easier to do when your society is so relatively homogeneous. but what if you add more non-christian and non-western religions and ethnicities… one would think it wouldn’t be so strife-less … its easy to be happy in your own bubble. I think the US actually does a great job (so far) overall…but things have recently taken a dark turn no doubt…I mean check out what a Trump surrogate “Carl Higbie” …
That went away during the 60’s and never came back. Perhaps with Trumpism more young people will drop out of society again to try the experiment yet again. A benefit would be that popular music will become listenable once more.
Perhaps like mandatory military service in some countries there could be instead a mandatory stay in the Netherlands to pick up the vibe and carry it around the world.
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Thanks, the article seems a bit misleading (in the sense that it is more sensational than it should)… It references a very unfortunate incident that happened a few years ago and started a discussion about racial profiling and police use of force in the Netherlands.
There are improvements, though, police are now being trained to de-escalate situations rather than resort to force and racial profiling by the police has been deemed illegal by a high-court.
It should also be said that, the police might have resorted to violence often, police killings in the Netherlands are very rare.
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Well, I used to think more or less as I guess you do, but mostly thanks to the rhetoric and vitriol as espoused by the proponents of Zwarte Piet, I ‘switched’ camps.
And of course it can be explained. Santa Claus has helpers, who people traditionally see as freed slaves that now help him out of their free will. From a fool like character they have evolved to clever and friendly helpers of Santa Claus, BUT, and this is an important one, their look has been a caricature of black people: black face, big red lips and golden earrings. So while people see them as good and benevolent, they still are at the bottom of it a racist stereotype.
It might be a tradition, and it might be heritage, but that is no reason to keep on holding on to something that is inherently racists. It might not feel racist, and it might not be intended as being racist, but that’s a very easy position to hold when you’re not part of the minority.
Also, while I welcome the changes to the look of Zwarte Piet in places like Amsterdam, I live in a place nearby where people actively and with complete intent block any change at all.
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I need the mythical progressive paradise to exist so I can imagine a place better than here, the same way I need to imagine somewhere there’s a patch of wilderness I can escape to and recharge my inner introvert. You’re harshing my mellow.
But to solve real problems you have to first recognize them, and if it’s racist, that’s gotta be recognized.
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Also, not scaleable.
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A little comparison on the ethnic make-up of the Netherlands and the US:
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That’s the time when such a society should be bolstering its liberal-democratic institutions, especially separation of church and state, the primacy of secular law, and freedom of worship (or lack thereof) for all citizens. Unfortunately even progressive European countries like Amsterdam seem to be giving more consideration to theie right-wing populists’ calls to move in the opposite direction.
[quote=“Akimbo_NOT, post:24, topic:89630, full:true”]Perhaps with Trumpism more young people will drop out of society again to try the experiment yet again.
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I doubt it’s an option for most young Americans, except for highly privileged ones. It takes liquid capital and a flexible career (which is != to the “gig economy”) to do that. One thing I have heard about is more young Americans attending tuition-free overseas universities to get their degrees without the ruinous life-long debt, but that holds its own set of costs.
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The anti-black racism is one negative that did stick out during my visit to the country some years ago. I don’t know if it would be fair to say it’s objectively “worse” than racism in the U.S. since at least the Dutch police don’t gun down young black people on a horrifyingly regular basis, but there were definitely some forms of racism that were more culturally acceptable there.
And I’ll say this for the United States: while we are indisputably still a racist country, we can now credibly claim that we are not TOO racist to elect a black person as our Head of State. This is a claim no European country can yet make.
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Agreed. I think that you would find that most flower children of the 60’s were indeed “highly privileged” coming from mostly conservative right wing well-to-do parents. Rebellion man!
But alas times are different aren’t they…
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My views aren’t that different from yours I think… I would love to see this character change. I think Nickelodeon actually has the best answer: keep the outfits more or less the same, but get rid of the face paint, red lips, “kroeshaar” and earrings all-together. They also do a good job of including all common ethnicities in the Netherlands in their group of “Pieten”.
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Oh, and one other thing in which the Netherlands is behind it’s neighbours: participation of women in the workforce.
While the number of women working is very high, most of them work part time, often just one of two days a week.
My wive and I both work 4 days since we became parents, but that’s a exception, mostly still, the woman will start working less or even stop working after the birth of a child, while almost all men will keep on working full time.
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That’s really the most reasonable approach, indeed.
I’m just afraid it will take really long as I see how people in my area hold on to their perception of ‘how it has always been’. I just live a few kilometers from Amsterdam (in a historically very socialist city), and already the conservatism people display is astonishing.
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True, which is why I think the US and the Netherlands aren’t that different from each other, though the Netherlands might be a little more like New York than say a southern state.
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“Old Amsterdam,” as it were.
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Good to know for people: some of the socialist and social democratic parties in the Netherlands are not really progressive per se. Progressive & conservative is a different axis then socialist and capitalist.
For example the Socialist Party is one of the more conservative parties, they hold on to 50s-70s ideas of the country, be it mostly of the socialist kind. The PVV is very populist and conservative, but has some very socialist ideas about pensions, etc.
As far as I’m concerned, just two or three of the smaller parties have real progressive ideas, most others are centrist at best.
That’s a really weird schizophrenic way of thinking here. “We” are very proud of our open, tolerant culture, until someone challenges the tiniest thing and all bets are off and there is ultra right wing foaming at the mouth.
I think the rise of Wilders is comparable with the situation in the U.K. in that Labour moved way to the right and lost their electorate, who were sucked up by populism, because blaming minorities is easier than facing the far reaching economic issues created by global banking etc.
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My deepest fear is that multiculturalism is incompatible with liberal democracy; which is to say, it’s only doable when everyone comes from the same narrowly defined cultural background.
As soon as all those “others” start coming in, everyone wants to pick up their toys and stop sharing.
Still waiting for America to prove me wrong…
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True. Also, jobs that are performed more by women, like nursing jobs have been shifting towards only hiring people part-time as well which doesn’t help fix this problem. And science and tech education does very little to increase the number of girls going into science or tech.
Well, this is a cheery thread.
I remember from Piketty that the same sort of thing is true of the Nordic countries. The things we hear about that sound good are increasingly being diminished.
Don’t know the Netherlands well, but I’ve had a couple of good weekends in Amsterdam…(stolen passport aside)
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