It reminds me of my student year. One day I was asked to join a Marxist Group. Ashamed I admitted that I know to little about the subject because I did not read all the works of Marx, Lenin and Engels, and I refused. The students laughed. A while later I girl of that group approached me: “You know why they laughed? Because none of us ever read one book of them, only pamphlets�. Out of that bunch of students today’s famous politicians emerged, even one or two extremists.

I once was asked for a leftish group as well. I didn't do it, what I did do, was disputing communism, socialism and other isms every thursday while eating a freshly smeared sandwish and drinking a Nalu. The leader was a French immigrant, a girl, she smelled like a communist.

I recently read that Irony is 'out'. It's no longer food for the bourgeoisie and other wits. Being naive is the new 'in'. I say: Hooray for that.

Which politicians do you speaking of, Jan Thys?

By the way, I was never asked to join that kind of group. Are they still existing?

to Coen

There were lots of left oriented groups then: anarchists (Anarchisties Collectiv?), Maoists (De Derde Wereld Beweging), left-liberals (Het Zal Wel Gaan and LVSV), Trotzkists (4the Internationalism), to name the most important. I think I was asked for the Trotzki’s, but I am not sure of it. Johan Vande Lanotte, and Guy Verhofstadt were present in one of those groups, I learned recently & to my astonishment, but I did not know them yet, they were anonymous faces in the crowd. It seems Frank Vandenbroucke was also a member, as my own brother (a former politician), but then who was not?

to Coen (cont.)

These groups still exist although in a mere modest way and actually heavily outflanked by more ‘right’ wing and religious people, not to forget the commercial task forces. I assume the same scenario developed in Holland.