Sick Leave Cash

Here’s another translation by our tireless Flemish correspondent VH, also from the Vlaams Belang website:

“When the Inquisition had not yet begun”

After the directive of the Antwerp city council banned the cross of Sinterklaas from urban education, in Scheldestad a new row reared its head. The cause could be found in the loudspeakers at the Grote Markt [square], where there is a skating rink during the Christmas season, and where an ancient but still well-known song “Ziekekas” by the popular group The Strangers rang out.

The politically-incorrect bigotry was unbearable for Freya Piryns, the Antwerp party leader of the Greens, who shuddered that “a racist song” was played at the skating rink, where many immigrant youth were skating, and announced that she would raise the case. It was immediately announced that the city would contact the operators of the skating rink to ask that they no longer play that controversial song by The Strangers.

In P-Magazine (Dec. 23, 2008) Alex Boeye, a member of The Strangers, replied to the politically-correct bigots: “At the time we published the song “Ziekekas” — in the mid-1970s — almost nobody had a problem with it. In a BRT-documentary about our thirty-year existence, you can see that the audience, including those from a number of companies, had a jolly laugh. But yes, the circumstances were entirely different then. The Inquisition had not yet begun then. There were also not that many immigrants in those days. Nowadays they are an interesting group of voters.”

Times have indeed changed. Boeye admits: “Yet today I would not dare to write such a song, out of pure self-preservation.” He also hastens to note that he finds it peculiar that a song like “Les Flamandes” [The Flemish] by Jacques Brel, which contains pure anti-Flemish racism, is still allowed.

We are quite curious what the Piryns of this world have to say to that.

So that Gates of Vienna readers may stay fully informed, here is VH’s translation of the dreaded song (Faint-hearted readers beware! Racism ahead!):
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“Especially because some people find it necessary to censor this song, we have today added the text of The Ziekekas [Sick leave benefit, or Sick leave cash] by The Strangers.”

Sick leave cash

he was a Moroccan and came from Morocco
he left behind his thirteen kids and a goat
here he ate fine breads and cheese and chocolate
and hurt his liver a great deal after a while
here he worked in a factory for one month out of eight
but that liver made him fit for it no longer
and went onto paid sick leave and has done nothing for years
still wild horses can’t drag him away from here

me having a good life in the sick leave program
me in the sick, sicka, sick leave cash
no nothin work I do, you still give cash
the sick, sicka, sick leave cash
Allah is great, but the sick leave cash is greater
only one big wish is left
to stay a little, and receive a little more cash
then I return, and be a rich Moroccan man

I hear you say how can a guest fix that cash
he gets a control and double checks
well now I know how those guys grab cash
I say the doctor asks: “eh well, how are you?”

ay che ay e allelechaim ala acha ayem e doktore.. ah oui
achalim achelochaomacha lalalachaim… oh.. oui

mister doctor doesn’t understand a bit
and adds another seven weeks to that

me having a good life in the sick leave program
me in the sick, sicka, sick leave cash
no nothin work I do, you still give cash
the sick, sicka, sick leave cash
Allah is great, but the sick leave cash is greater
only one big wish is left
to stay a little, and receive a little more cash
then I return, and be a rich Moroccan man

and every year he goes a little longer
back to Morocco as a grand monsieur
and buys some goat and get his wife pregnant
there’s another thousand in cash child benefit for that
and when he returns he already booked next trip
a week to Lourdes on sick leave cash by train
there he asks in Moroccan to our dear Mother
that he may be sick in Belgium a long while more

me having a good life in the sick leave program
me in the sick, sicka, sick leave cash
no nothin work I do, you still give cash
the sick, sicka, sick leave cash
Allah is great, but the sick leave cash is greater
only one big wish is left
to stay a little, and receive a little more cash
then I return, and be a rich Moroccan man

ay che ay e allelechaim ala acha ayem e doktore.. ah oui
achalim achelochaomacha lalalachaim… oh.. oui