Nobody really cares about Holland (and that is OK!)
Dutch media like to lament about the bad press Holland (or The Netherlands) is generating for itself with the recent election results and the 'loss of our tradition of tolerance' after the last few Balkenende (I lost count how many) governments changed the tone in the immigration and 'integration' debate. And some animal rights activist decided to commit the first political murder in a couple of hundred of years... and some bearded idiot decided to show he was really irritated by a columnist by shooting him and trying to cut his head of (showing that a true believer can be hurt...so much for the all powerfull and protecting god). Never mind the pro-European stance of old. That is rather moribund after the clear 'No' against the European Constitution. "Anything goes" is out the window and "adapt to the Dutch average or leave" the new slogan, according to the disappointed cosmopolitan scene.
Another lament of late is that politicians of the parties in the middle of the spectrum seem to pander to the base voices of those that assert themselves through sites such as GeenStijl (.nl) or the Telegraaf (allways a rather suspect source to most Dutch with any education)... and the old fashioned, small-world views of the Christian politicians seem to make a creeping comeback .... threatening all that liberals fought for the last several decades (they cosmopolitans may have a point there... but should not forget that not all the sixties and seventies brought was utter bliss to all.... some of the victims of society made their own victims... as mr Dalrymple in England likes to point out)
Furthermore it seems the Dutch - or at least the politicians in power- have lost their zeal for telling the rest of the world how to lead their lives and to lead by example on issues such as abortion, international law, the environment and fair trade.
The 'cosmopolitan Dutch' complain that the others are too inward looking, have stopped caring about the world... only care about the issues confronting Dutch society from within. The love to call the others 'very engrossed in staring at their own belly button ('navel') '. Interestingly these people do seem to think that the rest of the world is really bewildered by the latest Dutch antics such as voting against the European Constitution - as well they should have... otherwise the Danes and English would have, amongst others - 'we are seen as untrustworthy partners'. Wild swings in election results 'Dutch become unpredictable'... to the outside world. Well... maybe. But let us be honest. Do international media actually report on the Dutch that much? Well: no. Being a regular reader of both The Economist and the Financial Times I should know by now (I stopped reading Dutch broadsheets a while ago. It saves a lot of time and anguish and therefore wasn't worth the subscriptions).
Only the Dutch really think the others care.
The rest of the world knows better. "The who?".
A few weeks ago it seemed some Dutch politicians found a new way of debasing trust in democracy when a prominent minister refused to abide by an edict of parliament and also refused to resign... and her party backed her and the other still governing party agreed. Pundits in Holland went wild: "we are the laughing stock of the world".
Maybe we should be. But... the world is a big place. And I can tell you this much.. the world was paying attention to other things....
How can the Dutch (government) be a laughing stock when mr Bush over on Pennsylvania Avenue no. 1600 keeps on adding to his unbroken record for taking 'government decisions for which even the most partisan supporter cannot find arguments' - I tried for a long time. I like debate... so I was naturally attracted to trying to defend some of Bush's decisions - The position has already been taken! Well... maybe laughing stock is not the proper term. To many the antics of Bush jr cs. are anything but funny.
How can the Dutch be even remotely close to the center of world attention in a period when the British decide rather openly to stop investigating a rather awkward bribery investigation into a very lucrative armaments deal between British Aerospace (currently calling itself BAE Systems) and Saudi Arabia of which to many details are already known to the public to ever make it 'go away'?
When the French are still incapable of reforming their insiders versus outsiders society?
When the Italians have a government that has to try every page out of the 'book of allowed but frowned upon fiscal tricks' to get her deficit below the holy 3% ceiling of the Maastricht Treaty and the Growth Stability Pact (... yes... a rather arbitrary ceiling... it should have been much stricter for most countries... if all factors had been included in the analysis... another little thing many 'pundits' just do not seem able to grasp).
And that is just what is happing in the more civilized part of the world. In the other corners (and... a lot of people may get upset by the fact that I group the following countries among the uncivilized... even given the fact that many of these had settled, cultured societies well before Western Europe got anywhere... or her settlers reached American shores)...
In Iran some git was trying to have a conference to cast a critical eye on what we really know about the 'best document great crime in history'. Mr Amenijihad... I have simple question... what happened to all the (Dutch, jewish) schoolgoing children that were present in pictures in 1939...... and couldn't ever be photographed after 1945? Can you 'account for the wholes'?
In North Korea people kept on starving while the reportedly very wealthy leader kept playing for time and have his state put her resources into developing more nuclear devices to threaten the neighbours and upset the Americans.
In Russia the government kept on blackmailing her neighbours into submission by threatening to withhold gas supplies while at the same time ripping up some contracts with western oil companies (which may have been defensible if one knows the terms of the contracts.. and compares these to the international norm).
In Iraq some assholes kept on 'fighting the imperialist opressors'... by blowing up their kin which just happened to believe that some Ali was the proper heir to mr M.
In Palestine factions decided that shooting at eachother was a good way to stay exercised while the wall was preventing them from fighting Israel with suicide attacks (and Israel brazenly kept on building a wall on land that was definitely not hers... adding insult to the injury it already represents to the 'Arab world'... or at least the so-called 'Palestinians'... themselves a rather recent invention if one consults British sources).
In Venezuela mr. Chavez kept on blowing precious oil revenues on pet projects, many of which seem to revolve around irritating the United States government by supporting regimes beyond the pale to nearly every other civilized government in the world.
In Sudan... well... let us not dwell on that blighted country. Suffice to say that the Arab world is less than hurt by the suffering of hundreds of thousands of refugees (and those already dead) in Darfur than the publication of some cartoons.
The list could be lengthened... but I think my point has already come across... so I'll leave it at that.
Even those Dutch that complain about the rest being to inward looking... make the mistake of thinking that the rest of the world knows, notices or cares about what the Dutch do or think.....
But then: what human can live with the thought that one only really lives in once's own eyes not in that of all the other possible beholders?
It ain't easy to have been born in a small country if one likes to live a big life in the global limelight....
Another lament of late is that politicians of the parties in the middle of the spectrum seem to pander to the base voices of those that assert themselves through sites such as GeenStijl (.nl) or the Telegraaf (allways a rather suspect source to most Dutch with any education)... and the old fashioned, small-world views of the Christian politicians seem to make a creeping comeback .... threatening all that liberals fought for the last several decades (they cosmopolitans may have a point there... but should not forget that not all the sixties and seventies brought was utter bliss to all.... some of the victims of society made their own victims... as mr Dalrymple in England likes to point out)
Furthermore it seems the Dutch - or at least the politicians in power- have lost their zeal for telling the rest of the world how to lead their lives and to lead by example on issues such as abortion, international law, the environment and fair trade.
The 'cosmopolitan Dutch' complain that the others are too inward looking, have stopped caring about the world... only care about the issues confronting Dutch society from within. The love to call the others 'very engrossed in staring at their own belly button ('navel') '. Interestingly these people do seem to think that the rest of the world is really bewildered by the latest Dutch antics such as voting against the European Constitution - as well they should have... otherwise the Danes and English would have, amongst others - 'we are seen as untrustworthy partners'. Wild swings in election results 'Dutch become unpredictable'... to the outside world. Well... maybe. But let us be honest. Do international media actually report on the Dutch that much? Well: no. Being a regular reader of both The Economist and the Financial Times I should know by now (I stopped reading Dutch broadsheets a while ago. It saves a lot of time and anguish and therefore wasn't worth the subscriptions).
Only the Dutch really think the others care.
The rest of the world knows better. "The who?".
A few weeks ago it seemed some Dutch politicians found a new way of debasing trust in democracy when a prominent minister refused to abide by an edict of parliament and also refused to resign... and her party backed her and the other still governing party agreed. Pundits in Holland went wild: "we are the laughing stock of the world".
Maybe we should be. But... the world is a big place. And I can tell you this much.. the world was paying attention to other things....
How can the Dutch (government) be a laughing stock when mr Bush over on Pennsylvania Avenue no. 1600 keeps on adding to his unbroken record for taking 'government decisions for which even the most partisan supporter cannot find arguments' - I tried for a long time. I like debate... so I was naturally attracted to trying to defend some of Bush's decisions - The position has already been taken! Well... maybe laughing stock is not the proper term. To many the antics of Bush jr cs. are anything but funny.
How can the Dutch be even remotely close to the center of world attention in a period when the British decide rather openly to stop investigating a rather awkward bribery investigation into a very lucrative armaments deal between British Aerospace (currently calling itself BAE Systems) and Saudi Arabia of which to many details are already known to the public to ever make it 'go away'?
When the French are still incapable of reforming their insiders versus outsiders society?
When the Italians have a government that has to try every page out of the 'book of allowed but frowned upon fiscal tricks' to get her deficit below the holy 3% ceiling of the Maastricht Treaty and the Growth Stability Pact (... yes... a rather arbitrary ceiling... it should have been much stricter for most countries... if all factors had been included in the analysis... another little thing many 'pundits' just do not seem able to grasp).
And that is just what is happing in the more civilized part of the world. In the other corners (and... a lot of people may get upset by the fact that I group the following countries among the uncivilized... even given the fact that many of these had settled, cultured societies well before Western Europe got anywhere... or her settlers reached American shores)...
In Iran some git was trying to have a conference to cast a critical eye on what we really know about the 'best document great crime in history'. Mr Amenijihad... I have simple question... what happened to all the (Dutch, jewish) schoolgoing children that were present in pictures in 1939...... and couldn't ever be photographed after 1945? Can you 'account for the wholes'?
In North Korea people kept on starving while the reportedly very wealthy leader kept playing for time and have his state put her resources into developing more nuclear devices to threaten the neighbours and upset the Americans.
In Russia the government kept on blackmailing her neighbours into submission by threatening to withhold gas supplies while at the same time ripping up some contracts with western oil companies (which may have been defensible if one knows the terms of the contracts.. and compares these to the international norm).
In Iraq some assholes kept on 'fighting the imperialist opressors'... by blowing up their kin which just happened to believe that some Ali was the proper heir to mr M.
In Palestine factions decided that shooting at eachother was a good way to stay exercised while the wall was preventing them from fighting Israel with suicide attacks (and Israel brazenly kept on building a wall on land that was definitely not hers... adding insult to the injury it already represents to the 'Arab world'... or at least the so-called 'Palestinians'... themselves a rather recent invention if one consults British sources).
In Venezuela mr. Chavez kept on blowing precious oil revenues on pet projects, many of which seem to revolve around irritating the United States government by supporting regimes beyond the pale to nearly every other civilized government in the world.
In Sudan... well... let us not dwell on that blighted country. Suffice to say that the Arab world is less than hurt by the suffering of hundreds of thousands of refugees (and those already dead) in Darfur than the publication of some cartoons.
The list could be lengthened... but I think my point has already come across... so I'll leave it at that.
Even those Dutch that complain about the rest being to inward looking... make the mistake of thinking that the rest of the world knows, notices or cares about what the Dutch do or think.....
But then: what human can live with the thought that one only really lives in once's own eyes not in that of all the other possible beholders?
It ain't easy to have been born in a small country if one likes to live a big life in the global limelight....
Labels: Dutch politics, liberal values, media attention, world politics
posted by Ruben Smit @ 12/30/2006 08:53:00 PM
3 Comments
