CDA leader Sybrand Buma has spoken about the importance of the ‘angry citizen’ in this year’s annual H.J. Schoo lecture organised by current affairs magazine Elsevier.

‘There are divisions throughout our society,’ Buma said. ‘Between young and old, between native and immigrant, between the well-educated and low skilled…’ But the concept of the ‘angry citizen’ is a strange one used by sociologists who clearly do not belong to the category, he said,

‘Angry citizens,’ he said, are just ordinary Dutch people who come up against a wall. People who dismiss the rise of Geert Wilders, Donald Trump’s election, Brexit and the results of the Ukraine referendum as ‘irrational’ are burying their heads in the sand,’ Buma told his audience.

Cabinet

The CDA is one of four parties taking part in negotiations to form a new government. The party has 19 seats in the 150 seat parliament following the March general election.

Buma did not comment on the formation talks in the lecture but he did address ‘the restoration of the common historical and cultural consciousness’.

‘The Dutch culture is built on unity in diversity and not on the cultural relativism of the multicultural progressive outlook,’ he said. Dutch culture, traditions and values ‘must not be diluted’, he continued.

National anthem

During the election campaign Buma said Dutch school children should sing the national anthem in class every day and the four parties have apparently agreed that the Wilhelmus should become part of the national curriculum.

‘Anyone who comes to the Netherlands as an immigrant or refugee becomes part of this common history,’ he said. ‘We do not have to twist ourselves in knots to answer the question of whether the norms and values in our society have to change. They do not.’