PRINCESS MÁXIMA, WORLD CITIZEN

"Identity" has already for some years been an item in the Netherlands. Princess Máxima, the spouse of the heir-apparent, recently and unwillingly put some oil on the fire that refuses to go out. (See my earlier post.)

World citizens?

As an indication of her world citizenship, Princess Máxima pointed to a signpost outside her house the gives the distance to all the most important places in her life; Buenos Aires, New York, Brussels, The Hague and Wassenaar.

She's got some nasty criticism. Almost every day there are articles, LTE's, and polls about her speech. Toby Sterling, an American living in Amsterdam, chimes with his humourous opinion of this recent Dutch media navel gazing.

What she probably meant is that this is a multicultural society, with recent immigrants from many places mixing together with 'native' Dutch (native as in Germanic/Scandinavian/Frisian/Spanish/Celt/Pict/Gaullic/Roman) _ who themselves are divided into many categories (Rich/Poor _ Catholic/Protestant/Secular _ Homosexual/Heterosexual _ Randstand/Countryside _ politically right or left: SGP/PVV/VVD/CDA/D66/PvdA/SP/GL/PvdD _ etc., etc.).
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If we're going to call this "the Dutch identity," why don't we just throw in all the rest of the cliches, including cheese, clogs, bikes, dikes and windmills, as long as we're at it?

The reality is that, on reflection, Maxima was totally right.
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All Maxima really demonstrated is that this country is a little high strung about its identity right now; and she walked right into the tripwire.

If she had said _ "all Dutch should share the ethos that made this country one of the richest and most powerful in the world in the 1600s. Long live the VOC (Far East Indies Company) spirit!" _ a lot of people would have jumped down her throat too.
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You can think of Dutch society as a "melting pot" or a "salad bowl," but either way the idea that it's some Aryan civilization is untenable. People resist it, but that's because they're dreaming of good old days that never existed, or chasing an illusion.

I think Máxima was speaking for the marginalised, but also about the inter-connectedness of all people. Indeed, we may connect to a "place," but we are also "of the world." I have certainly connected with the places and people where my life has brought me. Bloom where you are planted, as the 60s peace poster reminded us. I recall a quote from Sister Joan Chittister, the Benedictine nun from her interview on the radio program Speaking of Faith.

In the United States, we've lived on a very, very large ice cube that's melting now. The world is coming in, the boundaries are going down. What we're about now is the unification of the world. That means that the whole world is not going to come to us; we have to be prepared to walk with the rest of the world on the path it knows.

Related: Radio Netherlands Amsterdam Forum program on Dutch multiculturalism

Typical Dutch/Typisch Nederlands?

Call it navel-gazing. Lengthy discussion on the BRMB about a speech (Dutch link) given by Princess Máxima of the Netherlands in response to a report of the Dutch Scientific Council for Government Policy on Dutch identity and what that means.

Background link (in English) on the report and speech.

Martin Wisse of Wis[s]e Words writes perceptively (link) --

No Dutch Identity

I never thought I would say this, but a member of the dutch royals actually said something yesterday I wholeheartedly agree with: that there is no such thing as a Dutch identity. Not surprisingly this was said by somebody who had married into the family, princess Maxima, daughter of an Argentinian junta leader, now wife to the heir to the Dutch throne. She said that during her seven years of integrating into Dutch society she never really saw what made the Dutch Dutch, which not entirely coincidently is also the outcome of a major scientific study commissioned by the government's science bureau. This said that the sole thing that could be thought of as a shared identity was a shared history.

Which is somewhat of a nobrainer. For any given country, trying to pin down a shared identity will either result in a list of vapid platitutes which any other country could subscribe too (We love freedom, we're tolerant of others, etc.) or else a list of lazy cliches based on some well out of date ideas of what Dutch people like (Andre Hazes, boerenkool, one cookie with the coffee and no more, clogs and bloody windmills). The whole idea of a national identity is reactionary, based on the idea that everybody is the same and out of place in a country that has always been a nation of immigrants (Hugenots, Spanish/Portuguese as well as Polish Jews, economic migrants from Germany, Chinese and Italians before the war, Morrocans and Turks after, Surinamers, not to mention a whole horde of other nationalities -- 172 different ones in Amsterdam, the most ethnically diverse city in the world), as well as a nation forged together from several very different regions. A Limburger is nothing like a Zeeuw is nothing like a Hollander is nothing like a Fries, though of course all have many more things in common than they differ on.

There are some on the left in various countries (One example) who are trying to reshape nationalism and the idea of a national identity into a more progressive form; I personally think this is a venture doomed to fail because of the above objections. Nationalism only works if you can bring yourself to believe your country is the best in the world, rather than remaking it into something simular to supporting your favourite football side.

Not so unrelatedly, snapping about Máxima's Spanish-accented Dutch is ridiculous and just another attempt to marginalise and classify people as "other." [Kon jij de prinses verstaan? Zij zat echt onverstaanbaar te mompelen tijdens de toespraak..." ("Could you hear what the princess was saying? She was mumbling really unintelligibly during the speech...")] They seem to be saying, "No matter how you try, princess, sweetie, you'll never be a 'real Dutchie'." I applaud her efforts wholeheartedly. She has defined her role, and acted upon it, to speak up for the marginalised. I've seen no official moves to put restraints on her. What I don't like are those xenophobes on the right who act in pure ignorance (and fear) in racist assaults on recent immigrants to NL. They just don't get it, and hallelujah! Máxima does!