2. R&R-Spying

R&R-Spying by Andrew Guthrie-Dow

It was a “surprise” encounter in a brown-bar in Amsterdam’s Jordan area. Brown-bars are traditional Dutch drinking-dens culturally a thousand miles away from the cannabis coffee-shops I more often frequented, and the Jordan area is now a sought-after area to live but had been a working-class district up to the 60’s. As I sat there drinking my Heineken a large man came between me and the sunlight beaming through the narrow window where I was sitting. He stopped, looked at me and said “hello” in a strong Dutch accent. I hesitated, he then added, you don’t recognize me do you (I didn’t). “Ari, Nord-Zee-Ari, from the clubs”. Then I did recognize him. He was a semi-regular at the fetish events Marvella and I frequented, but was “out-of-context” which is why I didn’t initially twig who he was. “May I sit down” he said as he sat down at my table with a matching glass of Heineken. 

I remember the chair squeaking as it took his wight. “Fancy meeting you here” he added, “actually, I’ve been wanting to ask you something anyway, you don’t mind, do you?”.

But this misses the point entirely. Patriotism isn’t about rational-but-questioning attachment to a group or body, it’s all about irrational-and-unquestioning attachment to a group or body. Hard-wired, visceral, deep in the hardware of our brains sits this sinister monster ready to attach itself’t you just love it!