Het zijn net mensen (They're just like real people)

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Het zijn net mensen (They're just like real people)

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1Guusius
Août 13, 2007, 5:32 am

Too bad the book I want to discuss isn't written in English. The book is called Het zijn net mensen (They're just like real people) and is written by Joris Luyendijk.
The book is about how the media give a view on the Middle East that is based on image forming instead of facts. Because most of the countries there are run by more or less dictatorial leaders, you can't get real data on how people's real views on something. To avoid admitting that, the media use our prejudices to give a view on the Middle East.
The author was a correspondent in Egypt, Libanon an Israel from 1998 to 2003 and describes how he did his job there and how odd it was to report things that he sometimes knew nothing about.
This book not only made me think about how I usually watch the news. It also made me think about how life was in Iraq when Saddam was still at power. I used to think that they were better off then: although they lived under one of the worst dictators, at least they knew how to avoid trouble; in present Iraq anyone can get killed where ever they are. Since I read the book I question that opinion. The description of Iraq (Luyendijk visited Iraq a couple of times) was scaring me. I can't imagine how it's like to live in a dictatorship, but sitting on the couch reading the book was terrifying enough, let alone living it.
I hope the book will be translated to English (and I hope there are Dutch readers who would like to read this book)

2Amtep
Sep 19, 2007, 3:28 am

I think a better translation of the title would be "They almost look like people", but even that doesn't really capture it. The "net" in the title implies that these aren't people, while admiring the quality of the imitation. It's what you might say while looking at the tiny puppets inhabiting a detailed scale model of a city.