Police detained a school pupil today after he arrived at an exclusive school in Amsterdam Zuid not using a Van Moof e-bike.
Dat was niet de bedoeling!
The pupil had just moved to the Netherlands from the UK. Sadly, his parents were unaware that while using Van Moof e-bikes is not mandatory for school pupils in Amsterdam Zuid, not having one is suspicious behaviour.
The Headmistress of the school
“Obviously, it was a huge misunderstanding. But being Dutch we at the school have no intention of apologising. I mean you just have to look at the bike rack outside the school. It looks like a Van Moof showroom. Occasionally, you might see a Swapfiets parked there. But that’s only because the Van Moof’s are so unreliable that they’re often at the homes of our pupils waiting to be repaired.”
I asked her if this is a sign of a lack of social diversity at the school.
“Onzin!!!! Our school is very diverse. We have a Moroccan lady that does the cleaning and our caretaker is from Surinam, The Antilles or Africa. I’m not sure, they all lookalike to me. Obviously, we tell our staff who can’t afford e-bikes to park them well away from the school. The pupil in question raised the suspicions of our team as not only did he not have a Van Moof, he was wearing shoes instead of sneakers and trousers instead of denim. Doe normaal zeg!.
He was also quite tanned and looked like he could be from Morocco or Turkey. All of that is a bit unusual in our part of Amsterdam Zuid which is whiter than the cocaine sniffed at law firms and banks in Amsterdam Zuidas.”
Here in Holland
“Here in Holland we say doe maar gewoon dan doe je gek genoeg. Which means don’t you dare do anything to stand out! Assimilation is leuk! If all the other kids have Van Moof e-bikes then make damn sure you get one too. I told his parents this and they were still angry, but well, they’re new to Holland, they’ll learn. They were so angry with the police. Sure, there are random explosions going off all over the city and organised crime assassinating lawyers and other criminals but this is also a priority. Anyway, if they don’t like it here nothing is stopping them returning to their kut ‘heat or eat’ Brexit land”.
No swapfiets users were hurt during the writing of this post.