Explaining the Dutch

[Nentsia]

I feel like writing about history a bit and this forum gives me an excuse to tell you a bit about Dutch history, since many here are from the US or some other semi-important country. This gives me an excuse to tell you about the history of a country that's not important, but thinks it is anyway. For this opening post I've ranted a bit about what everyone needs to know about Dutch history before you can get into the more detailed stuff, but next time I want to ramble about how the Netherlands went from being a Europoor backwater in the 1900's, to being one of the most prosperous European countries by the 1960's and beyond.

Before we start...Understanding Dutch history in a nutshell

Some of the basics must be explained here so this will be a boring number of facts about Dutch history before the 1900's. Contrary to popular belief, national myths, and what the Dutch Ministry of Education tells the students - the founder of this country was not ''William of Orange'' but Napoleon Bonaparte. Napoleon literally founded the Kingdom of the Netherlands, and put his brother on the throne. Prior to that it had been the ''Batavian Republic'', which was a regime under French occupation that was responsible for bringing the fruits of the French revolution with an iron fist under the local despot Rutger-Jan Schimmelpenninck (I challenge you all to pronounce that). The so-called ''Patriots'' seized power as the French troops occupied the country in the 1790's and proclaimed a republic - modelled both on the French Revolution and the American one. From this era dates our first constitution, although the Ministry of Education and national myth holds that it was in 1848 that we got our constitution (so they can ignore the fact that constitutionalism in this country was one of the fruits of foreign occupation, a coup d'etat, and despotism). History doesn't have to be complex at all.

Show ContentDictator of the Dutch:

So what existed prior to the 1790's and Napoleonic rule then? NOTHING. I kid. There existed what could be considered a confederation - often called the Dutch Republic, which is an anachronistic name - centered around the province of Holland, whose capital was Amsterdam. The ''United Provinces'', as the contemporary name was, was far from a single country. Each ''province'' was sovereign, independent, and cultural differences were vast. The southern provinces were Catholic, had a lot more ties to the other Flemish regions now considered Belgium, and for a long time didn't even belong to the ''Dutch Republic''. The Eastern provinces were piss poor, inhabited by a bunch of protestant gentry - who continue to own farms and castles in the region to this day. Further to the east, in what is now Germany, the Princes of Orange owned some territories as well. The northern provinces consisted mostly of farmers and fishermen.

The West consisted mostly of Holland and Zeeland. They were heavily into commerce and trade (the land on which they lived was created by the Dutch out of lakes, and so not very fertile for farming). The people who lived there were incredibly Calvinist (a radical branch of protestantism), or they were Arminians (a less radical form of Calvinism which is a radical branch of Protestantism... follow me?). The conflict between Arminians and Counter-Arminians ran so high that Prince Maurice of Orange (Counter-Arminian) led a coup d'etat against the Arminians and executed famous Dutch figures like Johan van Oldenbarnevelt (who concluded a crucial peace treaty with the Spanish while being in a disadvantaged position in 1609). Hugo Grotius (Dutch name = De Groot) was also arrested. He was one of the biggest philosophers in history in the area of Law and International Law - especially concerning the invention of ''International Waters''. Grotius climbed into his book case however, and some insiders used that to smuggle him out of the fortress where he was being held.

Politics in Holland, aside from religious quarrels, was divided along political lines as well. The merchant elites - at the same time also the religious elite - backed the policies of the ''Raadpensionaris'', which today roughly translates to the State Treasurer. The State Treasurer of Holland held the purse of the richest province, and Holland alone contributed to about 90% of the budget of the United Provinces as a whole. Most of that budget was used to fund wars and armies. Holland wanted to invest in the navy, to protect its merchant interests at sea. The eastern and southern provinces backed the line of the Prince of Orange, who favored spending more on land armies to defend ourselves against that lunatic in France and the Spanish. Holland considered England to be its mortal enemy, while the other provinces saw France as the biggest threat - and even considered Protestant England to be a potential ally. The Prince of Orange couldn't just force his will through however. He was merely a Prince of Orange - some town in France - and every province had a position of ''Stadhouder'', meaning Keeper of the City, a military commander. By tradition, every Province elected the Prince of Orange to that position. To make it more complex for you: not all provinces agreed on who was the true Prince of Orange and they ended up electing different people. Sometimes they elected no one at all (Stadholder-less periods). The State treasurer in his turn got into trouble in 1672. When, during a Stadholder-less era, the Holland State treasurer Johan de Witt conducted a pro-French and anti-English policy. But the French were a growing threat under Louis XIV, so he also concluded a treaty with the English against the French. When the French got wind of it, they bribed both the English and German principalities to start a war against the Provinces. When the English fleet arrived in 1672, the French king and German Bishops declared war as well. Suddenly, the future existence of the country was at stake.

Show ContentLouis XIV crossing the Rhine:

Feeling betrayed, an angry mob formed in Amsterdam and dragged Johan de Witt and his brother onto the streets where they beat them to death, lynched them, and then sold their organs as trophies. Recent historical research has brought up more evidence that the angry mob and lynching wasn't as spontaneous as the national myth long made us believe, and that it was an orchestrated affair by the Prince of Orange, William III, who used the war and the death of Johan de Witt to rise to dominance. He later also became king of England and formed an international coalition against France.

Show ContentDe Witt Lynching:

So when William, Prince of Orange, together with a bunch of nobles from the Spanish-Dutch provinces announced a noble revolt in the 1560's against the Habsburg rulers, the Dutch ministry of education will claim this as the founding myth of the Netherlands. Therefore, William of Orange's Protestant battle cry is now the Dutch anthem - the oldest in the world, and nobody even understands the lyrics (''The King of Spain, I have always honored, I am a Prince of Germannic Blood''). Or they will refer to the 1579 Treaty of Utrecht, when basically a few provinces (Utrecht and Holland most notably) formed a formal alliance in international affairs. Its the beginning of the United Provinces, but not of the Netherlands as a country. The divisions (linguistic, political, religious) within such a small territory are easily explained by its geography: The Western parts have remained underpopulated until the 15th century due to constant flooding. The South has been under constant influences from the Flemish and the Burgundians. The East has been the hunting ground of German Lords. This country is the cultural drain well of Western Europe. Dutch language too consists mostly of words that have German origin, followed by a lot of words with English origin, and then French, Latin and Greek influences.

This is also partly the reason why political nationalism in the Netherlands has historically been weak - and almost absent. First of all the Dutch are unsure about what aspect of Dutch culture is entirely unique to the Dutch. Usually the language is still being seen as a source of pride and cultural uniqueness to nationalists - who will often promote the unification of Dutch speakers by annexing Flanders (Belgium) and they want to stand up for the endangered Afrikaans language in South Africa, with is a Dutch language. Recent succesful Nationalist movements in politics (Fortuyn Revolt of 2002 and Geert Wilders nowadays) continue to stress the language problem with immigration. Dutch history also doesn't work well for Dutch nationalists, because our one Golden era (1602 - 1790's) wasn't really that glorious from a political view. It's been mostly associated with oligarchy, commerce, and material wealth - not exactly the things that nationalists like to focus on. The rest of our history we've been a European backwater. Not much glory there either.

That brings me to the second reason why Dutch nationalism has been weak, and to this day people will start laughing if you mention ''Dutch'' and ''Nationalist'' in the same sentence. When the Netherlands was actually founded as a country, in the 1790's, our founding-father-French-Puppet-Despot Schimmelpenninck described the new republic as an enlightened republic, but, also a ''small country''. The Dutch had a small country in relation to France, or England, or Austria. But... the Dutch could still be a great country by leading by example. Schimmelpenninck, the enlightened despot that he was, envisioned the Netherlands as a shining light of progress and freedom in Europe. Later 19th century historians have picked up this narrative and have perpetuated this idea that we, the Dutch, may be small and not so powerful, but we are morally right and therefore others will sooner or later listen to us anyway. This is the very essence of national myth-making: inventing a purpose for the existence of the country, and to give the people a reason to be loyal to it. What is the purpose of this new country, the Netherlands: moral leadership in the world. It continues to be the cornerstone of Dutch foreign policy to this day. It is related to that other myth, the Dutch being very ''tolerant''. This myth has been partly rooted in history, because in the 17th century this was a safe heaven for Portuguese Jews, French Hugenots, free printing - and thus a whole batch of religious and philosophical radicals - and although officially a Protestant country, Catholics were ''tolerated'' in the sense that they were allowed to practice their religion behind closed doors. We still have houses in Amsterdam that look like any other building, but inside its a cathedral. In the 19th and 20th century, this tolerance was used to consolidate the Dutch self-perception as being morally superior to other countries.

As a consequence however, when the entire Dutch national identity is resting upon the notion of being a weak and small country, political nationalism will find difficulty in finding many supporters because it contradicts the way that the population has been taught to think of itself and its country. On top of that, Dutch society - throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries - continued to be so divided and segmented along religious, regional, and political lines that there was no room for nationalist movements. By the 1900's this country entered a completely segmented stage: protestants voted for protestant politicians, read protestant newspapers, listened to protestant radio, visited protestant sports clubs, worked for protestant-owned businesses, sent their children to protestant schools, and joined protestant labor unions. The same goes for Catholics. But it wasn't just religion. The Liberals developed their own autonomous sphere. The Liberals voted VVD, they ran their own newspapers, associations, social events, etc. This group roughly played the quivalent of the ''bourgeoisie'' or upper middle class - but keep in mind all segments cut across class lines. The Liberals concentrated themselves of course in Holland - historically the province of the wealthy, the businessmen. To this day the Dutch elite lives in luxurious homes around The Hague. Take the train to The Hague and you'll notice immediately its much cleaner than trains elsewhere in the country. The rich take good care of themselves.

The Socialists emerged by the 1870's at earliest, but they consolidated their position after 1917 when universal suffrage had been introduced. They drew their support from the working classes (mainly dock workers and railway workers, the miners were working in the Catholic south and loyal to the catholic parties and associations). The Social Democrats voted Social Democrat, they read socialist newspapers, listened to Socialist radio, did not go to church, and they played football - rather than going to one of those Liberal rich boys tennis clubs.

Division had not only existed in the 17th century and 1900's. After Napoleon's defeat, the English thought it was a good idea to randomly merge the Belgians, Luxemburg and Netherlands together into a single ''United Kingdom of the Netherlands'', headed by a distant relative of the Princes of Orange, who as a German prince without a sovereign territory was desperate to rule some country. So the Kingdom was ruled, from Brussels and the Hague, by a restless autocrat who nearly bankrupted the country. Catholics and Liberals particularly resented this King - and these happened to coincide with Belgium. They revolted in 1830. The King sent his troops, even the Russian Tsar planned to dispatch some Cossacks (the Dutch heir was married to the Tsar's sister), had it not been for the Polish Uprising that began a few months later. The English forced the Dutch to accept the loss of Belgium finally in 1839, upon which the King abdicated. His heir, William II, was a Napoleonic war hero, a homosexual, and his reign was disturbed by waves of revolutions throughout Europe. The loss of Belgium, also meant a decisive blow to the idea of a ''Greater Netherlands'' and reinforced the public view of the Netherlands being a small and powerless country.

Show ContentKing William II:

The threat of revolution made the William II less hostile to proposals for a constitution by the Dutch Liberals, although when no revolution occurred here in 1848 he began to pull back again. He was probably blackmailed into accepting a constitution anyway, through his homosexual relationships, He died a year later. The adoption of a liberal constitution, without revolution, further reinforced a belief among Dutch politicians that the Netherlands - despite being small - could play a guiding role in Europe and lead by example. Dutch foreign policy became one of neutrality, choosing the moral high-ground while Germans, Russians, French, Ottomans and British quarrelled in Europe. When World War One broke out, the Netherlands - despite overwhelming sympathy for Germany - declared neutrality as well and opened its borders for millions of Belgian refugees. In a similar fashion, the Dutch government offered residence to Kaiser Wilhelm II when he was deposed in Germany in 1918. Despite international sanctions imposed on the Netherlands, as everyone wanted to put him on trial for being a war criminal, Kaiser Wilhelm resided here until his death in 1941.

This neutrality had also brought the Peace conferences to The Hague in the 1900's as international fears of war continued to grow. Tsar Nicholas II of Russia, frightened of war after reading some detailed predictions of what modern warfare could do, took the initiative. It led to the creation of the International Court of Arbitration, and after WWII also got the International Court of Justice. Later the Hague also received the International Criminal Court, and has become the center of international law.

Especially amidst the Russian Revolution (and a failed attempt to imitate it here in 1919) and the rise of Fascism in Italy and Nazism in Germany, Dutch politicians began to more and more assert the democratic, tolerant, and morally superior nature of the Netherlands. A direct line is often drawn between the tolerant, ''peaceful'', Dutch merchant republic of the 17th century, the peaceful manner in which a constitution was adopted in 1848, and the stable democratic ''consensus-seeking'' political culture that emerged between Protestants, Catholics, Liberals and Socialists after 1917. And this inherent democratic culture that has supposedly existed since time immemorial means that the Netherlands has the ''responsibility'' in the world to show all the savages how to be a civilized country.