COLUMN - It hangs my throat too. I want to be able to grasp the shoulder of a colleague, naturally embrace someone, shake hands warmly, lean against a confidant, grab a friend firmly. Fortunately, I can work at home, without financial consequences, but I miss the daily dealings with colleagues terribly. Especially the fact that you have to make a formal video test for just about everything bothers me — all the casualty, all naturalness is lost.

Meanwhile, I hate the imposed optimism of Rutte, his jubiling-enchanting 'Boys, we're doing well! ' Because we are not doing well at all: we are collectively in bad shape.

Thousands of people have died prematurely, tens of thousands have been seriously ill, sometimes with long-term consequences, we have all feared that we or our loved ones would become infected, and we have fully lived out our caregivers in a few months. Sometimes parasitic but wealthy companies like Booking have collected millions of government support, while artists, musicians, theatre-makers and actors could get the plague and small stages quietly fall over. Children and young people missed school for months and were rushed to get together distant education. Unemployment is rising alarmingly, and many businesses are going bankrupt.

Meanwhile, the degree of infection increases again, now also among young people, and Rutte puts his thumbs up again. He gives compliments to the people, as if it were scattered.

I don't want any candies from the cabinet, no lollipop as a kiss as comfort to our collective broken knee. I want a government that takes seriously the current increase in contamination rates, which recognises our concerns instead of waving away those with thumbs raised. 'You guys are doing great, keep going! '

I'm hungry for administrators who dare to say out loud that some companies — mink breeders, slaughterhouses, temporary employment agencies that cram migrants into tight enclosures and full buses — are making a mess of things, and Booking itself has to shut up. To those who, like Mayor Aboutaleb, say that some behaviour is so unwise that because of the danger with which they put others, they cannot be tolerated and set clear lines: keeping a distance or wearing a mask.

I crave talkshow items and newspaper articles that genuinely explore what we have lost and had to surrender over the past few months, and how we can continue under these circumstances, without immediately reflexively saying that we should 'therefore' abolish the measures.

As long as no one takes our pain, fear, worries and misery publicly seriously, the only ones who seem to offer solace are those who give it ostentatiously. From young people organizing illegal parties and holidaymakers visiting beaches and parks in herds, to people who demote the virus to hype or hoax and consider it an evil attempt by our overlords to curb the people.

Anyone who doesn't offer perspective drives people to the crazy, where rejecting a mouth mask is called 'freedom struggle' and hugging is framed as an act of resistance. Rutte's unfounded optimism pushes people into the arms of virus madness — and both deny the harsh reality: we are far from getting rid of that virus. '

Photocredits:
The picture above this column: Eric Yahnker ( website and on Tumblr) — 'Pandemic Lovers (after Magritte) ', 2020, Oil on canvas, 27.5 x 36 inches, 70 x 91 cm. One of the works of art in the exhibition 'Second smile' at gallery The Hole (New York). Due to the coronacrisis, the exhibition could only be viewed digitally and still to be seen here.

By Karin Spaink Posted on Thursday, August 6, 2020, 08:00 Theme Political Dossier #Coronacrisis

This column of Karin Spaink appeared earlier in Het Parool.