ANGELIQUE Via UTRECHT

Meeting Angelique at the train station in Bunnik 30 years later

It was a typical Dutch gray day. No rain, no sun. The train had just left the Utrecht station on its way to Bunnik. I was now only minutes away from seeing Angelique. The last time I had seen her was 25 years ago when she had visited me in San Francisco.

The last time I was in the Netherlands, there still was the Dutch guilder and Dutch freedom. Now returning so many years later, the monetary currency was in euros and the cultural currency was in lockdowns, face masks and QR codes. Dutch sovereignty and freedom had taken a beating, but this time from within.

When the train stopped in Bunnik, my compartment was the farthest from the platform. When I stepped out, I saw a silhouette in the distance waving at me. It was Angelique. She was dressed all in black, with a long raincoat that looked like a cape and with a wide brimmed black hat. For a moment I felt I was in one of those Zorroesque Sandeman commercials I grew up on as a boy in the Netherlands. It was mysterious, like my distant long-term friendship with Angelique. I walked towards her and with each closing step things became clearer as I saw her long, blonde hair becoming more noticeable. Angelique stood tall. She was Dutch.

The Mystery of Sandeman Port

I had a small suitcase rolling behind me and just as I released it to hug her, she quickly fist-bumped me with her black leather glove and said in Dutch: “Helaas dit is alles wat we kunnen doen” -- “Unfortunately this is all we can do.”

I was stunned by the cold greeting but hid my disbelief with a stoic facial expression as I followed Angelique to her car. As she kept small-talking, I kept thinking: After all these years and past experiences together, she greets me with a first-bump?

Once we were inside her car, I wondered if Angelique really believed all the corona hysteria? If so, why wasn’t she wearing a mask? And why had she invited me to stay the night at her place? It made no sense.

What I hadn’t told Angelique was that I had reservations at a local hotel. And now her cold fist-bump had given me cold feet. I was thinking it would be better to stay at a hotel and have my own space.

So after Angelique started driving I told her about my hotel reservation, but she flinched and said she had already arranged everything for me to spend the night. She asked me to visit her home before making a decision. I agreed, thinking maybe I had been too quick to judge.

Once inside her home, she showed me the room she had prepared for me; it belonged to her son who had moved out for college. Everything was nicely organized, and I felt obliged to stay. Angelique called the hotel and canceled my reservation.

We then ate lunch in her kitchen and to my delight Angelique had bought me some North Sea herring. After lunch we took a long walk together through the Dutch meadows which was located right behind her home. I felt blessed being back on Dutch soil again.

When we returned, she offered me a beer and potato chips, my favorite combination . . . and then the topic of vaccinations came up.

At some point I told Angelique about the Dutch official at Schiphol Airport asking me if I had been vaccinated. I myself found this surprising because I believed that the Dutch were far more sober than the Americans about the corona policies and politics. Americans seemed to hypnotized by everything the news media told them. I myself had experienced too many masked people running across the street in fear of other pedestrians approaching them, panicked. It had reminded me of something from a Rod Serling Twilight Zone episode.

Ironically it was the Dutch political opposition to these government lockdowns and QR codes that had inspired me to return to Holland again. From what I was reading in the Dutch media, there was a strong philosophical movement against the corona policies of the Dutch government. I was impressed with Thierry Baudet and Gideon van Meijeren from the FVD party. They challenged not only the government "science," but also the government's edicts nullifying the people's freedom in the name of "public health." Most impressively, they opposed the government mandates on moral and constitutional grounds.

In the United States no politician was able to articulate it like them. The best thing some American politicians would say was: "Well, I strongly recommend getting vaccinated, but it should be a choice." But this was not an argument that would win back people's freedoms. Also, many so-called American "constitutional scholars" were either silent or were advocating for people to be punished for not complying with all the newly created draconian laws. The whole world seemed up-side-down.

Suddenly it seemed that the democratically elected governments had become rulers.

Now the government had all the rights and the people only had occasional privileges. The peoples' "freedoms" were now all based on fluctuating government statistics that the government alone tallied, defined, computated and controlled. At least this is how I saw it.

Thierry Baudet, Forum voor Democratie (FVD)

I hadn't shared any of my thoughts with Angelique, but as I kept drinking my beer, I did tell her my surprise that only a few weeks before my arrival in the Netherlands I didn’t have to show a corona test result, then suddenly I had. Then one day the US was considered a safe country, then the next day the EU said it wasn’t. Then one day US citizens arriving in the Netherlands were subject to quarantine, then the next day they weren’t, and so on.

But Angelique didn’t seemed very amused or interested in what I was saying. I tried stoking her curiosity by mentioning that many corona virus policies had been wrong and ridiculous, such as the wet/dry sand rule. I explained that when all these lockdowns occurred in California, people were not allowed to sit in the dry sand of the beach (and were arrested). But they were allowed to walk in the wet sand along the beach. And all this was considered “science.”

But none of these ironies seemed to interest Angelique. She just looked at me with a blank stare, and then asked me why I wasn’t vaccinated. When I explained that I believed natural immunity was better than the vaccines, she reluctantly agreed but said that vaccinated people wouldn’t become seriously ill if they became infected with the corona virus. I responded to her by saying that the majority of people hospitalized were vaccinated. Angelique then asked me if I was an "anti-vaxxer" and I told her I wasn't against vaccines, but I was concerned about the covid vaccine for I didn't believe it was proven to be effective and safe. Angelique then looked away, paused, and said she had to go upstairs for a moment.

When she returned a few minutes later, she told me in a very controlled calm manner that she was extremely angry and that I wouldn't be able to spend the night in her home. When I asked her if it was because of my views on the corona mandates, she confirmed it was. When I told Angelique I was open to listening to what she had to say, she declined to explain her thought process. She had made her decision and it seemed irreversible.

It was only two hours earlier that she had greeted me with a fist-bump and now she was about to boot-bump me out of her house.

A few minutes later Angelique was driving me to the Postillion Hotel, and calling them again to see if she could “uncancel” my reservation while she had cancelled me into an "unperson."

Becoming an "Unperson" for corona "wrongthink"

We exchanged no words during the ride to the hotel. I just kept looking out the windshield and wondered at what point in her life Angelique had lost her humanity.

But then again, the Angelique I remembered never had a clear conviction of her own and always avoided controversy, and she was always greatly concerned about how others perceived her. Once I tried having a casual political discussion with her and she said we couldn't really discuss politics because she said we weren't educated in this field. I found that an odd answer at the time, and still do. Why weren't we allowed to participate in our own thoughts? Why do we have to be credentialed?

Growing up in the Netherlands I had just been a mediocre student while Angelique attended the elite Atheneum high school and thereafter attended other universities in the Netherlands. She had a "prestigious" education and her social circle was comprised of high standing academics.

Angelique seemed to believe, based on her academic standing or position, I guess, that no reason or rational discussion on her part was required. She seemed to think that she had the moral high-ground by virtue of her academic credentials. The thought had occurred to me that if Angelique was so much better educated than me, and if she were a genuinely good person, why wouldn't she help me find the truth? Why didn't she explain my errors? Why didn't she show me the light?

Angelique and I both came from modest backgrounds, but Angelique had always been encouraged by her mother to climb into higher social circles. Her marriage and friendships were mostly based on these criteria. This type of class consciousness is common in Dutch society.

A lot of it has to do with the Dutch caste system that is still inherent in its culture. In the Netherlands, the Dutch government seems to exist primarily for the royal family and the elite class. The existence and justification of the monarchy is based on pedigree supremacy and superior social standing. The biggest cheerleaders for the Dutch royals are the Dutch media, politicians, and high society.

Ironically, the Dutch speak a lot about equality, but its culture is still rooted in a caste system. The Dutch monarchy and the upper political-media class lecture the working class about "diversity" and "equality" while at the same time praise newly arrived immigrants as being more virtues somehow. This is how the Dutch upper class seems to maintain its power; it's a modern form of "divide and conquer."

King Willem-Alexander lecturing the working class about equality and diversity

I first met Angelique in 1986 at a cafe across the railroad station in Leeuwarden, Friesland. I had arrived there with my date, Jacqueline, and just as we were sitting down my eyes met the eyes of an elegant, young man who I immediately recognized. His name was Ronald van Blanken and we both attended the LDS high school (Lagere Detail Handel School) in Leeuwarden. He was dating Angelique. Several hous later we were all drinking coffee in Angelique’s home in Franeker, with her mother, Rita, offering Ronald and I small cigars while asking questions about my father whose apartment was only a football field away.

Several weeks later, after my return to the US, Angelique wrote me a letter stating that my father and her mother had met each other and fallen in love. They were together for almost 20 years until my father died in 2005.

About my father: He was captured as a teenage boy during the Second World War and forced to work in a German weapons' factory, but he escaped and walked all the way back to Franeker. His best friend was Wijtse Vlietstra. Both men, of working class backgrounds, became very successful by hard work and were notorious in Franeker. My father became an international art dealer and Wijtse the owner of a large window-washing company.

When we reached the hotel, I took my suitcase out of the trunk and walked towards the lobby door. Angelique was standing by the car, seemingly offended that I didn't say goodbye to her, even though she had just booted me from her house. After I reached the reception desk, I looked back and saw Angelique still sitting in her car. Moments later when I looked back again, she was gone. And so was our friendship.