HISTORY AS A MONEY LAUNDERER?
THE DUTCH AND THEIR NATIONAL HISTORY
Ine Megens
Dr. C.M. Megens
Senior Lecturer Contemporary History
Department of History
University of Groningen
P.O. Box 716
9700 AS Groningen
The Netherlands
E.
T. +31 50 363 6011
Table of contents
I. Introduction.
II. A canon for all Dutch people.
III. Political demands for a grand narrative.
IV. The public debate on the canon report.
V. History and collective identity.
VI. History education and the Dutch canon.
English summary
The article analyses the importance of historiography for the construction of cultural identity and hence discusses the Dutch canon. This master narrative offers an overview of Dutch history and culture on the basis of 50 subjects. The list was drawn at the insistence of politicians to counter the disintegrative factors in Dutch society. The publication of the canon in 2006 sparked a debate about the drawbacks of Dutch history that continues to this day. It also inspired the educational sector to develop new teaching materials, although the canon is not compulsory for school curricula. A historical master narrative, however, cannot solve social problems. At best, shared historical knowledge may foster community spirit in the long run.
Keywords: historical canon, national identity, history education, collective identity
Summary in Spanish:
Este artículo analiza la importancia de la historiografía para la construcción de una identidad cultural y habla del canon holandés. Partiendo de cinquenta temas, éste presenta una vista general de la historia y cultura holandesa. La lista resultó de la insistencia política para contrarrestar los factores de desintegración en la sociedad holandesa. La publicación del canon en 2006 repercutió en un debate aún inconcluso que aborda varios aspectos negativos de la historia holandesa. Aunque el canon no es obligatorio para las escuelas, el sector educacional lo ha utilizado para desarrollar nuevos materiales didácticos. Sin embargo, un canon histórico no puede resolver problemáticas sociales. A lo más, el conocimiento histórico compartido podría contribuir a largo plazo al espíritu de la comunidad.
Keywords: canon histórico, identidad nacional, educación de historia, identidad colectiva
HISTORY AS A MONEY LAUNDERER? THE DUTCH AND THEIR NATIONAL HISTORY
Ine Megens
Starting with the megalithic tombs of the farmers circa 3000 BC, and then continuing with the developments in subsequent centuries up to and including 20th century events like Srebrenica, the Canon of the Netherlands is an overview of Dutch history and culture.[1] It represents what all Dutch people should know about their national history and culture according to Frits van Oostrom, the chairman of the committee that drafted the canon. The canon came about at the insistence of politicians as a response to social unrest and anxiety in the Netherlands at the beginning of the 21st century. This article discusses the importance of national history for the reassessment of Dutch identity in order to gain a better understanding of the impact of historiography on the process of (re)creating cultural identity.
A canon for all Dutch people
The Dutch canon represents the development of the Netherlands over time, the achievements it has accomplished and what it represents in the world. Some of the names that figure prominently in the list are Charlemagne (742-814), Erasmus (1469-1536), Eise Eisinga (1744-1828) and Anne Frank (1929-1945). Subjects include the printing press, opposition to child labor or the natural gas deposit. In total the canon is comprised of 50 ‘windows’ or topics, supplemented by some main threads which indicate the cross-links between the windows. It was launched in 2006 as a website and published as a booklet. The design of the canon indicates that education was the primary target. Starting from the main text which explains the importance of the item, there are suggestions of how to build further on the matter, including sub-topics and references. The sub-topics suggest related subjects for both primary and secondary schools. There are also ideas on how to link the past and the present, and proposals for items which could be placed in a ‘treasure chest’ in order to make the past more tangible. To give an example, the icon on the first Dutch sentence written in 1100 by a Flemish monk ‘Hebban olla vogela…’, suggests among other things themes such as ‘love songs’ for the primary education sector and ‘monastic orders’ for high school students. Teachers could also discuss the impact of modern media on language or Arab culture as a breeding ground for European culture. In addition to the sub-topics there are references with a list of historical novels for young children, as well as recommended excursions and websites. In the example referred to above a medieval library is mentioned, as well as a museum where pupils can try to write with a goose quill pen.
The 50 icons were also published on a poster displaying them as connected to each other by a line, roughly indicating a timeline. Not all subjects fit nicely into this format because some deal with long term developments, e.g. ‘country mansions’ is a story about the lifestyle of the elite in the 17th and 18th century. From a didactic point of view the poster was criticized because there is no continuous line from left to right; the winding path provides little hold for young children. Leaving aside this comment, it was obvious from the outset that the 50 windows could not be dealt with in isolation. The committee therefore added fourteen main themes to the canon. The geography of the country, sited on a river delta on the periphery of Europe, is one of these main threads. It starts with the Roman limes, showing how the region was once the frontier of the Roman Empire and became part of other empires in later centuries. Another main theme, entitled ‘the welfare state, democratization and secularisation’ connects among others the icons of the great flood of 1953, television, the port of Rotterdam and the natural gas deposit.
More so than the icons themselves, these fourteen main themes reveal the basic principles applied in the selection of topics. Economic and political history constitute the basic structure of the canon, even if religion and language are designated as two of the main lines of thought. The Dutch Republic, colonial power, the nation-state and the rise of modern society are mentioned while the diversification of society due to immigration and international cooperation are the most contemporary main themes.
Political demands for a grand narrative
The Dutch government commissioned a report on a national canon due to repeated lamentations about the demise of general knowledge amongst young people, in particular with regards to Dutch history and culture. These defects were attributed to general developments in the Dutch education system where skills were deemed more important than the transfer of knowledge. Moreover, time allocated to teaching history decreased over the last decades, while there were also changes in history teaching methods, whereby chronological order gave way to a thematic approach. For their final examination Dutch high school students take both school exams and a national exam. Every year two different topics are identified for these national exams. ‘Germany and Europe, 1945 – 2000’ was the first theme for the national exam in 2001. The second one was called ‘The Netherlands and Indonesia. Four centuries of contact and influence’. As a consequence people complained that high school students have no general overview of history, but know a great deal about a small number of subjects. In 2005 the Education Council issued a report which endorsed the complaints and urged the development of a cultural and historical canon for primary and secondary education.[2]
Apart from the concerns about a lack of knowledge among students, the call for a national canon was motivated by political arguments and came as a response to social and political problems. The main problem is one which has remained the same for many years: the integration into Dutch society of the large groups of immigrants, mainly of Turkish and Moroccan origin, and even more so the integration of their children. What did change was the political climate in the Netherlands and the solutions put forward to solve the problem. Until the 1990s ‘tolerance towards newcomers and multiculturalism were considered ideals (…)’.[3] However, at the beginning of the new centennial the tone of public debate changed. The article by Paul Scheffer, ‘The multicultural drama’, published in a Dutch weekly in January 2000, is conveniently seen as the beginning of recent public discourse on integration. Scheffer argued that the failure of integration was due to the self-image of the Dutch.
“The culture of tolerance, which now finds it limits, goes hand in hand with a self-image that is untrue. It is necessary to say goodbye to the cosmopolitan illusion in which many believe. The Dutch neglected their national consciousness […]. We lack a ‘we’ because we think we don’t have one. This borderless mentality has a negative influence on integration, for there is a distant and careless society behind it.’[4]
The essay hit a nerve in Dutch society and elicited a storm of criticism, both assenting and approving. Scheffer had put his finger on the sore spot and this became obvious the moment Pim Fortuyn entered the political arena. Fortuyn was a right-wing populist who founded his own political party in 2002. His ideas, emotional tone and style caught on among the general public and captured a strong undercurrent of society’s discontent with the political establishment. His murder by an animal rights activist, and the assassination of the movie-maker Theo van Gogh by a Muslim fundamentalist two years later, came as a shock to society and evoked a sense of crisis, enhancing the fears of disintegration. For many the Dutch polder model of consultation and consensus was seen to have failed. Many intellectuals, both politicians and officials, had been satisfied with it and even took pride in this culture of consultation. The open, liberal, well-to-do and self-satisfied society which was familiar to them crumbled, undermining the self-confidence of the Dutch elite.
From the outset ,the debate on multiculturalism also touched another sensitive subject: Dutch identity. From the early 21st century national identity became a subject of public concern in the Netherlands.[5] Scheffer had advocated that his fellow Dutchmen should take their own language, culture and history more seriously and re-affirm their national identity ‘because we don’t emphasize what keeps us together as a society.’[6] A parliamentary committee which issued a report on the integration of minorities also recommended paying more attention to Dutch national history in educating migrants.[7] Some critics immediately rejected the plea to take their own Dutch culture more seriously and labeled it as a nationalist stance. They argued that ‘the Netherlands does not exist anymore’. Decision-making had shifted to transnational organizations, while national institutions hardly functioned anymore. As a consequence of global changes a new kind of transnational society was developing. National culture was just no longer relevant.[8]
While this anti-national point of view had prevailed until 2000, other voices were now being heard as well. Frits Bolkestein, a liberal politician and former member of the European Commission, argued that national identity was part of the solution for urgent political problems. In his opinion national identity was still a possibility and perhaps even a necessity for an open society. It did not have to be an obstacle to international ties.[9] Other intellectuals joined the debate. In parliament the leader of the Socialist Party, Jan Marijnissen, stated that globalization, European integration and immigration put the nation-state at risk. In both the political arena as well as in public discourse the interest in national identity grew. ‘By contrast with earlier years, not all talk of the nation was dismissed a priori as unduly nationalist’, as professor of sociology Frank Lechner rightfully concludes.[10] There was political agreement on a need to counter the disintegrative factors in Dutch society and here history was called upon for help. Marijnissen claimed that history education was very important and proposed to establish a national history museum. He gained broad support among the parliamentarians and in 2006 the Dutch government decided to establish a museum. This national history museum did not materialize, despite initial enthusiasm among museum directors and a generous start-up grant from the government. The project bogged down in disagreements over the layout of the collection and the location of the museum. The proposals and public statements to promote historical knowledge among the general public, however, paved the way for the Dutch canon. The government appointed a committee of experts under the chairmanship of the well-known literary historian Frits van Oostrom. Other members had expertise in the field of education, musea and public history, both as researchers and managers.
The public debate on the canon report
The presentation of the canon in 2006 was a huge media event. The political demands and personal interests of parliamentarians partly explain why there was a lot of media attention and public debate when the report was published. It also proves there is indeed a lively interest in national culture. In this respect, the multimedia approach was seen as greatly advantageous and got high praise from specialists and teachers. The interested layman would be able to find much to his liking on the website, covering a great variety of subjects, including references to books and websites with more information and links to places of interest. The first reactions in the media showed widespread enthusiasm, and the general public seemed to welcome the information too, but this did not hold true to the same extent amongst academics. Most professional historians were ambivalent at best. They criticized the selection of the icons and the national framing of history, as well as the actual concept of a canon as such. Firstly the choice of topics and criticism thereof will be analyzed. The other themes will be discussed in the following paragraphs.