Why the Dutch are different; into the hidden heart of the Netherlands.
Author Ben Coates. Publication date: 24 September 2015.
The first book to present a modern look at the Netherlands, Why the Dutch are Different is a portrait of a tiny country that punches above its weight on the world stage and is home to some of the world’s most successful companies including Shell and Unilever.
To many it has a reputation as a beacon of liberalism, tolerance and prosperity and should be used as a template for the UK. But is its reputation still justified? Recent concerns around climate change, immigration, economic crisis and crime have called into question the country’s long tradition of tolerance. Some of its most famous liberal policies, such as legal drug use, have been tightened up. Is this a story of ‘innocence lost’? A no-longer perfect society? How different are the Dutch, now?
Ben Coates moved to the Netherlands following a chance encounter with a Dutch girl that led to a long-term relationship and a new adopted home. In Why the Dutch are Different he moves beyond the clichés of clogs, bicycles and the red light district to understand what really lies at the heart of the country. He finds a good deal to admire about his adopted home. Not only do the Dutch earn more money for working less hours, the Netherlands is ‘happier than Britain, more efficient than France, more tolerant than America, more worldly than Norway, more modern than Belgium and more fun than Germany.’ ‘We Brits might think we know all about our near-neighbour’, Coates says, ‘but we’d be wrong’.
The Netherlands is literally a self-made country; decades of struggle and ingenuity wrested the land from the water using windmills, dykes and canals, and made it safe to live on. This has shaped the people’s attitude towards the environment. Constant danger of flooding and a terrible disaster in 1953 means that to the Dutch, nature is an disruptive force to be conquered and contained. Which leads us to another surprise: as Coates shows, the Dutch are surprisingly fond of rules.
Dutch history sheds light on the issues facing the country today. Bloody religious wars over centuries led to a novel way of dealing with the country’s religious divide. Catholics and Protestants would attend different schools, work in different companies, and even had separate football leagues. Recently the Dutch, with one of the largest immigrant populations in Europe, applied a similar policy to its growing Muslim population – funding separate Islamic schools and providing government subsidies to mosques.
Many now feel that approach has backfired, exacerbating economic and cultural tensions. Activists such as Pim Fortuyn, who described Islam as ‘achterlijk; (backward) and won 35% of the vote in 2002; and Theo Van Gogh, (murdered by a fundamentalist Muslim in 2004) Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Geer Wilders all questioned whether Muslim principles were at odds with Dutch values, especially, and ironically, Dutch tolerance. Yet despite the rise of the far right Rotterdam elected its first Muslim Mayor in 2009, the anti-extremist Ahmed Aboutaleb. There is also the ongoing controversy over Zwarte Piet, or “Black Peter” – a character the Dutch dress as by wearing blackface makeup. A racist tradition? Or simply a Dutch tradition?
What does this mean for the UK?
What of those other liberal policies that we see as particularly Dutch – drug use and prostitution? Coates shows how Amsterdam’s drug-vending coffee shops meant that harder drugs became easier to find; fierce competition meant that profit margins on cannabis were squeezed; hard drugs were more profitable and criminal gangs began to assume control of the trade.
But the government’s response of tightening the rules continues to be controversial. Even legalized prostitution, with employment rights and health checks for sex workers, admired by many as a pragmatic approach to the oldest profession, came under scrutiny when it became clear that many sex workers had been brought from abroad, against their will, by people traffickers. Finally, the policy of assisted suicide, adopted in 2001 as a legal means by which doctors could act to end ‘unbearable suffering’ for patients who could be offered ‘no other reasonable solution’, has recently been called into question as perhaps too easy to implement. Many who fought for it at the outset are now trying to curb it.
So with the Dutch abandoning many of the policies that made their country famous, it is yet to be seen what will happen to the famous tolerance of the Netherlands and whether it is a society the UK should hope to emulate. Ben Coates senses that in some respects the unforeseen consequences of liberalism have been greater than anticipated and the tensions that have arisen from this mean the struggle for the heart of the country continues.
Ben Coates was born in Britain in 1982, and during his career has been a political advisor, corporate speechwriter, lobbyist and aid worker. He now lives in Rotterdam with his Dutch wife and works for an international charity. He has written articles for numerous publications including the Guardian, Financial Times, and Huffington Post.
Information on: BEN-COATES.COM
