Thomas de Klerk

rightThomas de Klerk (Thomas José de Klerk), Amsterdam, The Netherlands, October 27, 1950. Writer of non fiction. Thomas de Klerk studied language -Netherlands-, history and political sciences. After his studies he started as a teacher and became a writer only later in life.
A brief biography
De Klerk was an adolescent dropout in Amsterdam in the sixties, where he grew his hair and rebelled “against nothing in specific and specifically everything”, as he said. He joined the Provo movement in Amsterdam, though he was too young at fourteen, and was astonished that even an anarchistic-like movement as Provo was had need of leaders.
De Klerk stopped his work for this unpolitical political movement after having spent three days in jail because of distributing inciting pamphlets at the opening of Parliament in The Hague in 1965. He said since no one had come ‘to the rescue’, that told him enough about the moralities of and the solidarity within the organization.
When he realized he could not ever actualize what he had in mind -in his late teens these were not yet fully crystallized notions- without studying, he attended night school, having failed at three consecutive day time secondary schools, and he radically stopped using drugs. He had used hashish, yet had always kept his distance from hard drugs. He said he liked to live from then on with a clear head, being sure his thoughts were his own.
In his twenties he studied the Dutch language and history. During these studies de Klerk re-met the one person who has come closest to being a role model for him, Rein Bloem, the son of the poet J.C. Bloem. A poet and a teacher at school when he was twelve years old, Bloem came into his world again ten years later during his study in the Netherlands. Thomas de Klerk was interested in Bloem for his ‘joie de vivre’, his creativeness and professionally for his teachings about narration techniques. Later in his study de Klerk got more interested in the pragmatics of linguistic usage, language as a means to fend off the dangers in life, language as a means to survive.
It was the insights related to this knowledge that motivated him to become a teacher to those children and adolescents demoralized even before they had reached adulthood, to educate them to vigorous human beings instead of malleable citizens. This mentality also explains why de Klerk got involved with the Netherlands Labour Party, the PvdA of which for a brief period he was the chair in his then home town, and with the teachers union, of which for years he was the secretary in his region. It was in this period also he studied political sciences. He stopped all his work for the community shortly after he turned forty, because he felt he was walking in circles.
Shaking and waking
De Klerk had always been a maverick in his community work. Though he was held in high esteem both in school and in the organizations for which he worked, he was also regarded as an eccentric, not in the least because of remarks like “Feminism is racism” and “Women are like Germans - no sense of humour.” This was at the time of the second wave of feminism.
There is also a more profound side to his one-liners shown in expressions like, “Most art isn't art, but therapy” and “Death is like a child. You do not know what you are getting into and once you are there you cannot reverse the situation.” Only a handful of people realized these one-liners and expressions revealed nothing malicious in his character, nothing hungering to gain at the other’s expense, and nothing aimed at antagonizing, but at “shaking and waking” only showing his love for human kind.
The world on the inside
From his teens onwards he declared he understood life - he was often well-nigh ridiculed for this kind of statements just because he was so very young. However, in one of his writings he added that knowing is one thing, living it to be quite something else of course - meaning: you can talk a lot, but life pivots around doing what you think and say. So when he turned away from public life in the nineties of the 20th century, it was not because he got disillusioned because of his experiences with politics and politicians. He declared he had seen enough that did not falsify but that confirmed what he had known since childhood -though then not always verbalized-. Just one more event was needed, something that would work like a catalyst and connect all the dots present in his being.
That event happened when within a short period he met several persons with whom he formed something that perhaps may best be described as a think tank. Though ideas were exchanged to mutual inspiration, rapidly -as always- a hierarchy developed within the group and tales were told behind one’s back. Even his love, who participated in the group, contributed to the heinousness. Having experienced this all already more than he could stomach, Thomas de Klerk left the group and went back to the stone desert as he called the town where he lived, where he began his work writing about “the human condition”.
Lucifer’s paradigm
Though de Klerk does not use the term “the human condition” as a term of preference, in one of his essays though he refers to this term of André Malraux as the cynical and nihilist version of what he is saying. De Klerk uses the term Lucifer’s paradigm instead to indicate that man is preoccupied with thinking, looking for truth and searching scientifically in a very limited way: the carnal way.
De Klerk’s books appear to be religious books, but they are not. At least not religious in the way the last millenniums have shown religion to be. The carnal way of thinking, thinking the other way around, can best be illustrated, according to de Klerk, by one of the very first sentences from the Christian bible that states, “Let there be light”. De Klerk shows that these words should be, “Let Light be there”, words uttered by God heralding Lucifer’s entrance into our material universe.
Basically what de Klerk says about traditional religion is that the religious way of thinking perhaps may have been useful in a certain stage in the development of humanity -as a moral guidance for instance-, yet that religion narrows the mind in looking for the origins of our soul. The vast potential that is present in every human is pinioned by leaders so they can manage the crowds. In this respect there is no difference between religion and politics. The times are rife, de Klerk says, to cast away the shroud of domination for religion in our times has become more than counterproductive, more than a liability.
“Religion turns people into zombies”, is another of his one-liners. Whoever, according to de Klerk, believes now in the God or gods of our ancestors regresses to a stage before modern civilization. Still, who believes all answers can be expected from modern civilization, including all the marvels that science has brought us, equally suffers from Lucifer’s paradigm. De Klerk advocates, urges human kind to realize one is seeing blind and to embark upon the voyage into the inside for which no guidance from a rabbi, priest, mullah, guru or shaman is needed nor desirable.
Seniority
“Aren’t you afraid with your books you will lose out to the old and established religions and their ancient texts? These texts are held venerable by millions and stand like a rock”. De Klerk replied, “I’m never afraid - at the most I’m deeply concerned. And then, even an ancient rock eventually is weathered down. Besides, you speak of quantity, length of time and numbers of people, and not of quality. It’s quality that is most essential. History has shown so many gods coming and ultimately going, a fate waiting to happen also to the gods of monotheism. I don’t preach a new religion, I propagate the end of all religion. The true source, God if you will, lies inside. Inside every human lies the connection with the one true love that exists in this material universe. That true love unites us all. This is true for every human, from whichever culture you hail. It may look all venerable books are ancient, yet of what I speak goes back to the very first human who walked the earth and goes as far as the last human - who in this material universe will turn off his light.”
Music
Thomas de Klerk is also a composer. He said he tries to avoid making up tunes and to compose real music though he has not had any training whatsoever in this field. His mother was a well known opera singer and his father a famous bassoonist and what he knows about music is due to what beauty his parents brought into the house. Merely what churns in his heart he sets to sound.
Text based on an interview in April 2009

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