Only tulips and wooden shoes for tourists, no more weed

We Dutch! We are so quirky. We speak funny, especially when we try to speak another language. We walk on wooden shoes when picking the tulips from our neatly kept front gardens and we smoke dope all day. Our claims to fame in a nutshell.

And we like to keep it all to ourselves, the weed that is. The tulips and wooden shoes we export like crazy. But the weed is for our own private use: the government will not make an exception for Amsterdam in its plans to introduce passes for the use of coffee shops. Coffee shops are the shops where weed is sold, besides coffee. These passes are introduced to keep tourists from stocking up on weed just before the trip home.

I suspect the main reason for this is that every time any one of our dignitaries visit a foreign country, fellow dignitaries bombard them with recriminations for the laxness of our drug laws. They are accused of perverting the brains of all those foreign innocents falling victim to the easy availability of weed in our country.

So I imagine an uncomfortable silence falls when our new prime minister, visiting the Palais de l' Elysées in Paris, is asked over an after dinner cognac, to curb the amount of weed flowing into France through Maastricht. The uncomfortable silence may of course also have to do with the fact that a French dinner is invariably fortified by a few bottles of magnificent, yet innocent claret. If we had a real strong willed and brave prime minister he might retort with a subtle pointer at the amount of brains that are fried by French wine all over the world. But alas, we have lacked such a prime minister for quite some time now.

No, instead our government decides you have to prove you're Dutch to be able to buy weed at a coffee shop. Weed is for the Dutch, tulips and wooden shoes are for tourists, wine is for everyone. Cheers!

Ashamed to be Dutch

Coat of Arms of The Netherlands
(Source: Hans-Ulrich Herzog, Flaggen und Wappen,
Leipzig: VEB Bibliographisches Institut, 1982.)

Today a months long deadlock in forming a new Dutch government has been broken. An agreement between coalition parties seems to have been reached. And the two centre-right parties VVD (liberals) and CDA (Christian Democrats) have bowed deeply for the far right wishes of the PVV (Freedom Party). This has made the country I was born in - but no longer feel anything but loathing for - a right wing, a-social country. This government will do nothing but make me feel deeply ashamed to be Dutch.

Quotes like "We want to give the country back to the working Dutch citizen." are a clear indication that social outcasts, people who have had a tough time and those that just don't fit the mould will face impossible living conditions. This also means that artists, writers, intellectuals, people who enrich society but may not be classed in the 9 to 5 category will have to move elsewhere. I am one of them. A country where I already do not feel at home anymore will now actively make my life impossible.

Geert Wilders, PVV party leader, showed his intentions when during a speech by the three party leaders he confidently took the stage and took all his time to speak. This while he is not a full member of the coalition, he has a back seat role. His party has been added as a "support party" to make up the numbers in an otherwise minority government. His confidence shows he feels himself to be much more important than he should be, he is a dangerous man: his party's manifesto declares that the first article of our constitution should be changed. It should no longer read as an article of equality and granting basic human rights to anyone regardless of race, color, religion, sex or national origin. It should instead read that The Netherlands has a society based upon Christian, Jewish and Humanist principles. A man who wants to change our constitution into a limiting fundamental law that excludes people on the basis of race and religion has just been made part of our government.

The Netherlands had just entered a period that carries strong echoes of 1930's Germany. I hang my head in shame for being Dutch.