One in four Dutch people are dissatisfied with politics and society. That’s slightly fewer than in 2004, but there’s still a lot of complaining going on in the Netherlands. What happened to the land of daring and can-do? Flemish journalist Steven de Foer tries to find out.
Complaints about poor government and a society which ignores the voice of the man in the street: it’s the same in all Western countries. For Flemish people, the Netherlands’ southerly neighbours, it’s second nature. But not for the Dutch. At least, it wasn't for the Dutch. But, over the last decade, the Dutch have undergone a shocking metamorphosis, exchanging their pluck and optimism for despondency and grumbling.
The discontent started to grow around the millennium: dissatisfaction with the quality of education, but also with the security situation and the threat of ‘Islamisation’. The Dutch used to take it for granted that it was all much worse abroad, but the ulcer had begun to fester.
Should Pim Fortuyn – the populist politician who was assassinated in 2002 - be thanked for lancing the growing abcess of dissatisfaction, or should he be blamed for opening a Pandora’s box from which bitterness escaped and flooded over the Netherlands?
Radical change of course
Dutch public opinion can be likened to a supertanker. Once set on a certain course, it's very difficult to turn around. But if the ship has to weather a major storm or negotiate an enormous sandbank, it can undergo a radical change of course.
In the 1950s, Dutch culture was among the most conservative in Europe. Then, the left-wing youth-led counterculture took off and just a few years later this culture of youthful freedom had gained the upper hand. This situation continued for several decades until the dissatisfaction of the silent opposition grew enough to swing the pendulum radically back to the right.
Nowadays, dissatisfaction with the multicultural society has become so legitimate that it could almost be described as an obligation. You count for nothing in the public debate unless you join in the moaning.
Undemocratic
The Dutch love to debate the details, but display an instinctive tendency towards collectivism and conformity as far as the basics are concerned. Fundamental criticism of what is perceived to be the majority view remains a risky business. The Dutch, who have built their nation together, demand a measure of co-operation from the individual. To disagree with a large majority is therefore quickly viewed as being undemocratic.
It takes courage to voice opposition. Alexander Pechtold, leader of the D66 democrats, has for a surprisingly long time had a monopoly on criticising Geert Wilders and his anti-Islam Freedom Party (PVV). Sidelining a party with 24 MPs on ethical grounds means admitting that some part of public opinion is unethical. Being open about this is, in the Netherlands, considered undemocratic: the voters are always right.
Without criticism
The idea seems to be that voters in other countries can make mistakes en masse and be led by reprehensible emotions. But it’s not possible that Dutch voters make mistakes: the very idea of the electorate being collectively mistaken flies in the face of the ideal of democracy, an absolute law. If the Dutch voter sends a signal, that signal MUST be listened to.
The convenient position of PVV leader Geert Wilders, that he is fighting against Islam but not against Muslim people, is accepted more or less without criticism. This is because of the fear that criticism of the messenger might be taken as indicating disregard for the message of social unease.
The Netherlands could be said to be in denial about its major change of course: the only way to keep up national well-being is to pretend that the once so progressive Netherlands hasn't become one of the most right-wing countries in Europe.
Antipathy towards politics
The anti-European position adopted by the average Dutch citizen is a similar escape mechanism. What is in fact being said is: I’m sick of the whole political scene. Recognisable. In Belgium the sentiment is even stronger, and has been around for much longer.
But it’s typically Dutch that people in the Netherlands prefer not to aim their political antipathy at The Hague but rather at an easier external enemy: Europe, or in the vernacular, Brussels.
Anti-Islamisation, anti-Brussels, anti-stupid mistakes in education and healthcare made by the wishy-washy lefties of the past: it’s hard to recognise anything of the rather naïve and conceited do-gooders of just 15 years ago in the Dutch of 2011. They still exist, but they are lying low – waiting for better times.
Steven de Foer writes for the Flemish newspaper De Standaard. He lived and worked for a number of years in the Netherlands.
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The Dutch are backstabbers. Sold their own countrymen out to be more political correct.
They're more than that: TWO HEARTS & TWO TONGUES too!! Thanks Jayson999.
We all complain-human nature!
Well-timed, Steven!
To many expatriate eyes, there’s a great deal that the Dutch are accepting 'more or less without criticism' - like forcing families with young children onto planes bound for an unstable and unsafe Iraq. It's one thing being apathetic or indifferent (that's bad enough) but when the government stubbornly pushes ahead with a policy that is strongly criticised by Amnesty, the UNHCR and the European Court of Human rights, to name but a few, it's time for a broad cross-section of decent and compassionate Dutch people to say ENOUGH! What is the Dutch government supposed to know that these experienced professional agencies don’t?
No-one has argued effectively that there is a real need for this heartlessness, so why is the Netherlands taking such a risk with its hard-won international reputation by holding up its hand to join only four other countries (Britain & the Scandinavian countries) in pursuing this unspeakably inhumane and very 'UnDutch' asylum policy. How did we get to this point? The Dutch Queen herself, as a child, had to flee from the Nazis and seek refuge in Britain, before traveling to Canada! If the Dutch admire her so much, why can't they relate to the needs of Iraqi families who fled dreadful violence to bring their children to Western Europe? The same can be said for all of the countries involved in the current returns programme - they are all monarchies, with their own bitter experience of war, and royal families who know only too well what it means to be an asylum-seeker. A double-standard if ever I saw one!
We are not talking about anonymous groups of immigrant men on the street, who most Dutch people couldn't hope to distinguish from 'economic migrants' or 'job-seekers' (although some of the single men have a perfectly valid claim to asylum). We're talking about well-educated, loving, hospitable and neighbourly families, whose children have never known anything but Holland and the Dutch language, being herded onto planes because they are an embarrassing reminder of failed policies (among the Netherlands' NATO allies) towards Iraq and the greater Middle East. Try talking to them, if you think the Dutch government somehow knows more about Iraq than they do. Or, of course, you can wait for the film……
Many of these families have been interviewed for a new feature-length documentary, scheduled for release in the Autumn and provisionally titled ‘Status’. Before the final editing is completed, we will be talking to Dutch teachers, doctors, health workers, school classmates and others affected by the sudden removal of some of these children from local schools, hospitals and clinics. I’m sure they don’t enjoy explaining to their colleagues, patients or the refugee children’s Dutch classmates and friends why, in the twenty first century, Holland can’t show a more compassionate or humanitarian face than this. It’s also about responsibility. When you’ve been invited to sit at the top table of international affairs and participate in (or at least support) military action in a distant country, you’d better be ready to accept whatever consequences, including a new flow of refugees, that follow. It’s naïve and disingenuous to say that you couldn’t have predicted what would happen – you enjoyed the limelight and the adulation from key NATO allies, now take proper care of the victims!
Pay more attention to what's going on under your noses, people of Holland, or let the BBC, Al-Jazeera English, The Guardian, Der Spiegel and other responsible media organisations tell the story for you. Shame this government into serious consideration of issues that should be blindingly obvious. Show your support for these families, and their articulate children, by attending a peaceful public protest outside parliament on the afternoon of Wednesday 30/3.
http://www.facebook.com/messages/100001504575635#!/event.php?eid=113191675422143
Show some moral leadership everyone and let's start to clear up this dreadful mess and this shameful neglect of human lives, aspirations and talents. We can’t afford to waste, let alone alienate, some of the talent and intelligence on display in the upcoming documentary. But it will only be available to a more caring and representative Dutch society and a healthier democracy.
I suppose the Dutch queen’s children would have missed tobogganing, skiing and skating on the Rideau Canal after their long stay in Canada. This doesn’t mean they shouldn’t have gone home after the war was over.
There is no reason for Sunni and Shia Muslims to stay in Sweden after generously being granted hospitality by that country. The war is over. Saddam is gone and both these groups have large established communities to return to. This is not time to crap all over the most generous hosts and discourage countries from accepting refugees in dire straits in the future.
The question of Iraqi minorities is a stickier matter. I wonder how supportive the Guardian, BBC, der Spiegel and Al Jazeera would be of being selective about which groups would be allowed to stay on, or how they’d feel about the creation of autonomous communes throughout the middle east for the minorities who are being displaced from their ancestral homelands by mainstream Muslim ethnic cleansing. Being more supportive of Israel would be a good start.
Well-timed, Steven!
To many expatriate eyes, there’s a great deal that the Dutch are accepting 'more or less without criticism' - like forcing families with young children onto planes bound for an unstable and unsafe Iraq. It's one thing being apathetic or indifferent (that's bad enough) but when the government stubbornly pushes ahead with a policy that is strongly criticised by Amnesty, the UNHCR and the European Court of Human rights, to name but a few, it's time for a broad cross-section of decent and compassionate Dutch people to say ENOUGH! What is the Dutch government supposed to know that these experienced professional agencies don’t?
No-one has argued effectively that there is a real need for this heartlessness, so why is the Netherlands taking such a risk with its hard-won international reputation by holding up its hand to join only four other countries (Britain & the Scandinavian countries) in pursuing this unspeakably inhumane and very 'UnDutch' asylum policy. How did we get to this point? The Dutch Queen herself, as a child, had to flee from the Nazis and seek refuge in Britain, before traveling to Canada! If the Dutch admire her so much, why can't they relate to the needs of Iraqi families who fled dreadful violence to bring their children to Western Europe? The same can be said for all of the countries involved in the current returns programme - they are all monarchies, with their own bitter experience of war, and royal families who know only too well what it means to be an asylum-seeker. A double-standard if ever I saw one!
We are not talking about anonymous groups of immigrant men on the street, who most Dutch people couldn't hope to distinguish from 'economic migrants' or 'job-seekers' (although some of the single men have a perfectly valid claim to asylum). We're talking about well-educated, loving, hospitable and neighbourly families, whose children have never known anything but Holland and the Dutch language, being herded onto planes because they are an embarrassing reminder of failed policies (among the Netherlands' NATO allies) towards Iraq and the greater Middle East. Try talking to them, if you think the Dutch government somehow knows more about Iraq than they do. Or, of course, you can wait for the film……
Many of these families have been interviewed for a new feature-length documentary, scheduled for release in the Autumn and provisionally titled ‘Status’. Before the final editing is completed, we will be talking to Dutch teachers, doctors, health workers, school classmates and others affected by the sudden removal of some of these children from local schools, hospitals and clinics. I’m sure they don’t enjoy explaining to their colleagues, patients or the refugee children’s Dutch classmates and friends why, in the twenty first century, Holland can’t show a more compassionate or humanitarian face than this. It’s also about responsibility. When you’ve been invited to sit at the top table of international affairs and participate in (or at least support) military action in a distant country, you’d better be ready to accept whatever consequences, including a new flow of refugees, that follow. It’s naïve and disingenuous to say that you couldn’t have predicted what would happen – you enjoyed the limelight and the adulation from key NATO allies, now take proper care of the victims!
Pay more attention to what's going on under your noses, people of Holland, or let the BBC, Al-Jazeera English, The Guardian, Der Spiegel and other responsible media organisations tell the story for you. Shame this government into serious consideration of issues that should be blindingly obvious. Show your support for these families, and their articulate children, by attending a peaceful public protest outside parliament on the afternoon of Wednesday 30/3.
http://www.facebook.com/messages/100001504575635#!/event.php?eid=113191675422143
Show some moral leadership everyone and let's start to clear up this dreadful mess and this shameful neglect of human lives, aspirations and talents. We can’t afford to waste, let alone alienate, some of the talent and intelligence on display in the upcoming documentary. But it will only be available to a more caring and representative Dutch society and a healthier democracy.
Lancing an abscess of dissatisfaction or opening a box of bitterness are pretty much the same thing; messy in the moment, but healthy in the long run.
The erosion of common sense began decades ago, and continued as political correctness became increasingly rigid.
We ought to thank Pim Fortuyn for piercing the puritanical repressiveness which allowed the problems of myopic doctrines to fester.
Unfortunately we can no longer consult Pim in this matter because some PC zombie went and killed him.
I guess we’re stuck with “moaners” like Salman Rushdie or Irshad Manji, who also share very astute observations about multiculturalist excesses nearly 4 min. into this clip:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L2Eb6OigpVM
Perhaps Pechthold of D66 is courageous, but in comparison to the courage of those who have risked and lost their lives on the other side this debate, this statement is utterly ridiculous.
Yes, JW, your calculations are logically correct in the conventional sense, yet with the special situation the Dutch face with Geert in the Rutte accords, one must take into account the dissention which has divided the CDA, and the persistent headaches the VVD has suffered at the hands of the PVV, and this will knock the "swagger" out of anyone!! When the math is proportionate to the situation, the ratios change to a higher percentage of the populace.
For those who think the immigration is not a problem or a threat, you are not really tuned in. In the UK and almost every other European country the Muslim population causes problems. They have an agenda that motivates them to try to control and manipulate non-Muslims, and they love to get right into the governments to have their say, and it works real well ( for them )Even by demographics alone Islam will take over and we will have an Islamic Europe in 20 years. Immigration MUST be stopped now, and it takes a person with insight and courage to inspire some action. Wilders has been that man, and he's inspired many leaders in Europe to form parties like his. The very fact that a person can be so easily sued and taken to court for critizing a religion should tell you a lot about Islamic influence. You should support Wilders; he's getting a raw deal . No other religion gets their way or complains like that, but Islam. When free speech is against the law there is something wrong with the law. The Dutch legal jurisiction should be ashamed. That trial is absurd. And don't bitch because he hasn't worked miracles as a politician- he's doing as well as the others , but he's a handy target for criticism. The media is merciless . With all he's had to go through it's a wonder he's still alive.
Everything you wrote is wrong, except about the trial being absurd. I'm curious as to where you're getting your information. Have you ever met a Muslim person?
Living in the UK and hasn't met a Muslim? What a nutty question! Same for the curiosity about where such info could come from. Do a little research and check this out for starters:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fwA3jErg9Bc&feature=related
The Dutch are so funny... it was only a generation ago that they sold their minorities to their goose stepping brothers across the border... and a few years ago they do the same thing in Srebrenitsa... Im not even going to go into what they did around the rest of the world...
So much to answer for...
Nobody said that Wilders will solve all problems. His main issue is the most important to me: I do not think that we can fix a HUGE decline in our reproductive capabilities by importing more immigrants, for it will cause a battle on two fronts: filling the pension system, paying for the immigrants to integrate (or our whole country to adapt as also seems to be accepted by some).
This issue also happens to upset most of the Wilders's opponents. Which is only logical, since they are the once that put this multiculti policy in place. Their ranks form the next generation of executives of the state television "De Nederlandse Omroep", if you believe Elsevier.
Nobody said that Wilders will solve all problems. His main issue is the most important to me: I do not think that we can fix a HUGE decline in our reproductive capabilities by importing more immigrants, for it will cause a battle on two fronts: filling the pension system, paying for the immigrants to integrate (or our whole country to adapt as also seems to be accepted by some).
This issue also happens to upset most of the Wilders's opponents. Which is only logical, since they are the once that put this multiculti policy in place. Their ranks form the next generation of executives of the state television "De Nederlandse Omroep", if you believe Elsevier.
Approximately one in four almost exactly matches the vote the PVV received in the last election when so many people among the Dutch electorate allowed Geert to put them to sleep into dreaming that he would solve all the Netherlands' problems by himself!!
1 in 4 would have been a coup for any party in such a large field. The 3rd place PVV's fraction of votes was 1 in 8. Still on the fringes.
Correction : I said "he's blunt nut that what we need" I meant "he's blunt BUT that's what we need " !! Sorry, but that sounded so crazy I had to change it.
Freudian slip?
The 'flood' of immigrants is a hardly a burden on the economy. Without immigration, the economy would contract and risk collapse. Ask any (real) economist. The only ones who would say otherwise are the PVV, those under contract to the PVV, and Wilders. He's a blunt nut. That's the opposite of what we need now.
correction : I said "he's blunt nut that's what we need now " I meant "he's blunt BUT that's what we need now " !! Sorry , but I had to change that, it sounded so crazy .
Seems to me Holland still has some of that swagger in Geert Wilders. The thing about him is that he is all for Holland and not willing to step aside to accommodate people who do not respect or cooperate with Dutch ethics,customs and standards. It is wise to want to restore the idenity of the Netherlands, and he encourages you to take some pride in your own country. Too many Europeans have caved in to alien demands, and acted like they are obliged to make them happy in every way, including the acceptance of their culture which clashes with democracy. Geert stood up to this imposition and showed some leadership. He also recognizes that a flood of those immigrants is a burden on the economy .He's blunt, nut that's what we need now. We need more like him. The time will come when you in Holland will look back and wish you had given him more of a chance.
This could be a serious contender for the pointless rambling prize.
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