Much has been said about the Netherlands becoming an inward-looking country preoccupied with small issues – most remarkably, and painfully, by the ambassadors of various countries in interviews by the NRC in late October. As if to prove their point, the Dutch collectively spent the month of November debating peculiar national priorities such as raising the speed limit on highways, the dangers of holding two passports and who should be in charge of football club Ajax Amsterdam, writes Robin Doeswijk of the Holland Bureau.

There can be little doubt that the Dutch have become increasingly preoccupied with themselves (navelstaren is what the Dutch themselves call it: staring at your own belly button). It’s not that the Eurocrisis and the future of the EU, the arrival of the first former head of state, Ivory Coast’s Laurent Gbagbo, at the International Criminal Court in The Hague, or major domestic challenges such as the rising costs of healthcare or the sustainability of the pension system are missing any attention, but they are not the issues that arouse real passion. If the formation of the new Belgian government has attracted any interest, it was because of the momumental 541 days needed for the formation – we rarely waste a chance to make fun of our southern neighbours – rather than any genuine curiosity for Belgian politics.
But what about the issues that do interest us, that dominate public debate from the rooms of parliament to the coffee machine (the centre of gravity and chief gathering spot in every Dutch office), are they really small issues? Or should we stop thinking of them as unimportant and acknowledge that something that is on so many people’s minds can, by definition, not be dismissed as small?
Infrastructure minister Melanie Schultz van Haegen recently announced that as of September 2012, the speed limit on large stretches of the Dutch motorway network will be raised to 130 kilometres per hour (from 100 or 120). This was received with horror by environmental and traffic safety advocates, but rarely will a government plan have met with so much enthusiasm from so many people. The outpouring of joy over this decision and the huge media attention it received suggests that raising the speed limit really was the #1 priority for large segments of society. The minister justified her decision as meeting a “social demand” and “connecting better with the road user’s experience”.
Give the people bread, circuses and fast roads!
While car drivers can be forgiven for being passionate about something that affects them every day, the fascination of many Dutch with the (presumed) dangers of dual nationality is harder to explain. In this globalised world, it seems all too natural that many people’s identities are a mix of influences, nationality but one of them. Anet Bleich’s assertion that “everyone possesses multiple identities” (de Volkskrant of 8 October) seems all too obvious, but it is striking how emotional the debate about national identity and second passports becomes time and again, and how persistent the crusade by opponents of dual nationality is.
In recent years, not only Geert Wilders’s Freedom Party (PVV) has placed dual nationality in a bad light. Many other politicians on the right, including from within the governing Liberal Party (VVD), and even on the left (Socialist Party) seem to have succeeded in convincing a considerable part of the electorate that holders of two passports constitute a serious risk to society. Supposed problems include disloyalty, failure to integrate and a lack of national pride. With a sizable portion of Dutch nationals (1.1 million) holding a second passport, one might be tempted to think of this as a serious problem. However, in spite of peculiarities such as the compulsary military service for Dutch citizens who also hold a Turkish passport, the objections to dual nationality seem to have little basis in facts. British historian Neal Ascherson, quoted by Olaf Tempelman in an op-ed in de Volkskrant last month, tellingly said of the relation between (a strong identification with) national identity and facts:
Those who cherish and revive their ‘native’ language usually have ancestors who spoke a different one. Those who claim ‘pure’ lineage, in the genetic sense, are all to some degree mongrels. Even the portrait of a common cultural tradition, as evidence of identity, all too often dissolves away at the first application of rigorous fact. [from Ascherson’s book Black Sea]
The verdict: small issue.
Ajax is perhaps the best example of why issues that get lots of attention are not necessarily big issues – even though the ongoing management wars at the club have already made CNN. Yet even a life-long Ajax fan such as the writer of this post has trouble seeing this as a major issue. Bizarre, embarrassing and at times entertaining, yes, but important? Definitely not.
It seems we, the Dutch, are guilty as charged: we spend way too much time and energy on trivial stuff. But change may be on its way, judging from a noteworthy cri de coeur written by the University of Amsterdam researcher Dennis van den Berg (1984) on the web site of the ‘New Leaders’ collective:
“[I worry] About the world. Poverty, starvation, war, financial crisis, economic crisis, climate crisis, biodiversity crisis, ageing populations, government debt, integration. About all of it. I want to do something about it, I just don’t know what. Too complex, too big, and most people don’t seem to care much. To them it’s other things that matter. Dutch society springs to life only when Steve Jobs dies, or when the Dutch Railways introduce ‘bag toilets’ for emergency wees, or when members of parliament tell each other ‘to behave normally for a change’ and call each other ‘the company poodle’.”
He’s right. We need to get our priorities straight.