The Dutch royal family is very down-to-earth, just regular folks as the Americans would say; so is the Swedish royal family. Both ride their bicycles around the streets of their city, without armed guards or escorts. Once when I was in a book shop in Amsterdam, I glanced up from the book I was browsing to see Queen Juliana, with a solitary female attendant, also browsing on the other side of the same table of books. After she left the book shop, the sales clerk confirmed that my recognition of her from photos was correct. Not long after that I was in Stockholm for a conference on the philosophical foundations of medical ethics, convened by the Nobel Foundation and the Karolinska Institutet. It was opened officially by the rather handsome Spanish-born Queen of Sweden, who spoke briefly in Swedish and English, then came and took a seat immediately in front of the seats occupied by my friend Claes-Goran Westrin and me. I could quite literally breathe down the back of her neck had I chosen to do so. I have a photo to prove it. After the opening ceremony and formal speeches, she joined us plebs for coffee. I was not sure what I should do if introduced to her, but fortunately that didn't happen. These two families are an interesting contrast to their British counterparts. I wonder whether this is related to the apparent success of Holland and Sweden as functioning societies, compared to Britain, as revealed by the statistics of the Human Development Index and other objective indicators...
Of course there is something else, a special bond between Holland and Canada: in April 1945, the Canadian contingents of the allied armies liberated Holland from the Nazis who had invaded Holland and Belgium in 1940 as part of the Nazi takeover of almost all of Europe. This special bond between the two nations is another reason for the annual gift of tulip bulbs. The Nazis had been particularly brutal and vicious in Holland. In the final year of their occupation they looted virtually all the food and destroyed much of the country's capacity to produce food, precipitating the famine known as the Dutch Hunger Winter. The Canadian liberators brought not only liberty, but food as well. As an adopted Canadian, I've had the pleasure of basking in the Dutch love of everything and everyone Canadian, and so has David, both when he wore the Canadian forces uniform and subsequently as a civilian.
Thanks John!
ReplyDeleteAll the best (and to Wendy),
PS Neil Arya and I are starting to collaborate, on a couple of fronts
Hi dad, your grandson Peter has the distinction of being born in that same wing of the Civic hospital that was made part of the Netherlands, but I don't think it qualifies him for European citizenship!
ReplyDeleteDavid
It is true, when I came from Canada to Holland to visit my future wife Tineke, I was always warmly received, especially when people found out about my Canadian origins. People are still grateful. But they are a welcoming people; my Colombian background has never ellicited any negative reactions.
ReplyDeleteAbout how "down to earth" the Royal Dutch family is and its relation to the high living standards of The Netherlands: it is a strong value of Dutch people to be "gewoon" (normal, down to earth). It is not acceptable to show off your wealth. I think that long ago the people with power in The Netherlands decided that the best way to ensure a peaceful and secure life for themselves was to raise the living standards of the poor. This has resulted in very high taxes and a very strong social safety net. Canada is strong in equality, but The Netherlands are even stronger. Here there are no private schools, even the richest send their children to government schools. If you graduate from a Dutch university, you are judged on your degree, not on which university you came from. The extremely high taxes on inheritance are also based on the idea that nobody should get an unfair advantage from the wealth of his or her parents. The system works. I do not have the pressure to send my children to private school that my brothers in Ottawa are now facing; nor the expenses. This money is better used to travel during the 8 weeks holiday a year that our family practitioners group gives each other. All workers in The Netherlands start with minimum 5 weeks of holiday a year, it grows with increasing seniority.
But there are some worries in the political front and that is the strong support that extreme right politican Geert Wilders gets. He gets his support by discriminating against muslims. But that is another story.
Robert Harris