Rosio Pavoris

This time a little too close to home. Not Flanders yet, no. It’s the Dutchie Bible Belt again.

I’m not sure why fundies are so obsessed with children’s literature; that’s perhaps the only thing parents have complete control over. Still, after Harry Potter (obviously), they’ve now gone after a Flemish writer’s new book.
The writer I’m talking about is, of course, Marc de Bel.

De Bel has always been the only Dutch-language author I’ve been able to read. The first real book I ever read was Blinker en het Bagbag-Juweel, when I was five (though I think the target audience was twelve-year-olds).
He never treated his readers like idiots just because they were loli, and he didn’t ignore “naughty” topics if they made sense. So yes, his books had kissing occasionally, and death, and the recurring minor villains in at least one of his series were regular drug users.
But now the Dutch fundamentalists think he’s gone too far! And why?

Because a main character in his newest book might be… an ALIEN!

The Flemish title of the book (which is cowritten with Guy Didelez and aimed at ten-year-olds) is Alien (pronounced “ah-LEEN”; it’s the name of aforementioned main character), and it’s apparently about a guy who wonders if one of his friends is an extra-terrestrial.
But the Bible says extra-terrestrials don’t exist, apparently!

As such, the censors tried to take the book apart. They got de Bel to replace all instances of the blasphemous “godverdomme” (”goddammit”) with “verdikke” (closer to “darn” in connotation) and “shit” (which was apparently fine by them), and the Dutch release title will be Ik moet je iets vertellen (”I have to tell you something”).
They also tried to change the romantic relationship between the main character and Alien to a “just friends” one, but at that point, de Bel predictably told them to go fuck themselves (politely, I’d think).

I wish I could say this sort of thing was unexpected. At least it raised awareness of the dangers of ignoring fundamentalism for too long, and I think that’s why de Bel allowed them to change the title at all.

Hey, remember when Flanders used to be the backwater nest of religiosity, and the Netherlands were a beacon of progressive openmindedness?
(Yes, a handful of benighted idiots getting more vocal doesn’t necessarily constitute a threat to civilisation. Still, though.)