We’re on a road to nowhere

After the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001, a right-wing populist politician, Pim Fortuyn, gained popularity because traditional politicians had failed to address the growing unease of the Dutch about Muslim immigrants. Fortuyn promoted a messianic personality cult. He called himself the Son of the People of the Netherlands. About the leader the Netherlands needed, Fortuyn wrote in his book De Verweesde Samenleving (The Orphaned Society), ‘A leader of stature is Father and Mother in one. He dictates the law and watches over the cohesion in the herd. The skilful leader is the Biblical Good Shepherd.’ Fortuyn anticipated the coming of the Great Leader of the Netherlands as he wrote, ‘Towards a Father and a Mother, on the way to the Promised Land,’ and, ‘Let us prepare for his arrival so that we can receive him.’ He posed himself as a Messiah. That was a reason why I didn’t like him. Perhaps you can see the irony of that.

Fortuyn called Islam a backward religion and claimed Western civilisation was superior. Christians and Many Muslims hold on to a medieval worldview. Still, Islam opposes interest charges on money and debts, and I believed that interest was one of the grave threats to civilisation, so my views of Islam were more favourable. The secondary role of women in Islam is not something worth copying, but we could learn something from Islam nonetheless. Even more so, out-of-control technology might end human civilisation, either by some apocalyptic event or by altering humans so humans cease to exist. You can’t blame Islam for that. It is Western civilisation that has brought us to the apocalypse. And if you must choose between doom and women wearing headscarves and backward practices like honour killings, the choice is not that difficult. We are on a road to nowhere,

We’re on a road to nowhere
Come on inside
Taking that ride to nowhere
We’ll take that ride
I’m feeling okay this morning
And you know
We’re on the road to paradise
Here we go, here we go

Talking Heads, Road To Nowhere

Ironically, the song says that the road leads to paradise. The West can take pride in that. Previous generations have worked very hard to get here. Everywhere Fortuyn went, there was chaos and conflict. He seemed to enjoy it. Perhaps establishment politicians didn’t like him because they feared he would undermine society by causing division and conflict. The Netherlands had a consensus-building tradition called the Polder model for over a century.

False Messiah

Fortuyn saw himself as the coming Great Leader of the Netherlands, but history took an unexpected turn. On 6 May 2002, a left-wing loner assassinated him. It was an event that shocked the Netherlands. ‘The bullet came from the left,’ Fortuyn’s supporters claimed. That might seem so at first glance, but exactly 911 days later, an Islamic fanatic murdered the Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh. That is noteworthy because Fortuyn’s sudden popularity was closely linked to 9/11, while Theo van Gogh had just finished 06/05, a motion picture about the assassination of Fortuyn. Van Gogh was killed on 2 November 2004 (11/2 in American notation), while 112 is the European emergency services telephone number. That points to the hand of God. The Bible has warned us of false messiahs. I hope you can see the irony of that as well.

Fortuyn aspired to become Prime Minister. Instead, Jan-Peter Balkenende got that job. He looked like an apprentice from the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Harry Potter became his nickname. And that was not a coincidence, as the Netherlands was in for a massive bout of magic. Captain Decker, a song by Boudewijn de Groot, has the following lines,

Captain Decker, Flying Dutchman,
climbs above the timeless
space machine you’re living in,
starts to turn you inside out,
he needs you to know
what he was really all about

Captain Decker, Boudewijn de Groot

The timeless space machine could refer to the place where God is living. A Dutchman may need God to know what he is about. The animation picture Kroamschudd’n in Mariaparochie of Herman Finkers dwells on the possibility of Christ being born in Twente. My birthplace is Eibergen, just over the border in Achterhoek. In the 1980s, there were plans to create an independent province of Twente that included Eibergen and Nijverdal. Finkers came from Almelo, like Ilse DeLange. DeLange’s fourth studio album, The Great Escape, plays a central role in God’s messages in pop music.

World peace

In December 2008, there were many strange incidents. One of them was that the candy vending machine delivered a message at my work. Often, I went there to fetch a Twix bar. This time, the machine malfunctioned and failed to produce a Twix. It repeatedly misfired. That had never happened before, and to my knowledge, no one else had trouble with the machine that day. After trying three different options, it finally worked after choosing option 22, a Nuts bar. That was nuts, even more so because 22 = 11 + 11.

It was about to get even nuttier. To me, 11:11 represents a strange coincidence that has two parts. The next day, I bought a bag of potato crisps from the same machine. This time, it worked fine, but after opening the bag, I found a small piece of paper with the crisps. It was a temporary tattoo with the following Chinese text:

世界和平

A colleague knew a Chinese man who translated it for me. The characters stand for world peace. No one else did get a temporary tattoo with a bag of crisps. It was a production glitch. The paper had slipped into the bag, perhaps from another product line, and this bag happened to end up in my hands. Remarkably, my colleague Ronald Oorlog was absent that day. He had fallen ill. His last name, Oorlog, is the Dutch word for war. Now, that is a funny coincidence. Another colleague, Rene H, joked about the text, saying, ‘World peace is what Miss World would say she wanted after winning the prize.’

Linking it to Sneek

A nursing home in Sneek is named Nij Nazareth (New Nazareth). It might indicate that the Second Coming comes from this particular town, which was, by some miraculous accident, also my town of residence. To rule out it was a regular occurrence that would make the coincidence less impressive, I googled for buildings with similar names in other places, but nothing came up. Perhaps I was making too much of this coincidence. In the song Het Sneker Café, the unrivalled poet of the Dutch language, Drs. P, mocks the making of outlandish connections to a pub in Sneek,

There once was a girl of seventeen years of age,
the only child of a wine merchant,
who sought shelter in the Jura,
because she was lost on a trip.
She found an unoccupied house at the edge of the forest,
and felt from the outset that this is not right.
She took a glance at the window and what appeared:
Inside was the skeleton of a salesman in toiletries,
who had been missing for years
and had once stayed with his uncle and aunt in Bordeaux when he was young.
And there, they had almost exactly the same type of lampshades
as a small pub in Sneek.

Drs. P, Sneker café

That is scary indeed. The song reveals a few more equally sinister connections and concludes,

You see now how the pub again and again
affects the social interaction.
How here and there, and yes, even overseas
one stumbles upon this pub from Sneek.
It’s inexplicable and almost occult,
something that fills the world with trepidation.

Drs. P, Sneker café

Pope end times prophecy

In early 2013, an Australian poster on the message board godlikeproductions.com claimed he had been seeing 112 coming up in the media unusually often. He started a thread named 112 Keeps Coming Up In The Media. Other posters joined in with their selective bias, and they found a lot of 112 popping up in the media. It is the European Emergency Services telephone number, while I had lived in room 112 on that fateful dormitory, so the thread attracted my attention. The discussion remained active for several weeks. During that time, Pope Benedict XVI suddenly resigned on 11 February 2013, a highly unusual move. He was the first pope to step down in almost 600 years.

That became excellent material for this thread. 11 February is also the 112 European Day to celebrate the emergency services telephone number. 11 February is 11/2 in European notation, and 112 is the European emergency services telephone number, so that is why. You must admit that the European bureaucrats have found a most peculiar occasion to throw a party. In any case, the Pope’s resignation came unexpectedly, like a bolt from the blue. And lightning struck the Vatican a few hours after the Pope had resigned. It made several people wonder, so the thread came back alive.

Pope Benedict XVI’s resignation on 112 European Day is also noteworthy because of the 112th Pope End Times Prophecy attributed to Saint Malachy. The prophecy alleges 112 popes would reign, starting with Celestine II, until the End of Times. Benedict XVI was the 111th Pope. His resignation prepared for the arrival of the 112th Pope, who supposedly would be the last Pope before the End of Times and Jesus’ return. It made me curious, so I investigated the matter and discovered Saint Malachy had died on 2 November (11/2 American notation) 1148 and added that to the thread. My psychosis occurred in 2008, and if its message is correct, that prophecy is remarkably close. The same holds for Finkers’ animated picture of Christ being born in Twente. Likewise, my superstorm prediction was too accurate to be a coincidence, yet it was not precise. These prophecies tend to be somewhat off the mark for some reason. Perhaps you can see the irony of that as well.