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Nowadays, you can also be too overweight for a guard of honor. People with a “too substantial figure” are therefore no longer allowed to stand in the guard of honor during the commemoration at the Waalsdorpervlakte in The Hague.
Fat shaming at the commemoration
Yes, nowadays you can also be too overweight for a guard of honor during the commemoration. If there’s one moment in the year when tolerance should prevail, it’s around the commemoration on May 4th. After reading the report from Omroep West, I would almost consult the calendar, were it not for the fact that I knew for sure April 1st was a few days ago.
The broadcaster has minutes from a members’ meeting stating that “some members of the guard of honor are starting to have a too substantial figure. There are regularly unpleasant comments and complaints about this. To prevent this, we will have to assign people with a too substantial figure a different task.”
This decision was already made last year according to the minutes. A former member of the guard of honor couldn’t stomach it and now complained through the broadcaster. He claims to be angry because he was given a new task, in catering. That’s just mean. “You’re too fat, sorry ‘substantial’, to stand in the guard of honor so now you can spend the whole day with your nose over food.”
It’s distracting…That’s not the intention because the honor guard should radiate respect
If you still don’t believe the minutes, the Waalsdorp Erepeloton Association leaves no doubt. They confirm to the broadcaster that it “doesn’t look nice” when substantial people are in the guard of honor. “It’s distracting,” says secretary Wendy Boer. “That’s not the intention because the honor guard should radiate respect.” The association has been receiving complaints for a long time, both from the public and from people watching TV. Thirteen out of the 80 members are chosen for the ‘A-team’ that forms the honor guard. I can of course see B.A. and Murdock standing in the guard of honor. That’s also quite distracting.
But I admit, I understand what they’re saying. My initial reaction to overweight people can also be a judgment about weight. My politically correct training tells me immediately to bury that judgment far away and that reaction is primarily my problem. That thought process during a commemoration can be seen as a distraction. But to exclude ‘substantial’ people so that I can’t be bothered by it, or have to be bothered by the fact that I’m bothered by it, seems to me the wrong solution.
Fat seen
Politically correct would have been not to respond to such complaints. Perhaps even to respond by stating that it is highly inappropriate to exclude people based on their appearance on a day that commemorates the consequences of intolerance.
This makes me think of my grandma. Not because she’s substantial, nor because she’s in a guard of honor. But because she doesn’t have much patience for political correctness. My grandma is also from the generation that survived the war. She likes to talk about it, and I like to listen. I don’t know if it’s that experience, growing up in different times, or her age itself, but my grandma ‘says it like it is’. It’s not always nice, but ‘that’s just how grandma is’.
So I imagine an Erepeloton Association where the sixty-year-olds are still called juniors. People who have never heard of the term fat shaming. Maybe they were really unaware of the current context in which such a decision can be placed. ‘Wir haben es nicht gewusst’.
But then I think of those other stories from my grandma. About the hags at the card game, about the fights with the folks from the Jordaan who constantly want to play André Hazes in the common room. Gossiping, conniving, teasing, and complaining. High school has nothing on it. So I can somewhat imagine the board meeting on this subject:
“No Henk in the guard of honor this year then?”
“No, he could use a few more hunger winters.”
