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- Herausgeber: Xenophobe's Guides
- Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
- Serie: Xenophobe's Guides
- Sprache: Englisch
- Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2008
A guide to understanding the Dutch that goes beyound the tulips and windmills to reveal their real personality and peculiarities.
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Xenophobe’s® guide to the
DUTCH
Rodney Bolt
Contents
The Dutch population is nearly 17 million – compared with 5.5 million Danes, 5 million Scots, 11 million Belgians, 48 million Spanish, 54 million English, 66 million French, 81 million Germans and 325 million Americans.
The Netherlands is half the size of Scotland, not quite as large as Denmark, and could fit into Spain 12 times.
Nationalism & Identity
Forewarned
The Dutch character is inextricably bound up with the Dutch landscape. The Netherlands is so flat that even the black and white cows stand silhouetted against the skyline. Consequently the Dutch are used to distant horizons and lots of light. Openness, freedom and vision are fundamental. Few Dutch people could be happy living in a forest. When one of the Netherlands’ most famous novelists sent his parents on their first trip to Switzerland as a present for their 50th wedding anniversary, he was disconcerted to discover that they had returned home after only a day or two. His mother had been bitterly disappointed. She had no view from her hotel window, she explained, there were mountains in the way.
“The Dutch are used to distant horizons and lots of light. Openness, freedom and vision are fundamental.”
The Dutch landscape is mild and uneventful. Intrusions, such as trees, occur in orderly lines and patterns. Water, which threatens to overrun the whole country, is neatly channelled into straight canals. Control and moderation are important in behaviour too. ‘High trees catch a lot of wind,’ the Dutch warn. They describe excess in terms of overvloed, a ‘flooding over’ – as if the waters had burst the dykes. In the Netherlands, extravagant people don’t waste money, they ‘spill’ it.
“The Dutch pride themselves on their tolerance and flexibility: qualities which, in addition to carrying moral kudos, are good for business.”
The Netherlands is light, but not bright – a world of greens, greys and browns. This colour scheme is repeated in the cities, where buildings are mainly of brown brick, and local byelaws often state that residents must paint their front doors in the same shade of green. When Van Gogh forsook his native country for the brighter, bumpier regions of the south of France, he left off painting in the cosy, gravy browns of ‘The Potato Eaters’, took to gaudier hues, and went mad.
How they see themselves
From the comfort of their immaculate sitting rooms the Dutch may acknowledge that they are the cleanest people on earth, are thrifty, have a canny head for business, an unparalleled facility with languages, an unequalled ability to get along with one another and an inimitable charm. But they will be far too modest, unless pushed, to admit publicly that all this makes them somewhat superior to other nations.
Above all, the Dutch pride themselves on their tolerance and flexibility: qualities which, in addition to carrying moral kudos, are good for business. The blanket of benevolence is not a woolly liberal one, but is woven from the sound stuff of commerce. It is quite thick enough to cover niggling inconsistencies, such as a secret mistrust of Moroccans, distaste at alien cooking smells from the apartment downstairs, or fury at foreigners who wobble inexpertly on bicycles, blocking the way for others.
How others see them
Most nations regard the Dutch as organized and efficient – rather like the Germans, but not as awesome. One can hardly be frightened, the reasoning goes, of a nation of rosy-cheeked farmers who live in windmills and have clogs at the bottom of the wardrobe, tulips in the garden and piles of round cheese in the larder. But the Dutch also have a reputation for being opinionated, stubborn, and incorrigibly mean. The
Belgians go even further, and complain that their neighbours are downright devious in business affairs. Generally, though, other nations see them as dauntingly forthright. Dutch frankness completely overwhelms more reticent peoples such as the Japanese who, unnerved by Dutch directness, find them the rudest of the Europeans they do business with – though they are impressed by Dutch acumen as traders. ‘Where a Dutchman has passed, not even the grass grows any more,’ say the Japanese admiringly.
“The Dutch would like to be held up as The Ultimate Europeans.”
The English survey the Dutch with guarded approval, as the closest any Continentals come to the sacrosanct state of being English. Such chumminess has not always prevailed. In the 17th century these two seafaring nations were at each other’s throats. An English pamphlet raged: ‘A Dutchman is a Lusty, Fat, Two-legged Cheeseworm. A Creature that is so addicted to eating Butter, Drinking Fat and Sliding [skating] that all the world knows him for a slippery fellow.’ The English language gained a whole new list of pejoratives, including ‘Dutch courage’ (booze-induced bravery), ‘Dutch comfort’ (‘things could be worse’) and ‘Dutch gold’ (fake). Nowadays the Dutch score top marks for speaking English without flinching, and for innovative ideas such as the one to reduce the cleaning bills at the male loos in Schipol Airport, Amsterdam, by the simply expedient of stencilling the picture of a fly in the bowl.
How they would like others to see them
The Dutch would like to be held up as The Ultimate Europeans. To this end they have assiduously assimilated so much from the nations around them that they have almost done away with their own cultural identity. This means that most people find something familiar about the Dutch, which guarantees that everybody likes them.
“Most people find something familiar about the Dutch, which guarantees that everybody likes them.”
That the Netherlands is the small boy in the class of Europe doesn’t unduly bother either its residents or its politicians. By making enough noise and having an opinion about everything, even a small boy can be noticed. With luck he might even become class captain – a job that, with his insider’s knowledge of unfairness and oppression, he knows he can do more justly than some other class members he might care to mention. Especially those with a history of bullying.
How they see others
Despite the fact that they have for centuries been (via land reclamation) edging their country towards the British Isles, the Dutch feel ambivalent about the British. They are surprised that these rather puny islanders manage somehow to write such good books. They see the English as cottagey and a bit twee, but, in some circles, English style is viewed as the ultimate chic. Perennial fashion items such as tweed, waxed jackets and pinstripes are sported by the discreetly rich, and those who aspire to that status.
Like most of their European neighbours, the Dutch lap up the trappings of American culture, while dismissing its perpetrators as being empty-headed and loud. Road movies, especially, appeal to the Dutch sense of freedom and openness. The lost hitchhiker look is a popular Dutch fashion.
“Forthrightness may be a virtue, but extravagantly flaunting your emotions smacks of lack of control.”
France and Italy may be suitable places to holiday, but the Dutch view their inhabitants with a twinge of disapproval. The French are too frivolous to win the lasting admiration of a nation that has Calvin in its bones, and besides, say the Dutch, they are obstructionists with no skill at negotiation. A nation that allows its farmers to pile turnips on the motorway must be viewed with some scepticism.
Forthrightness may be a virtue, but extravagantly flaunting your emotions smacks of lack of control – and so the Italians (and most other Mediterraneans) join the ranks of the ‘tolerated-but-not-quite-as-good-as-us’. A notch below these come the nationalities whose religious or political customs are seen as intolerant. Such peoples are most emphatically not tolerated – intolerance of intolerance being quite permissible. Using this argument, an anti-Islamist party made massive gains in the 2010 general elections and has since become the second largest party in parliament.
Of all the European nations, the Dutch admire the Swiss. Their country is spotless, their banks unassailable and their personal bank accounts are secret.
Special relationships
“The first barrier that Dutch tolerance comes up against is the German border.”
Even the accommodating Dutch have their limits. The first barrier that Dutch tolerance comes up against is the German border. There is no-one more likely to rouse the Dutch from their customary cheerfully benign state than a German. The Dutch see the Germans as arrogant, noisy, rigid and intolerant – everything in fact that the Dutch are not. They are wary of a nation that shows such a passion for living in forests. But usually they don’t even bother to try and explain. Telling a Dutch person that their language seems very similar to German is unlikely to benefit your relationship. Remarking that the two nations seem rather alike in many ways will probably get you thrown out of the house.
Should a German asks for directions in a Dutch city, a Dutch person may well point to the border or the nearest international railway station. Or perhaps retort ‘First give my bike back!’, and burst into gales of laughter. This is an in-joke referring to the fact that the Germans confiscated all bicycles during the Second World War. The implication is: first return the cycle you stole from my family, and only then might I feel obliged to help you. Dutch people of all ages make this joke. They do it even if their parents are not old enough to have experienced the Occupation. Anything to knock the Germans down a notch or two.
“Though they really admire the way they enjoy life, the Dutch regard the Belgians as laughably dim.”
The Netherlands’ southern border also presents a bit of a stumbling block. Apart from the Afrikaners in South Africa and the inhabitants of a few scattered ex-colonies, the Belgians are the only people in the world who speak a language anything like Dutch. One might think that this would endear their southern cousins to the Netherlanders, but (though they really admire the way they enjoy life) the Dutch regard the Belgians as laughably dim, and fit only for derision:
‘What’s written on the bottom of a Belgian milk bottle?’ ‘Open other end.’
‘What’s written on the bottom of a Belgian swimming pool?’ ‘No Smoking.’
‘Why are Belgian glasses square?’
‘So they don’t leave a round mark on the table.’
In the Netherlands itself, it is the inhabitants of the most southerly province of Limburg (whose capital is Maastricht) who are saddled with the reputation of being stupid, hence:
‘What happens when a person from Maastricht goes to live in Belgium?’
‘The average IQ of both nations rises.’
Character
Open minds
“One of the most original of Dutch traits is the tendency to let in a little evil in order to keep the big evil out.”
One of the most original of Dutch traits is the national tendency to let in a little evil in order to keep the big evil out. This admirable and astute approach is visible, for example, in the way they manage waterlocks: when tidal pressure builds up on the dykes, a controlled amount of water is allowed through so as to relieve the greater water pressure which might otherwise cause havoc. Drugs and various other sins are treated in exactly the same way: let a manageable amount in, so as to prevent wholesale degeneracy or wanton excess.
