Michael Burns on Dutch Encounters

Als ik zou willen dat je het begreep, had ik het wel beter uitgelegd. If I wanted you to understand, I would have explained it better. - Johan Cruyff

I must confess that I have never visited the country, but after a lively series of presentations and discussions at the famous De Hems bar in Chinatown on Wednesday 1 July, I became more acquainted with Dutch culture and the stereotypes that surround it. It is not easy to dissect an entire nation, its people, its traditions, its truths and its myths over the course of one evening, but the speakers - Nick Piercey, Aimée Hardy, Gail Zuckerwise, Victoria Hall and Joost Röselaers - entertainingly offered some food for thought. And not just stroopwafels, I hasten to add, although they were delicious. Yet, like a Mondriaan composition, the more clear black lines you draw through the debate, the more complex you make it.

What do I mean by that? Well, let us use me as an example. I am British. Brits are overly polite, reserved and like to complain about the weather. I am also Scottish. Scots are dour, canny and like to complain about the weather. I am also from Glasgow. Glaswegians are very friendly, very violent and like to complain about the weather. These things may all be true about me, or they may not. They may apply to my character sometimes, or never. Such geography-based stereotypes may exist because the people are naturally inclined in that way, or the awareness of the stereotypes may instead inform the subconscious behaviours of the population. Either way, by squaring off an area on the map and colouring it uniformly red while another remains blue, despite the obvious diversity that exists within any group of people, we will end up with more questions than we have answers, as we inevitably did over the course of this Centre for Low Countries Studies event.

 

Yet for all that, there are some unquestionably true Dutch cultural stereotypes that resonate far and wide. The first topic of discussion was the modern image of the Hollander on his or her bike. This is entirely understandable, of course, and does not really need to be explained better: Holland is a fairly small, densely populated country with very flat terrain. The bike is a highly efficient and ecologically-sustainable vehicle over short distances. Far more people use bicycles as their primary mode of transport here than almost any other country. City planners and transport ministers worldwide, looking to increase bike usage or improve their cycling infrastructure, flock to the Netherlands for inspiration. So despite the occasional Amsterdam pedestrian/cyclist confrontation - an experience shared by speaker Nick Piercey and many of the audience at De Hems! - I think we can write this one up as an orange success story.

The second and third subjects covered, Dutch politics in the 21st century and the Amsterdam Rosse Buurt (Red Light District), share the core dichotomy that I alluded to at the beginning of this blog. That dichotomy is, of course, the two seemingly contrasting personalities that exist in common perceptions of Holland. The political debate, put forward by Aimée Hardy, centred around two key figures, politician Pim Fortuyn and filmmaker Theo van Gogh, both assassinated in the early 2000s and both known for holding at once strong socially-liberal but sincere anti-Islamic sentiments. This is not an uncommon stance in the Netherlands, yet in the UK we tend to associate intolerance of foreign cultures with the hard right, not the soft centre.

The Red Light District is one of the most recognizable symbols of Dutch culture, but during Gail Zuckerwise's talk we discovered that the area divides opinion among Amsterdammers, while also compelling commentators to hold seemingly contradictory views on it. On the one hand, it is a strong declaration of the Dutch Way: a modern, proactive and accepting approach to an issue most other societies either pretend doesn't exist or tackle with extremely punitive measures. 

It is also a major tourist draw, bringing investment to the local economy and providing a unique selling point in a crowded marketplace that includes global cities like London and Paris. On the other hand, it is a loud and tacky place, perhaps enticing a 'less desirable' category of tourist. We learned that the Red Light District has more recently begun to resemble a Red Light District-themed amusement park, with 'sex museums' and kitschy visitor attractions: hardly the authentic, raw, edgy walk on the wild side you might imagine it to be. The other problem is the high volume of gangsters and human-traffickers operating in this part of town. The legalisation of prostitution in 2000 and continuing regulation by the city authorities has served to combat some of the criminal elements. For the record, the reaction in the audience at De Hems was generally unfavourable towards the Red Light District, but not all for the same reasons. The scarlet windows of De Wallen, while beckoning you in, continue to reflect a complicated and not entirely consistent Dutch cultural landscape.

If we had to this point focussed on how outsiders see the Dutch, what then do they see of themselves when they look upon that reflection? Victoria Hall gave some insight into intra-national stereotypes, particularly the association of the southern Catholic areas of Limburg and Brabant with the fun-loving Carnaval culture, which seems to clash with the more puritanical Calvinistic mainstream. 

This was followed up and very neatly rounded off by Joost Röselaers, minister of the Dutch Church of London, who talked about the directness for which the Dutch are renowned. Often sounding rude to the untrained British ear, Röselaers explained the correlation between this attitude and the structure of Christianity in Holland. With the Protestant reforms, the prevailing idea was that there were to be no more middlemen, in the form of the hierarchical clergy of Catholicism, between God and congregation. Having a closer, more personal connection with the Lord meant that you could have nothing to hide from Him. It then followed that you should have nothing to hide from your fellow man either, beginning a tradition of blunt Dutch honesty that seems to continue to this day. The contrast between this and the ambiguous nature of British manners was highlighted by an amusing anecdote the minister told us about different reactions of his organists when they did not like his choice of music. While the Dutchman had no reservations about letting him know precisely how terrible his selection was, his British counterpart could not have sounded more polite and reverential: "that's an... interesting choice," was how he voiced his dissent.

 

And so, perhaps fittingly given the Dutch propensity for clarity of speech, each of the excellent contributors could not have explained themselves better. But this is a country with more than one identity at its heart, making it an uphill struggle to understand. And there aren't even any hills in Holland. It is the pedals and the brakes at the same time. It is the liberal conservative. The red light and the light switch. The carnival reveller and the Calvinist restrainer. It is the grace of Dennis Bergkamp and the graft of Edgar Davids. It is both wings of a Bosch triptych, and it is neither, and it is all the more interesting for all these reasons. For it is the Netherlands itself which sends us these mixed messages, and we in turn read into them what we want, and maybe that is the point. If Holland wanted us to understand, it would have explained it better.

BY MICHAEL BURNS

Dutch Encounters was funded by a UCL Beacon bursary.