Marjan Slob, the new Denker des Vaderlands, is surprised that the municipality of Arnhem has canceled a guest lecture by Jandino Asporaat because he has made some controversial statements in a podcast. Asporaat would come to a school to talk about growing up in poverty and about being sensible with money. “What do his views have to do with this? I really don’t see the connection,” says Slob.
On Monday, the municipality of Arnhem removed the comedian from the list of guest teachers who will be teaching at Arnhem schools this week as part of ‘The Week of Money’. The reason is Asporaat statements about the moon landing and the attack on the World Trade Center in New York in 2001. He questions those events. “I’m still waiting for evidence,” the comedian said a few days ago in the podcast The Trueman Show about the landings on the moon. In it he also questioned the attacks on the Twin Towers in New York and the Pentagon in Washington DC on September 11, 2001. “They also said that there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. They had pictures. But those (weapons) were not there.”
“We respect freedom of expression, but do not believe that statements like this set a good example for our children and young people. We don’t think a guest lesson is appropriate this week. Because it is precisely during Money Week that information must be reliable and the message clear. That is why his guest lecture has been cancelled”, alderman Mark Lauriks responds to questions from this site.
“Is this necessary?”
According to philosopher Marjan Slob, the municipality is shooting itself in the foot by canceling Asporaat so quickly. “Is it necessary to use such a harsh means to protect children from views that are not in accordance with the general consensus?” asks the upcoming Denker laureate. “The school says it disagrees with his view. Does that have to be done per se? And what are the chances that he would come and talk about the moon landing at that school?”
The school no longer solves anything here, but creates a bigger problem, says Slob. “You now have the discussion you wanted to avoid. As far as I’m concerned, Jandino can still give a good story about money. He is an attractive figure for young people. I suspect there is an overreaction here.” Conversely, Slob also wonders what exactly Asporaat means. ,,Jandino doubts things he has not been there. That is his right. The only question is: does he have good reason to doubt the official account? Does he not trust our experts or all those eyewitnesses? I barely hear about it. Of course we are allowed to be critical and we should not accept everything blindly, but it is your duty to try to indicate where your doubts come from.”
‘It’s cancelled!’
Meanwhile, Asporaat says he will “always keep expressing his opinion.” The comedian discusses the situation in an extensive statement. “At this point, people are all gloating and hoping I’ll go down, yelling very loudly, ‘He’s cancelled!’ It is exactly the same kind of people who have been calling and hoping for this for years,” he writes in his message on Instagram. ‘God determines my success and being unpopular with them (his critics, ed.) has nothing to do with success. Being sincere is much more important to me.’
Jandino was previously fiercely opposed to the corona measures. He stopped his tour when the corona pass was introduced. “Every time I open my mouth, as a comedian I should especially not venture into subjects that are beyond my cap,” he now writes about it in a post. ‘Of course people said: ‘Jandino, don’t say anything, otherwise they will cancel you’, but how do you keep your mouth shut? Isn’t anyone going to even try to address the pain?’
Conflict with Hoffman
This weekend, Asporaat argued on Twitter with Boos presenter Tim Hofman, who blamed him for taking part in Jorn Luka’s podcast. Jorn openly advocates that the WEF has a Great Reset agenda, where Covid would be a power-gathering tool; this has never been proven. He also offers a platform to far-right fake news spreaders, such as Gideon van Meijeren and anti-Semitic conspiracy thinkers such as David Icke. Why did you just sit with him?’
Asporaat responds that you ‘can never have an open conversation’ if you use words as a conspiracy theorist. ‘I will never let other people’s labels slow me down, nor will I in the future.’ He says he has questions about the collapse of the Twin Towers in New York. ‘Everyone copied that about 9/11 from each other without hesitation. But what did you hear me ask…? Not that 9/11 didn’t happen. I think not only an airplane was used. Why can’t you ask yourself how the buildings fell?’
‘It doesn’t take much to cancel a celebrity’
Jandino Asporaat can be booked as a speaker through Twilight Entertainment. “Everything is put under a magnifying glass these days,” a spokesperson sighs. “It is a trend that we have also seen recently. It doesn’t take much to be canceled as a well-known Dutchman. We do not think that this complaining mentality solves anything.”
It has occasionally happened at Twilight Entertainment that a speaker was no longer allowed to come because of a different opinion. “We hope it stays that way. We are absolutely not going to tell artists what they can or cannot say.” Bertie Lukassen, who also works with Asporaat, agrees. Jandino is a nice and outspoken person. There’s nothing wrong with that at all. He can say whatever he wants. We live in a free country. What the rest of it thinks will be a sausage to me.”
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