I am not known for my overly optimistic nature, but this week I saw something positive in international developments. Now that America is pulling the hands off Europe, we might see that country as what it is: not the Netherlands.
The Dutch relationship to America always skips between two poles: fascination (they are so Christian, so thick, so anti-government, so conservative, so armed) and identification (we talk about the Oscar ceremony and the presidential election as if they are taking place). In recent years, the balance broke through to the second. Partly due to the internet, the public debate globalized: a statement of support for Hamas from an American teacher could suddenly symbolize ‘anti -Semitism at the universities’, as if Columbia University is in Amsterdam Science Park.
I am bothered here since I graduated thirteen years ago on Ayn Rand, philosopher and writer of the extremely popular in America Atlas Shugged. There is no better way to study the differences between Europe and the US than looking at Rand’s reception on both sides of the ocean. The originally Russian and in their twenties to the US migrated rander glorified in its books that recorded against cunning, talentless bureaucrats. (What does that remember?) Atlas Shugged Did not catch on in Europe, but sold millions of copies in the US. Generations of Americans grew up with steel magnate Hank Reden, who fought against the government and acted against altruism. With her books, Rand held a chord that does not exist in Europe: that of belief in unbridled capitalism, in which the individual can come to full maturity.
During my research into the edge I noticed how easily we import American analyzes without translating them into the Dutch context. At that time, the Occupy Wall Street protest took place in New York, with copies in Dutch cities in his wake. In the debate about capitalism and inequality, little distinction was made between the American and the Dutch situation, as if capitalism here is just as derailed as in the US. In reality there is a big difference between the American welfare state and the Dutch. The lowest tax rate in the US is three and a half times as low, the percentage of people in poverty three and a half times as high. The Gini coefficient (the figure for income inequality) of the Netherlands is 0.26 and that of the US 0.41. That does not seem like a big difference on a scale of 0 to 1, but most countries are somewhere between the Netherlands and the US.
Also in other areas people easily forget that the Netherlands is not America. Think of left -wing activists who ‘All Cops Are Bastards‘Calling while the Dutch police are a bunch of cuddly bears compared to the American. Think of the endless talk about the gap between city and countryside, while in the Netherlands the majority of people lives in ‘Middenland’, as social geographer Josse de Voogd calls it: not in a big city but also not really in the countryside. Think of the term ‘Post-Truth Society‘, who is much more substantial in the US with a compulsive lying president and fully shattered media landscape than in the Netherlands, where there is an agreement on basic facts.
Even more disturbing, because more comprehensive, are the analyzes about polarization: they are absorbed for the American context, but not for the Dutch. We do not have two camps here that are substantively and emotionally opposite each other on just about all subjects, from climate to infectious disease control. That became clear again this week: the disagreement in the coalition (and also in the opposition) about European loans for defense investments showed that the parties are not on every subject in the same camp. In addition, not all right -wing voters are fan of Trump, as Monday showed one NRC-Rportage about the vote in the country.
The space between the US and the Netherlands, always large, is now growing rapidly. Trump makes no attempt to evade the appearance of nepotism and corruption: this week he held a promotional street for Tesla for the White House, with Elon Musk by his side. In the Netherlands, only ten percent of citizens are worried about corruption, according to research by Ipsos on Thursday. Understandable, because we are in the top ten of least corrupt countries. With us, drivers commit lesser offenses, such as the mayor of Houten this week: he had to leave because, according to his officials, he was guilty of microm management and “cross -border verbal expressions” (think of raising voting). In the words of a civil servant: “He doesn’t say it, but just” Baf, in your face. ” In Houten people did not like that.
While Trump and Musk raise cross -border behavior to the norm, you will be fired in the Netherlands if you give your officials an unsafe feeling. Let in sink in how big this difference is.
Floor Rusman ([email protected]) is editor of NRC