Yesterday evening, coming back from Copenhagen, I board the plane and a moment later I am joined by a Dutch couple in the two seats next to mine. When I saw them, I thought they were the usual alternative type: mid 40s, lots of beautiful tattoos and body art, piercings, etc. They seemed friendly, smiled and offered me some candy. And then they started talking to me. They asked if I had liked Scandinavia, etc. In turn, they showed me the photos they had taken during their visit to Christiania (the commune near Copenhagen) and we made small talk. I asked them the name of their tattoo artist and explained I would like to have more ink done soon but my guy is always abroad and I am looking for another artist with better schedules, etc. And then the dreaded questions come in: where am I from? How long do I live in The Netherlands? Do I even like to live in The Netherlands? I respond that of course I do, this is home, blah blah blah, etc. Which in honesty, is really the way I feel. And then they drop the bomb on me: they hate The Netherlands because… it’s so full of Muslims and undesirable foreigners! And what the country needs is… more people like me! Because obviously, I am not like those! Because I appreciate freedom, etc. I was terrified! I had been seated next to a local branch of the neo nazi network! And to make matters worse, they thought they could speak freely in my presence! Imagine being trapped in a sardines can, 1000 meters from the ground, unable to speak my mind and having to endure their terrifying rhetoric!
Still, hours later, I cannot wrap my mind around their behavior. What exactly led them to believe I could ever be “on their side”? What is the thought process behind this behavior?! I am just shocked. In fairness, if my seat mates had started making out or engaging in overtly sexual behavior I would have been less uncomfortable and probably not even scared or fearing for my own safety. As it is, I just spent 90 minutes in the company of the kind of people I vehemently oppose the most. To say it was surreal does not even begin to cover it.
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