Amsterdam police department fights discrimination
Recently the Amsterdam police department decided that their dogs will get competition from cats.
'Discrimination of cats is something of the past', a spokesperson declared. 'It's a myth that dogs have a better nose and are more useful for detective work - it's a belief fully based on prejudices. We are living in the nineties, and these kinds of harmful stereotypes are outdated. Generalizing and stigmatizing are no longer acceptable. Besides, we can no longer afford to neglect this huge pool of talent.'
- But what about the tough work? After all, police dogs are also used to control vandals and squatters.
'There is absolutely no reason to think that dogs are any better than cats in controlling these criminal elements. On the contrary, dogs cause an aggressive atmosphere with their bloodthirsty appearance and loud barking. Vandals and squatters don't mind fighting with a police dog - they even think it's tough. That will be different when we use cats. It's not very cool to tell your buddies that you've just beaten up a cat. The use of cats will prevent aggression.'
- How does the police hope to achieve that the cats will be represented fairly in the police force?
'For the near future we will have a strict policy of affirmative action for cats. Of course this doesn't mean that we will discriminate against dogs - we just abolish the discrimination that already exists. And it won't hurt the quality of the police work either, as some ultra right-wing nuts have suggested. Like I already said, cats are at least as capable as dogs. We have no idea how many cats and dogs are living in Holland, but we already applied for a subsidy to find this out. This way, we will be able to end our policy of affirmative action at exactly the right moment.'
-Doesn't the police expect problems between the cats and the dogs?
'The dogs will have to get used to their new colleagues. Aggressive behaviour toward the newcomers will not be tolerated - it will be punished severely. Besides, we will abolish the internal training for dogs in order to fight the atmosphere of machismo among the dogs.'