On Thursday evening, the Dutch television channel VPRO aired Weg Van Nederland, or Out Of The Netherlands, a game show in which five rejected asylum seekers compete to take home Euro 4,000 once they are deported.
Cheap entertainment? Shockingly inappropriate? Merely cruel? That is far from what VPRO intended. Instead, Out Of The Netherlands is a harsh critique of the Dutch PM Rutte's conservative government aggressive and often inhumane immigration policy masterminded by its coalition party leader Geert Wilders. As the show's website reads: "An asylum seeker's life is like a game show. Before you can even realize it, you're out."
The five asylum seekers on the first show were all young and well-educated. Among them also one who was an aeronautical engineer from Cameroon, while another, a student of Slavic languages will be returned to Chechnya. Gulistan, an 18-year-old Kurd whose family fled Armenia 11 years ago, won the Dutch trivia quiz by correctly answering questions like, "Who was the first king of the Netherlands?" and artistically carving a map of the Netherlands out of a slab of cheese.
VPRO programming and editor-in-chief Frank Wiering who initially was not enthusiastic when production house Skyhigh pitched the quiz said: "My first reaction was: terrible idea, we're not doing that. Then I looked into the issue more deeply and decided: we have to do this! Weg van Nederland focuses attention on the fact that, these days, many asylum seekers who are being expelled have children who have lived in the Netherlands for eight years or more. They have had a good education, speak perfect Dutch and have only seen their country of birth on television. We believe it's time to stop and think about this."
EU-Digest
