HEMA cakes with Hitler greetings and anti-Islamic text

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Kdag2010-2

Two Dutch women artists decided to test the limits of what HEMA (major chain store) would accept to reproduce on a cake from a photo in the cities of Enschede and Deventer. They ordered seven cakes, of which three were rejected.

An authentic old picture of a Hitler greeting wasn’t a problem and neither were tompouces with ‘Islamic culture is backwards’ on them, a well-known phrase uttered by murdered politician Pim Fortuyn a few years back.

What didn’t make the cut was a man with an erection and a woman with her legs open and a heart hiding anything indecent. So erotic is out (the store claimed that was porn), but ‘fascist’ politics are in. Now you know too. Let’s be fair, both cities are far from the country’s capital and have different values and political views. That’s my polite way of saying people there are more shocked by sex and clearly vote more to the right as of late.

The General Terms and Conditions of HEMA say that the pictures, “cannot go against the law, must show good morals and cannot have any religious content”. Obviously the people who made these cakes at HEMA never read any of that or don’t understand what it meant.

(Links: welingelichtekringen, ad)

6 Comments »

  1. Uhmokay says:

    “Let’s be fair, both cities are far from the country’s capital and have different values and political views. That’s my polite way of saying people there are more shocked by sex and clearly vote more to the right as of late.”

    Pardon me? Deventer and Enschede are both large(in dutch terms ;-)) cities and in both cities the most votes went to socialist parties at these elections. You can’t just go and tell your opinion as if its the truth.(so here’s a proof for what I’m saying, actually there’s a lot of right-voters around amsterdam too: http://indebuurt.trouw.nl/uitslagen_verkiezingen.html)
    Or is it actually your “nice” way of saying that Enschede people are backwards?

  2. Orangemaster says:

    I never said anything about backwards, just different, so offense is misplaced.

    They are many PVV voters in Amsterdam, but there are more outside of the Randstad.

    And people outside of the Randstad are more conservative and also vote (voted?) more CDA.

    It’s interesting that you feel offended for Enschede but not for Deventer…

  3. pasqualito says:

    For an artist you are painfully narrow minded.

    “Let’s be fair, both cities are far from the country’s capital and have different values and political views. That’s my polite way of saying people there are more shocked by sex and clearly vote more to the right as of late.”

    drivel.

  4. Orangemaster says:

    I’m not explaning myself twice.

  5. Uhmokay says:

    Well I concentrated on Enschede because that’s where I am from, but I said that Deventer too was quite a large city. And I know you didn’t say anything about Deventer or Enschede people being backwards, but that’s the feeling that I got from reading this, especially because you are trying to distance yourself from them by saying”..both cities are far from the country’s capital..”. So yeah I feel offended, because I am from Enschede and I am not so narrowminded and I know a lot of people in Enschede and Deventer who are very open minded. Perhaps you don’t mean it so black and white, but that’s the feeling that I got from reading this.

    Btw did you ever go to Enschede? You should come and check out Gogbot festival next year and see for yourself how open minded people in Enschede are ;-)

  6. raboof says:

    The link by Uhmokay above indeed shows Deventer votes slightly more right-wing compared to Amsterdam (by about 10%). That actually surprised me. Enschede seems fairly comparable to Deventer, though a bit more right-wing by about 5%.

    Still, Deventer votes considerably more left-wing compared to the Dutch average, by about 15%. Enschede is a bit closer to the (fairly balanced wrt left/right) national average, but also clearly ‘to the left’.

    As for whether ‘we’ (I’m from Deventer) are more shocked by sex, I’m not so sure, but I have no idea how to test that :).

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