Opinion | Bacon: the ultimate VVD snack

In a kind of photo booth with pink wallpaper and red hearts, Dilan Yesilgöz asks himself the question on Valentine’s Day: what do I love? From dogs, okay. From her husband, of course. And also from … hot dogs and bacon. The video was shared through the social media channels of the VVD, the next day Yesilgöz treats us Via her own Instagram On a selfie with a cocktail in which a bar dried and salted pork floats: « Because bacon makes everything right, » it says, « I take a bacon cocktail on you. What does your weekend look like? »

Maybe it was a kind of childish phase, just like my nephew is now completely absorbed in Paw Patrol. But last week there was suddenly VVD prominent Klaas Dijkhoff, who is on His Facebook,,  » His Instagram and are LinkedIn The same photo shared a hot dog sandwich with bacon. Photographing food is a profession, so let’s forgive him that the whole looks rather unpleasant. We get a whole story: that he had ordered a vegahotdog with real bacon, that the hot dog tent had still called it or he did indeed want it, that he had not recorded and that they had now added the bacon in a loose container and that he thought it was super super: « too often meat/vega is presented as an absolute business? » Is the question if you order a vegetable hot dog.

For example, Dijkhoff reasons for a while and three left -old paragraphs Furthermore, his order is a metaphor for the ideal society: « Left and right come closer together if we do not demand that the other goes to the extreme. »

As if it is about Catholics and Protestants in the Belfast of the 1980s, Dijkhoff wants to be bridge builder between meat eaters and vegetarians. He makes that point more often; In 2020 he already told On de Volkskrant that he eats vegetarian hamburgers with real bacon. People look very crazy about that, but Dijkhoff finds – don’t be frightened! – that that is just possible. His tiles-worthy conclusion at the time: « If you don’t make a principle, behavioral change becomes easier. »

Bacon was, as we called in 2010: Epic

Mark Rutte once took a photo with a cattle carpaccio XXL and put his climate ambitions into perspective by saying that we have to be able to keep barbecuing « , but the new guard is now focusing on bacon. That feels on the late side: around 2010 Bacon was a true internet craze, YouTubers Made gigantic citizens with piles of bacon, there was baconmerchandise, there were memes, bacon, as we called it: Epic. But that hype is over, so what do VVD people want to radiate today with that bacon bacon?

Pork has also appeared for centuries as a symbol in religious and cultural conflicts. After the Islamic Moors had been driven out, for example, the Spanish Inquisition already checked whether people lived Christian. Because Muslims and Jews are not allowed pork, it was a sign of loyalty to the Christian ruler if you ate it. The story goes that even consciously lard (kidney fat of the pig) was used in cookies, so that no one would refuse a cookie except for religious reasons.

And that meaning has always kept pork. In 2014, for example, the extreme right-wing French politician Jean-Marie Le Pen tried to ban school lunches without pork for Muslim children. With extreme right -wing protests at mosques and AZCs, bacon or other pork has often been taken for provocation in recent years.

If a politician is so emphatically cooking with any product, then he wants to say something with that. And Bacon looks a lot like the ultimate VVD snack; From what the party wants to radiate. Semi-luxe, but for everyone, not sustainable, animal suffering and therefore a little wrong and maybe therefore extra tasty. A guilty pleasure, such as the toppers in concert or 130 on the highway. And as always, any resemblance to existing events and/or characters from the extreme right -wing corner is based on mere coincidence.

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