Assistant Santa's

 

(Sweden)

This week I received two news items from dear friends. Both were messages from the ombudsman. We only have one ombudsman in the Netherlands, did you know that? I am not joking. The Rotterdam municipal ombudsman explained it to me once. Some cities may have their own clone, but there is only one ombudsman. In Rotterdam that ombudsman is of the female sex, but nationally that ombudsman is suddenly male. There are about eleven ombudsman clones in the Netherlands. A kind of reversed pluralis majestatis. Twelve but still one, a plural of majesty. A citizen cannot complain about the one to the other. They automatically agree with each other.

 

The Rotterdam part of the plurality published a piece in the Havenloods about the right to education. Children are all entitled to education and if things are difficult at school, a child is entitled to help. The reason for the publication is the realisation that this is not going so well.

The National Ombudsman placed a message on the website of the NOS that young people with problems, for example due to a handicap, do not receive proper help in the Netherlands.

 
So what can we conclude? That across the board for our children with disabilities, from education untill  adulthood, things are not going well in the Netherlands. So it is not a little bit wrong. No, it is very wrong, from the beginning till .... Yes, until when actually?
 

At school, things are not going well. As a vulnerable child growing up, you are first told for about eight years that you are no good and that you need help in order to be good (this is called appropriate education). Then you are sent away and become a drop out and after that you become a 'young person', without education and without a job, saddled with an inferiority complex and a chronic depression and you end up in the jungle of regulations and protocols that ensure that you never get a job and become the property of the regulators who will be on your back for the rest of your life.

 

And then you are lucky, if that happens. As you have read in my posts of 2 June and 18 August, it can also happen that you are simply put out on the street and then eventually get a room in the prison.

 

But suppose you have parents who are able to sign you up for benefits. You have to pay your health insurance from somewhere, don't you? And a sandwich now and then is nice too. The civil service, thanks to its wonderful computerised control system, is going to spit out letters and you can be sure you will be doing it wrong for the rest of your life. That is what you are used to. You learned that at school. You do not fit in with the government's framework. The civil servant gets a wonderful salary for telling you that. The 'young person' is not going to escape this. It is impossible. The young person automatically becomes the 'old person' in a miserable flat with a miserable spending budget who is then also cut off from gas, water and electricity because, thanks to a war in another country, the energy bill is higher than his allowance.

 

Can this be done differently? Yes, of course it can. Conditions and rules are made by people who themselves are not handicapped. Or people who are, and they think it is fantastic that they have made it this far. Shouldn't everyone be able to do that? Anyone who can't is suspect.

 

I've already told to you endlessly about the school I want, but just imagine if we were to abolish benefits (and that enormous civil service of inspectors as well, which would save a lot of wasted money) and instead give people with disabilities a basic salary.

 

And don't just say no. Think for a moment. Has anyone with a disability asked for a disability? No. Why does someone have a disability? Yes, you know why: Many people have a disability because they do not fit into the system that other people have created. We have caused it ourselves. We, the approved citizens.

What if we were to take someone with a disability seriously? I mean: really seriously. Then we see someone in front of us, who actually would have liked to work. Someone who knows that he cannot sustain a five-day work week. Maybe he could work one day. He would love that.

Yes, we say. Find some volunteer work. Go and work for free. That will make you happy. And nobody will be at risk. And remember to be grateful!

 

If a person on benefit would get it into his head to earn something, he would immediately be punished. Yes, I know. You don't call that punishment. You say that he has to pay back his allowance because he earns something. Does that seem fair to you? We pay a monstrous apparatus of civil servants millions to check people with a disability, who can't do anything about it, who probably suffer from that disability for life, becuse of a little extra income. A little money that they have really worked for and with which they can perhaps lift themselves out of poverty a little. And, let's not forget, it will finally make him feel a bit happy and not excluded and useless.

 

The knife cuts both ways. What am I saying? On many sides (if that is possible with a knife): Firstly, many people with disabilities will feel safe, because they will no longer be horrified by mail from the social services or the UWV (work insurance). Secondly, these people will look for work that suits them. Gaps in the labour market will be filled. Thirdly, these people will feel much happier and who knows, it thus will also save on healthcare costs. Fourthly, we can lay off half the civil servants. Fifthly, all those civil servants who are trained to be suspicious and to tease other people will also feel much happier.

 

Perhaps these officials could be given a different task. Helping people, for example ... Just a thought.