The Dutch oven of modern politics

It’s disappointingly easy to convince people that The Outsiders, the They, are responsible for all your troubles and are a threat to your safety. Terrifyingly reliable, century by century. So I watched this week’s election in the Netherlands with massive trepidation.

Chandeliers over the canals of Amsterdam

The Netherlands. The country where so much of the freedom, liberty, and tolerance that form the foundation of Western civilization and success was born and developed. But also the most densely populated country in Europe, struggling with the shifts and currents of the world right now. So it was no surprise that they had their own “blame Islam” villain stirring up the darkest parts. But with such a proud tradition and identity as progressive thinkers, I had hope that the Dutch would resist the sort of self-sabotage that the UK and USA have embraced.

Particularly important, because what the Dutch did, the French and Germans would see. I’m not too worried about the Germans, who I think learned the lessons of the 20th century better than anyone, but a continental crack begun in Holland could spread. So how did it work out?

With impressive turnout, 87% of Dutch voters rejected the willful misunderstanding and moral weakness that have contaminated the White House and sought to spill like an overflowing septic tank into the canals of Amsterdam. I love the Dutch! Ik houd van Holland!

Of course there’s a but. Because Wilders was able to do the same as Trump in bullying the conversation. The voices with the least helpful contributions are doing the most talking, while misguided policies make things worse and a sinister power grows stronger. It’s up to the Dutch to show us how to handle this problem. No party has a majority, so the ruling coalition will include members with vastly different opinions. Which could go at least two ways:

Option 1: differing viewpoints lead to political brinksmanship and absolutism, ensuring that nothing gets done. Increased voter frustration feeds the extremist they just united to defeat and we all go down the tube. Let’s call this the “Republican Congress” technique.

Option 2: differing viewpoints give a voice to more people, and unity in the face of a commonly recognized danger leads to true compromises that no one loves but benefit everyone. Let’s call this approach “Democracy.”

That second one is tough. But if anyone can do it, it’s the Dutch. They’ve given us so much over the centuries, and we need them now more than ever.

P.S. I was delighted at the chance to guide two more of my beloved Best of Europe in 21 Days tours, and highly recommend them if you’d like to go over and see for yourself.

There are worse things than having been racist

The contractor was measuring the ceiling in my lady’s house when he noticed he’d tracked dog poo all over the kitchen floor. It was awkward, but he helped clean it up, cleaned his shoe, and we all went on with our day. He did not go deliberately step in more and lay fresh prints.

What if his coworker had left the smudges before he arrived? Should he say “Well, I didn’t start it” then go find a steaming fresh pile of Rover’s Revenge to spread around? It’s easy when we’re talking about puppy poop, but what if it’s something worse?

In episode 349 of The Savage Lovecast, Dan Savage talks about the early days of the AIDS epidemic, when asserting the virus was an STI could get you in a fight, as people resisted the guilt of having inadvertently caused harm. But eventually they accepted the facts and evolved. He compares this to those who still deny climate change. There comes a time when you have to accept that what you've been doing isn't right anymore, and update.

He doesn’t advocate convictions for past mistakes, or tortured guilt for things done when we didn’t know any better, but to double down and willfully continue them once you do? That’s a problem.

Scaling back from lethal disease and global catastrophe, how about being accidentally offensive? Tonight in the Netherlands, and tomorrow in Belgium and Luxembourg, Zwarte Piet will help Sinterklaas deliver presents to all the little boys and girls. Zwarte Piet (Black Peter) is basically one of Santa’s elves, with one glaring difference: he’s in blackface, big red lips, afro wig and everything.

Controversy over the figure has been growing for decades. The (white) majority says “But it's our tradition!” (True.) “We don't mean anything racist by it!” (Good, thank you.) And sometimes “If I meet you you’ll get a bullet through your head.” Charming.

I know people resist changing traditions, but just a couple sentences for perspective:

-Halloween was long based on vandalism, not changing to its current emphasis on costumes and treats until World War II

-Thanksgiving is increasingly about family, and less about genocidal religious extremists, or is that just me?

-Even Zwarte Piet himself didn’t show up until 1850, his name not standardized until the early 20th century, around the same time Sinterklaas stopped kidnapping naughty kids into slavery. And did anyone grow up believing Saint Nick came from Turkey? Well he did, but we changed it to the North Pole (and Sinterklass moved to Spain) without undue rage. So why cling so fiercely to an outdated racist icon?

(Zwarte Piet briefly took over the child slavery racket, though that’s been phased out too. We’ll talk about the function of a black character selling white children into slavery another time.)

This is all very easy for me to say; I didn't grow up with Zwarte Piet. Also, I don't really give an enraged caboodle about changing holiday details (no, I don't watch Fox News' preposterous War on Christmas either). My lady, on the other hand, grew up in The Netherlands in the days before people saw Piet as racist. She had those happy childhood mornings, when the friendly character threw candies and handed out gifts. She loved that character, but when age and perspective showed her its racist overtones, she adjusted. In her words: “A short moment of nostalgic pain is MORE than worth it for doing the right thing.”

Now want to hear something cool? The Netherlands is showing its impressive character yet again. Not waiting for everyone to find their empathy, they are changing, slowly but steadily. In previous years they’ve toned down the blackface by removing the big red lips (and earrings), consciously avoiding portrayals of him as inferior to the white Sinterklaas, and this year they’re adding other colors of Piet, including cheese yellow and (gasp!) white.

I can only imagine it’s a matter of time until people look back and say “Remember back when we had that awful racist character? Nutty!” (Though I expect the overtly racist and anti-immigration parties like the PVV and Vlaams Belang will cling to their crusty obstinacy far into the future.)

So as America roils, burns, and shatters under the weight of our own racism and malfeasance, the sickness in our system that seems unwilling to change, and I figure out my own minuscule part in it, I’m going to look at the waffle-striped Piet this year with a smile, and hope that the arc of history might speed itself up a bit here too...

Leave it to the Dutch to save the future. Maybe yours, maybe mine?

She wakes to a beautiful, clear November morning in 1976. She gets up, dresses, and has breakfast with a few nice elderly people. She has a couple errands, so takes her purse and walks the two blocks to the grocery store.

A nice young man is trimming the hedge out front, and greets her with a friendly wave. She stops and has a nice chat with him. She’s never met him before, so introduces herself, flirts a little, and they discuss the upcoming election. He’s going to vote the same way she is, and this makes her feel confident about the future.

At the store, it’s quite a funny day. There must be a costume party somewhere, because two people are dressed like it’s the 1950s, and three more in bizarre outfits like she’s never seen before. One of the staff laughs with her about it. What a nice young woman.

She walks home with her purchases and meets a nice young man who is doing some gardening out front…

* * *

She wakes to a beautiful, clear November morning in 1976. She gets up, dresses, but when she leaves her room she finds a long hallway that smells like a swimming pool storage shed, with something worse underneath. Old people in wheelchairs are staring at her. A stranger in a white shirt is playing a mean joke, insisting it’s 2014. Why would someone do that?

She wants to run a few errands, but the woman won’t let her. She is being treated like a child. Imprisoned! But her anger avails her nothing, and this woman forces her back to her room. They patronize her so! They try to make her watch TV, but the shows are all wrong. They keep telling her she’s wrong. What’s going on?

* * *

When I worked in a pharmacy in high school, I would sometimes make deliveries to three local nursing homes, which were a sad opposite Goldilocks story: three different levels of awful. And visiting my grandmother in hers, a neighbor would routinely come in and begin undressing, which, suffice to say, was not welcomed by my very prim and proper British granny.

“If I ever get like that, just put me out of my misery” seems to be something many people say, in these environments. I wonder how many of the inmates once said that... Is there a better way?

Of course there is. I may be having a rough day, but I wouldn’t blog you into this corner and leave you stranded. To the Netherlands! (Of course it’s the Netherlands. God bless those people.)

Hogeway is a small “village” on the outskirts of Amsterdam where 152 people with Alzheimer’s or dementia live in small group homes meticulously decorated in accordance with the time period when their memory got stuck. It is staffed with caregivers who appear to the residents as normal gardeners, shopkeepers, post office employees etc. They live their lives in social contact, living what is true, to them. In the retirement homes I’ve seen, residents spend a lot of time being told what they’re not, that they’re wrong, that they’re sick, dying, crazy.

With a recent This American Life episode ("Magic Words" Act 2) in mind, which discussed the newer approach to dementia care in which one joins them in their world, instead of fighting against it, I can only hope that this type of village catches on before I reach that age.