 and 80 refugees received their residence permit and were assigned a home here. This is the same amount that was granted a new home in the first 6 months of 2014.

This rise in numbers is partially because there are more people arriving and partially because the asylum process has been streamlined so that more requests can be evaluated in a smaller amount of time. Each person that receives a residence permit must do a so called “inburgerings cursus” which boils down to a course that helps someone become a Dutch citizen. This involves a language course as well as lessons about our culture and customs. At the end of this course, every person must take (and pass) an exam.

Each new resident must attend language classes once a week and is assigned a language coach to practice with for about an hour a week on top of that. A language coach is always a volunteer that does this beside their regular job. It is therefore most common for a language coach to be assigned just one person. You can imagine that if in one month there are more than seventy new people starting their citizenship education, there is a great need for more language coaches.

During the meeting I went to last week there were about 15 new candidates. Their motives varied from wanting to do something practical to compensate for their very theoretical study at the university, to expanding their CV with something different. Some had already worked in schools and wished to find a new challenge in the education of foreigners. Others were just lonely and wished to get back in touch with society and remember what it felt like to be needed (this last part is my own interpretation).

I was quite surprised that besides me there was only one other person that said they were sick of watching the news and feeling helpless. I don’t say this to humblebrag, I promise. I have a genuine feeling of urgency to do something but with no clue about where to start. I for one am sick of feeling so powerless. Also it is just starting to feel wrong to voice my opinion about something that I only know about through the colored stories of the media. It’s time to see it for myself and to know that no matter what side I choose I will be able to look myself in the eye at the end of it.

But I must admit I do feel torn. Just the other day I started deleting “friends” from Facebook that have voiced opinions that I find discriminatory or unbalanced, to say the least. I am sure there are still some rotten apples in my list as not everyone voices their opinions on the web. One of the people I deleted is a girl I used to babysit. She is in her twenties now and has recently gotten married. She posted a video of refugees showing someone around the camp they were staying in, pleading for better conditions. She commented something along the lines of: “What did you expect, a five star hotel? If you don’t like it, go back home, you ungrateful a**holes!”. The fact that these people’s home may very well be reduced to rubble, went unnoticed to her.

I deleted her immediately, especially after I noticed she had re-posted it from a page that sympathizes with our very own, well known and homegrown right hand populist; Geert Wilders. It did stick with me for a while though… Especially since I did kind of agree with her… These worked up men were pointing at everything that was supposedly wrong with their conditions and showing the camera how muddy it was and how few toilets there were but in reality, it wasn’t all that bad… Sure, the weather was shitty, but who can you blame for that? It was a temporary solution for an overwhelming situation that was absolutely better than nothing. Nobody was starving neither from hunger nor cold. I only dared admit this to myself after I had deleted her from my account.

[The video in question, which I had embedded in this post on right this spot is no longer online, but since I believe we’ve all seen and heard about these type of situations I decided not to replace it. | 29-08-2016]

These men… All men… So so agitated. And for what? I hate mobs like this. They scare me. Men stirring each other up in this aimless frenzy. Running around, pumping adrenaline through their veins and some crazy idea that they will get their way if they just push hard enough. They seek out confrontation hoping it will help their plight, if only they manage to show the world something shocking. It sickens me and I find it very difficult to find sympathy for these people. I know they do not represent the majority, but it is inevitable that some problems will arise with these new citizens. And what if they’re not satisfied with what we have to offer? How much are we willing to give in to accommodate them?

Anyhow, I am now on the list of volunteers of the local refugeework organisation. I will be attending some classes of my own before I get assigned a new resident of my town, most probably from Syria and help him or her in the next step of their long journey to become a European citizen. I can’t wait to find out more and report about my experiences both to myself as to you.

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Programming my sexual preference

Last Friday, while I was at the gym with one of my best friends we saw Louis Theroux pass by on one of the screens hanging around. It was the episode about pedophiles. We both agreed that all though these men were a danger to society, it must be horrible to be them.

Some of them come across as very regular (sane) men with deviant tendencies that makes it impossible for them to live among us. They are often ashamed of this themselves. Some (most?) have never acted on the fantasies they have and accept they are a danger to society. They hate themselves for feeling what they feel, very much like the Belgian prisoner I wrote about a while back on my other blog.

We philosofied about how these sexual preferences come to be. I said I couldn’t imagine that being sexually attracted to children was a feeling someone was born with, but must be caused by some trauma in their childhood, some sort of messed up imprint on their souls. My friend, -let’s call her Z,- disagreed and said she thought it was innate, just as homosexuality is.

She asked me if I thought homosexuality could be cured through therapy and I was quick to shake my head. No, we agreed, homosexuality is not a disease. Then, playing the devil’s advocates, we wondered if having a history of abuse or molestation is more common among homosexuals and if so, if sexual predators are more attracted to these children because they were different from the start or if they changed because of this experience.

There have been many studies on the relation between homosexuality and child abuse and there does seem to be a correlation there. Politically incorrect as it may be, I then asked to what extent homosexuality could indeed be seen as nature or if there may be cases in which nurture played a role instead. I said I thought it was possible, Z disagreed.

She asked: Do you think therapy could turn me into a lesbian?

She reminded me she had had bad experiences with men in the past and no one would blame her for saying “no more dudes for me”. I think people can be persuaded into many things and most of all love. I told her I thought it was possible, only that this would not be called therapy, but brainwashing…

She asked: What’s the difference?

Holy crap… What IS the difference? All therapy is based on a theory and always aimed at influencing the mind. We like to think there is a place called “sanity” and therapy brings you back to this place if for some reason or other you have lost touched with it. But try defining sanity! Is sanity the same as normalcy? If so, I know there are people who’s definition of sanity I absolutely do not accept.

Normal is defined by what is “the norm”. Normal is what the majority thinks, feels and does. Normal is average.

Sane behavior is what we as a society find acceptable or desirable. Sane behavior is controlled behavior. If you decide to jump in the water fountain and take your clothes off, this is considered to be unwanted behavior. It does not mean you are insane though.

It may just mean you are rebellious and want to go against the main stream and the society you are expected to be a part of.

I’m sure some of you might think I’m delusional myself after reading the above. Others may just see it as untactical or ignorant. Maybe my ideas are just incomplete or maybe I’ve been totally misinformed. I blame it on my brainwashing cycle.

How have you been programmed to think?