The Dutch

[Fragony]

Talk about being stuck between two cultures. Pickles? Everybody knows that only in Amsterdam they serve herring with pickles and these barbarians chop the herring up into conveniently bitesize bits that are that much easier to consume. Idiots, eating a herring properly should be a trial by fire.

[Wasp]

I think the problem with the national identity is just that there is not identity. The Dutch are basically a collection of several tiny communities, each with their own language and culture. Then, a central government promoted some sort of fake identity - the so-called 'Republiek der Batavieren' was used as a large umbrella over these communities, and 'the Netherlands' were born.

Most of the Dutch are simple people - a reason why they don't know much of culture, or history, is because they just don't care. It's not useful to them, and why spend time learning it while they can just enjoy their lives?

There's a lot of good things about my country. Also a lot of foul things I wish I could make go away.

[Adrian II]

The Dutch are basically a collection of several tiny communities, each with their own language and culture. Then, a central government promoted some sort of fake identity - the so-called 'Republiek der Batavieren' was used as a large umbrella over these communities, and 'the Netherlands' were born.

Right on the mark. Until 1814 the Dutch were a patchwork of local communities with diverging religions, languages and regional affinities. After King William I had been installed, the Calvinist ruling elite tried to unify the country and shape it according to its self-image. Its main instrument was the moral campaign, which created the impression that Dutch identity revolves around moral precepts such as hard work, hygiene, the security of public life (removal of beggars and thieves into workhouses, etcetera), and the sanctity of personal property and profit. For a time it certainly did. The subjects they campaigned on were issues that appealed to all religions and communities, both before and after the Belgian secession of 1830 removed a large Roman Catholic component from Dutch public life.

But the need to accommodate Catholics and Jews, to integrate cities and rural areas and to keep the nation together also required compromise and backroom politics. Hence a second Dutch tradition: moderation and accommodation are regarded as virtues, not as signs of (social or intellectual) weakness. A prime example of Dutch accomodation have always been the waterships, where people of all walks of life and personal convictions worked together for the common good of water management.

As for Dutch culture, we have always been so deeply influenced by the larger nations around us that we couldn't tell our own traditions from those of our neighbours. I'm cool with that. So are our business people who make money all across the world because they are used to adapting to other customs, cultures and languages.

[Mangudai]

Do contemporary Dutch still have a great work ethic? Or do you think their work ethic is much weaker than their grandparents had?

[Adrian II]

Do contemporary Dutch still have a great work ethic?

Good enough, I would say. Productivity is as high as it ever was, foreign investors have no complaints. And the mentality is still as Fragony says: it's a git-er-done society.

[Fragony]

RAs for Dutch culture, we have always been so deeply influenced by the larger nations around us that we couldn't tell our own traditions from those of our neighbours.

Yet we aren't like them, the dutch are a real people with their own traditions and customs, despite being hammed in by Germany, France and what is now left of the united kingdom. That is a small miracle, that we ruled the world for a century is unbelievable.

[Adrian II]

Yet we aren't like them, the dutch are a real people with their own traditions and customs, despite being hammed in by Germany, France and what is now left of the united kingdom.

Define 'real'.

That is a small miracle, that we ruled the world for a century is unbelievable.

That's because it is untrue. The Dutch had a nice naval empire going which allowed them to play off the big powers against one another, but that doesn't equate to hegemony, let alone strategic dominance. Of much more importance was the fact highlighted (with some hyperbole) by Louis, namely that fact that the Low Countries were an enlightened Republic and a political inspiration to others.

[Fragony]

Of course it is but it's our golden age regardless and pretty damn impressive.

[Adrian II]

Of course it is but it's our golden age regardless and pretty damn impressive.

Yours maybe. I hadn't been born at the time.

I'll tell you what. I have a friend in Nijmegen whose ancestor went on the first Crusade, and guess what, his sword has been preserved and it is still in the family. How cool is that? Eh?

But my friend never claims that it was he who conquered Jerusalem in 1099.

[Meneldil]

Yours maybe. I hadn't been born at the time.

I'll tell you what. I have a friend in Nijmegen whose ancestor went on the first Crusade, and guess what, his sword has been preserved and it is still in the family. How cool is that? Eh?

But my friend never claims that it was he who conquered Jerusalem in 1099.

I'm fairly sure this would be a great way to get chicks, Dutch or not.

[Fragony]

Yours maybe. I hadn't been born at the time.

I'll tell you what. I have a friend in Nijmegen whose ancestor went on the first Crusade, and guess what, his sword has been preserved and it is still in the family. How cool is that? Eh?

But my friend never claims that it was he who conquered Jerusalem in 1099.

Every old family does, there has been quite an extensive trade in fake crusader-charts. But I don't get your point, I just say that the dutch are their own people, their own language their own traditions their own oddities. You know someone who doesn't claim to have conquered Jeruzalem in 1099 which I believe because Jeruzalem was conquered in 1098.

[Brenus]

“the test for real Dutchness is eating a raw herring with chopped onions and a pickle, in one go - dangle it above your head, let it slide in, then bite it off just before the tail.” I did it: nothing special to report.

I worked for a Dutch Charities for few years. It was a mixture of efficiency, greed, almost-professionalism and family business…
To negotiate (or report) contracts with Dutch Foreign Ministry (or Embassy) was always nice and almost informal. Contact with the ambassadors (in all countries) are easy, (unlike with the French) similar with the US personal. Changing budget line is possible if you stay within the budget, and they are very reasonable people.
Side comment, the only reasonable comments during NATO bombing campaign I heard were on a Dutch Channel.
In fact the Dutch TV was the only channel where opponents to this war were heard without been mocked or/and ridiculed…
The Dutch proud themselves about to be pragmatic and efficient (at least the one I worked with). They were nice people and I mostly enjoyed working with them.
We never came real friends, but it never happened in Charities any way (turn-over).

And here comes the dark side.
Their acceptance of “what other do until it doesn’t hurt me” is as well called indifference or hypocrisy. Prostitution and drugs are all right if it is not their children doing or using it.
A friend of mine working The Hague Tribunal suffered a lot there of loneliness.
She ended to think that all this so-called liberalism is in fact a cover for a superb selfishness and egocentricity excluding any empathy for the others.
Pragmatism can lead to do things absolutely atrocious (if we can’t do something about it, just do it) as illustrated but the deportation of the Jews of Amsterdam.
The real Politic / pragmatism can be easily turned in a nasty way.

[Fragony]

And here comes the dark side.
Their acceptance of “what other do until it doesn’t hurt me” is as well called indifference or hypocrisy. Prostitution and drugs are all right if it is not their children doing or using it.
A friend of mine working The Hague Tribunal suffered a lot there of loneliness.
She ended to think that all this so-called liberalism is in fact a cover for a superb selfishness and egocentricity excluding any empathy for the others.

But of course, what's in a word, when you tolerate something you allow something you don't agree with. Nothing hypocritical about it, do what you want as long as it doesn't affect me. Consequences of a nanny state people become selfish. I am from the countryside, if your house burns down and you aren't properly insured don't be surprised if the community collected enough money to build you a new one. In the city's it is different.

[Adrian II]

But I don't get your point

Quite. My point is that there is no 'we', no collective that spans centuries. You and I are connected to our ancestors only in the genealogical sense.

I hate to disappoint you, Fragony, but you and I never had an empire. Nor did you and I fight at Waterloo, deport Jews for the nazi's, or rescue victims of the 1956 flooding disaster in the province of Zeeland.

(..) because Jeruzalem was conquered in 1098.

Tsk tsk

[Fragony]

Quite. My point is that there is no 'we', no collective that spans centuries. You and I are connected to our ancestors only in the genealogical sense.

I hate to disappoint you, Fragony, but you and I never had an empire. Nor did you and I fight at Waterloo, deport Jews for the nazi's, or rescue victims of the 1956 flooding disaster in the province of Zeeland.

Tsk tsk

Dangit 1099 it is. Again don't get your point, I just say there is such a thing as a dutch identity. You claim there is no such thing? That would get us somewhere.

[Adrian II]

Dangit 1099 it is. Again don't get your point, I just say there is such a thing as a dutch identity. You claim there is no such thing? That would get us somewhere.

The joke is that people always claim the glorious aspects of the national past as 'theirs' and discard the rest. Is the seventeenth century Dutch trade empire in my genes? Then so is the illiterate peasantry of the province of Drenthe, or the colonial massacres like Rawagade, or the collaboration with the nazi's between 1940 and 1945.

[Fragony]

The joke is that people always claim the glorious aspects of the national past as 'theirs' and discard the rest. Is the seventeenth century Dutch trade empire in my genes? Then so is the illiterate peasantry of the province of Drenthe, or the colonial massacres like Rawagade, or the collaboration with the nazi's between 1940 and 1945.

So if I get things straight acknowledging that the dutch did pretty well in the past is really one step away from channeling Hitler? That does make sense in a rather nonsensical sort of way.

[InsaneApache]

The joke is that people always claim the glorious aspects of the national past as 'theirs' and discard the rest. Is the seventeenth century Dutch trade empire in my genes? Then so is the illiterate peasantry of the province of Drenthe, or the colonial massacres like Rawagade, or the collaboration with the nazi's between 1940 and 1945.

I seem to recall a general strike being called over the forced deportation of the Jews. The only occupied country to engage in direct action against that edict of the Third Reich. (and largely get away with it!) I'd be righty proud of that if I was a Dutchman.

Please carry on gentlemen.

[Fragony]

No dutchman heard of that one and those that do know it's not-done to bring up, when it comes to the dutch in WW2 believing is not enough you have to know we collaborated and couldn't wait to hand over these nosy fella's. Lest we never forget

[InsaneApache]

I remember it from the excellent World at War produced back in the '70s. I'm now furiously looking for a link to back me up.

[Fragony]

I remember it from the excellent World at War produced back in the '70s. I'm now furiously looking for a link to back me up.

The february strike http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/February_strike

[InsaneApache]

The strike was set for February 25, a Tuesday. The Communists particularly wanted the participation of the city's municipal workers, especially the Amsterdam's streetcar conductors and drivers. The absence of streetcars, so it was thought, would be particularly dramatic. There was some hesitation among the streetcar employees---but on the day of the strike many of the streetcars never left the sheds and many of those which did, returned after their first run. By 12:00 not a single streetcar was running in Amsterdam. By day's end nearly 50% of all municipal employees had gone on strike. In turn, they were joined by many of Amsterdam's metal and shipyard workers. The strike spread among white and blue collar Large crowds assembled in the streets of Amsterdam. The Dutch police undertook no serious action against the strikers.

http://www-lib.usc.edu/~anthonya/war/febstrik.htm

Thanks Fragony.

[Fragony]

Kinda odd that nothing is to be found of this quite unique event in dutch schoolbooks, too busy making up stories of Marroccan soldiers who drowned near Dunkerk and washed ashore fought of 8 panzerdevisions armed with nothing other then their ancestral daggers and a strong desire for peace.

[InsaneApache]

So it's not taught in schools anymore? Strange. When I first met my erstwhile friend and colleague, I jokingly referred to the Dutch Waffen SS divisions recruited in The Netherlands. (The old 'don't mention the war' ploy ) and he got quite upset.

He reminded me of the February strike, which I'd forgotten about. I felt a right tit at the time, I'll never forget the look of hurt and anguish on his face, that's why I remember it to this day.

Although the Danes did something similar when they spirited the Jews across to Sweden on one night, going on strike in Nazi occupied territories was a brave thing to do.

[Fragony]

So it's not taught in schools anymore? Strange.

Learned about it a few years ago. You have to take into consideration that dutch schools are run by social democrats, bit like labour but radicalised. Could be that it was tought but I mostly remember how I was to educate my parents about acid rain. Take notice on how the mind of my buddy AdrianII instantly switches to the holocaust when confronted with national achievements.

[JR-]

sounds very like the British educational establishment, populated by the left wing in general, with the teaching unions staffed by people who still regard Maggie as the devil incarnate to this day!

[Fragony]

sounds very like the British educational establishment, populated by the left wing in general, with the teaching unions staffed by people who still regard Maggie as the devil incarnate to this day!

Thank god for that, the english are so intend on being the biggest idiots in Europe that they forced us to stop trying there is just no way to compete for even the most willing surface-to-air kamikazi pilot.

[Husar]

The joke is that people always claim the glorious aspects of the national past as 'theirs' and discard the rest.

Yes, I remember how I united Germany, beat france several times and then resisted Hitler, man, I'm so proud of myself.
Well, to a certain degree I do identify myself with all that, but it is a very low degree and nothing to be proud of myself, just that my ancestors in a wider sense did some cool things and I may have a similar culture which may or may not enable myself to do cool things as well, or not.
Maybe better would be to say I'm proud of some things my dad did and here it makes more sense because I have inherited some of his traits etc. so I can imagine myself being a bit like him. Actually my humor is almost a copy of his.

Oh and to come back to the original topic, I am also a bit proud to be half dutch (you know, my dad), that makes me only half a Nazi and I hope it gives me some dutch coolness.

[Louis VI the Fat]

February Strike

Persistent myth and propaganda, I cry!

Well, there was a strike, but it was neither very large nor effective. Honour to whom honour is due of course, but this single strike, and some small groups of brave men and women, I am afraid, seems to be the grand total of Dutch resistance. Yet the benign Dutch war image has held on for over sixty years, internationally and in the Netherlands. This, despite the fact that in all of the occupied countries, nowhere were more Jews murdered than in the Netherlands. Historians have long since unmasked the great discrepancy between national myth and cold, hard fact:

The myth that the great majority of the Dutch people had a highly positive attitude toward the Jews during World War II, identified with their suffering, and took risks to help them has gradually been unmasked in The Netherlands itself over the past decades. The historian Nanda van der Zee summed this up in 1997: "The vain national self-image of the most tolerant people on earth, which had assisted its Jewish fellow-citizens so 'charitably,' was corroded in the 1960s when another generation born after the war started to ask questions."

Israeli historian Joel Fishman has also refuted a follow-up myth. He has referred to the treatment of the Dutch Jews in the postwar years by the country's democratically chosen government. The internationally known Dutch political scientist Arent Lijphart wrote that Holland "has no minorities that are disfranchised, deprived of their civil liberties, or subject to systematic discrimination." Fishman has retorted that Lijphart's statement could only be true if "the Jews in The Netherlands counted for absolutely nothing, and their history was of no consequence."

Internationally, the benign Dutch war image has held on for over fifty years. In its introduction to The Netherlands, the 1999 Jewish Chronicle Travel Guide still writes: "the Germans transported 100,000 [Jews] to death camps in Poland, but the local population tended to behave sympathetically towards their Jewish neighbors, hiding many."

Israel, where at least the authorities should know better, is no exception. One former Israeli ambassador to The Netherlands told this author that he regularly corrected draft speeches of visiting high-ranking Israeli politicians, to prevent them from thanking the Dutch for their "extraordinary efforts" for the Jews during World War II without mentioning the substantial collaboration with the Nazis.



Why Were So Many Dutch Jews Killed?
The percentage of Jews from The Netherlands murdered by the Germans and their associates in World War II was higher than in any other Western European country.

[article continues in link]

[Adrian II]

So if I get things straight acknowledging that the dutch did pretty well in the past is really one step away from channeling Hitler?

This is known as a non sequitur.

The Danes were the only occupied people that managed to oppose the deportation of their Jewish citizens with any success. Although that episode, too, is surrounded with myths, it is at least something to write home about.

I have no time for Europeans who boast about 'their' war past or belittle that of others. That's usually just crap meant to serve present-day purposes.