Alba Rosa
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[←26 ]
A reference to the historically unique political system of the Dutch Republic (1581–1795), which was a non-monarchic confederacy of independent regions, each presided over by a stadtholder, a ‘regency’ office held by the House of Orange in a quasi-hereditary and quasi-permanent fashion.
[←27 ]
William Count of Nassau-Dillenburg, Prince of Orange (1533–84), stadtholder of the provinces of Holland, Zeeland, Utrecht and Friesland and leader of the Dutch Revolt against Philip II of Spain.
[←28 ]
In the Dutch context the term ‘patrician’ refers to the powerful merchants and bankers who tended to resent and fight the power of the House of Orange during the Dutch Republic.
[←29 ]
Voltaire’s bon mot summary of his experiences with the Dutch Republic.
[←30 ]
References to, respectively, Mark Rutte, PM on behalf of the extreme-neo-liberal VVD party and Alexander Pechtold, leader of the extreme-Europhile D66 party.
[←31 ]
The Dutch term landvoogd is historically associated with the ‘Iron Duke’ or ‘Alva’, the Grand Duke of Alba, who was appointed by Philip II of Spain to stamp out the Dutch Revolt through bloody repression.
[←32 ]
It should be noted that to the Dutch people ‘Brussels authority’ is historically associated with totalitarian tyranny: Brussels was the administrative centre of Spanish power throughout most of the Dutch War of Independence.
[←33 ]
All three terms cover approximately the same social class. The Dutch term Blauwe Boekje, or ‘Blue Book’, refers to an official publication of the genealogies of the non-noble Dutch elite. The Dutch term regenten refers to the semi-hereditary urban ruling class of the Dutch Republic. Some members of the old republican mercantile elite were ennobled during the 19th century. Those who were not think of themselves as co-equal with the nobility, especially as some branches of them are intermarried with the nobility. This sentiment, however, is not shared by anybody else.
[←34 ]
The concept of soevereiniteit in eigen kring, or ‘sphere sovereignty’, stipulates differentiated authority and responsibility. It is important in Neo-Calvinist thought and it was important in the policies of Dutch statesman Abraham Kuyper.
[←35 ]
Cf. www.theguardian.com/world/2018/sep/10/swedish-election-highlights-decline-of-
europes-main-parties.
[←36 ]
An allusion to the Behouden Huys, or ‘Safe House’, the improvised shelter in which the expedition of Dutch polar explorer Willem Barentsz, which attempted to reach East Asia through the Northeast Passage around Siberia, survived the arctic winter season of 1596–97 on the northern tip of Russian Nova Zembla.
[←37 ]
A reference to the ‘Rutte III’ coalition government of Liberal and Christian Democrat parties that was installed in 2017. An overview of the Dutch political landscape at the time of writing is found in Chapter 3.
[←38 ]
In the present Dutch context the term ‘populist’, pejoratively used by the state-sponsored media, is mainly used to refer to the PVV ‘Freedom Partij’ of Geert Wilders.
[←39 ]
A reference to the caoutchouc artikel, or ‘rubbery article’, 137d of the Dutch Penal Code, which has been used to arbitrarily persecute members of the patriotic political opposition, most recently Geert Wilders, leader of the PVV ‘Freedom Party’.
[←40 ]
A reference to the slogan normen en waarden, which was introduced into the Dutch political debate by Minister of Economic Affairs Herman Heinsbroek (member of the party of the assassinated patriotic leader Pim Fortuyn) in 2002. It was subsequently appropriated as a pseudo-conservative propaganda ploy by Christian Democratic PM Jan Peter Balkenende.
[←41 ]
A reference to the Dutch phrase zijn verantwoordelijkheid nemen, or ‘to accept one’s responsibility’, which has the popular connotation of a deeply private awareness of one’s duty in life, distinctly reminiscent of the Calvinist notion of constantly facing Divine Judgment in an intensely private manner. In dominant Dutch neo-liberal discourse, this phrase has been twisted to the point of perversely justifying a neo-Capitalist break with the ancient Dutch traditions of social inclusiveness and solidarity. The abuse of this phrase by Christian Democrat politicians to justify neo-liberal policies indicates the degree to which they have betrayed their historical trust.
[←42 ]
A reference to the famous devotional book De Imitatione Christi by Thomas à Kempis (1380?–1471). He was born in present-day Germany but worked and lived in the Low Countries and is one of the best known members of the Modern Devotion revival movements.
[←43 ]
A reference to the Ems and Scheldt Rivers, which became the ‘natural boundaries’ of the Dutch Republic during its Eighty Years’ War of independence against the mighty Hapsburg Empire.
[←44 ]
A reference to integratie, a specifically Dutch ethnic policy model of enforced ‘cultural fusion’ and manipulated ‘acculturation’ based on the culture relativist ideology of ‘multiculturalism’. This Modernist ideology of anti-identitarian ‘multiculturalism’ should be carefully distinguished from the sociological phenomenon of multi-ethnic coexistence in Traditional supranational states, which was always characterized by strict ethnic separation (e.g. the Ottoman ‘millet system’).
[←45 ]
A reference to the 2004 public poll De Grootste Nederlander, or ‘The Greatest Dutchman’, organized by the Dutch public broadcaster KRO. It followed the format of the BBC’s ‘Greatest Briton’.
[←46 ]
A reference to his controversial personal stance on religious and sexual identity; Professor Fortuyn was am openly gay recalcitrant Catholic.
[←47 ]
A reference to the procedure of inburgering, or ‘citizenship education’, a legal requirement for ‘naturalization’ as a tool of the policy of integratie, or ‘cultural fusion’. The entirely fictitious nature of inburgering, compounded by a structural failure to implement its requirements and a plethora of legal ‘exemption’, may be gauged from simple statistics: after completion of the inburgering programme, most of its participants still fail to speak the Dutch language, still fail to obtain gainful employment and still fail to abide by basic Dutch behavioural norms.