Belgian novelist Herman Brusselmans and the weekly Humo are being sued by a Jewish association. They call his latest column ‘psychopathic’. In it he conjures up the image of a Palestinian boy who tries to crawl from under the rubble to reunite with his mum. If the same would happen to his partner and son the writer says he’d want to plunge ‘a pointy knife’ in the throat of a Jew. He explains that his message is that the Palestinians will naturally want revenge for what Israel is doing to them. He also emphasizes that not all Israelis are the same and not all of them condone the current Israeli actions against Gaza. I suppose the same association can sue me for the story, and others like it, I wrote, long before Brusselmans’s column was published.

Those perversely smeared with the hollowed out word ‘anti-semite’ for being disgusted when kids are dying en masse have a new club member. Brusselmans. I read two of his 50+ books about 20 years ago and found them mildly entertaining, he’s for sure a talented guy and I appreciate how much he actually writes in a world full of people who say they will write, but never write. I do admire productive people, being a child of my time, but I will happily go to my grave never reading another one of his books, it’s just not my cup of tea. As a kid I was a fan of his television appearances, his penchant for shocking a little bit, and because he went against the grain and came across as a big fuck you to mainstream entertainment. Later he became just another celebrity enjoying his fame and hobnobbing with the hot and en vogue people. He became a mainstay of the mainstream Flemish landscape. I actually developed a Brusselmans indigestion because he was simply ubiquitous, almost as living proof that Flanders doesn’t have much else to offer. Appearing on talk shows fetched him way more money than his books. He writes about a book every three months. Usually rather plotless. Not something America, which does have an uncanny knack for telling captivating stories, would ever take notice of, but you could compare him to a light version of Bukowski.

Now that he’s finally made a stand about a serious issue he’s being attacked for 1. encouraging violence against Jews 2. being selective in his outrage. Am pretty sure the not so prolific third and fourth tier Flemish celebs who criticize his defense of Palestinians are more driven by envy than anything else. Brusselmans has a reputation as a bad boy and often spoke and wrote very publicly and graphically about his appreciation of feminine beauty which landed very badly, but could not be criticized much in a country that loves to imagine itself as super open when it comes to sexuality. Any enemy Brusselmans has made in a somewhat controversial career spanning decades will now find very safe ammunition in his criticism of Israel’s action in Gaza. Moral outrage is often a gilded version of envy.
Am not really a fan, but I have always thought he looked very cool. The way he speaks is quite pleasant too. I like how he has a hardcore working class background (his father sold cattle) and as a writer he’s relentless. It’s also true I would never ever have mentioned him if he hadn’t spoken out against Israel’s brutality in Gaza. All in all, he’s an authentic human being and that’s extremely rare in a world where most people just cultivate a safe mask to navigate the modern world with its hard to predict or even identify dangers and stressors.