The Dutch. The have a country in Europe and they have a country in South Africa (or at least did at one time). The European Dutch are very open-minded and progressive-thinking. The South African Dutch are (or at least were) racist and fascist.
What accounts for this wide difference between the two?
Thank you in advance to all who reply:)
WAG alert…
I guess you could say it was the difference between those who went abroad to colonise new lands and those who stayed at home and reaped the benefits.
Settlers are often by nature harsh and proud people as a result of the difficult conditions they have to endure - coming into contact with native peoples who were trying to kill you (justifiably so, as you were stealing their land) could easily result in intolerant and racist ideas being propagated. Those who stay behind are sheltered and have the time and space to develop tolerant philosophies which become accepted by society at large.
Grim
I just think it’s simply colonialism. Foreign lands and people tend to make isogenetic islands of invaders that make for extrimism. Survival, pretty much. Extremists survive short term… if they don’t evolve, they don’t last long.
Didn’t read Grimpixie’s post before posting. Yea, pretty much what she said.
Wow. All the Dutch in Holland are progressive and open-minded? ALL the white South Africans were evil horrible racists? How on earth do you know this?
You know what he meant.
The Dutch are very open minded and progressive thinking NOW. Hundreds of years ago they were like most other European countries - they had ambitions of becoming an empire and they seized whatever they could. It’s not like a bunch of guys were hanging out in whorehouses and hash bars and then all of a sudden decided to go pillage another country.
I can’t speak for the South-Africans but I can for the regular Dutch, and I think that Dutch tolerance and open-mindedness needs to be taken with a fairly large grain of salt - both historically AND in this day and age. First of all, this philosophy is mostly about pragmatism in a country with a mix of religions. Secondly, I’d hardly say it extends beyond religions - it doesn’t even extend beyond Christianity, most of the time.
Historically, the Dutch are easily as racist as the next guys. In fact, around the 1900s there was widespread support for the Boers, the very people who would institute apartheid later on. I think that the racist attitudes that were later to be embodied in apartheid were not at all deviant or exceptional, but, instead, really pretty normal and accepted for European standards.
Boere are composed of French Huguenots as well as Dutch, but most left Europe for the purpose of religious freedom which might imply a lack of open mindedness in all parties.
Although the struggle for survival included dominating native peoples I could hardly conclude that "South African Dutch" are or were rascist and fascist any more than New World settlers.Ahem…
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What about the populist Dutch anti-immigration party (-ies?) that we have heard about in recent years? They don’t sound particularly tolerant.
Interesting and squirrelly issue there. I wish **gum[/v] were still around to clarify.
But to state things as simply as possible, remembering that this is second-hand to me and therefore third-hand to you…
Typically the anti-immigration groups are in other respects liberal and tolerant, sometimes to a surprising extent by US standards. Their opposition to open immigration is not racist, per se, but is founded in not wanting to see the growth, in their own backyards, of a subculture based in very conservative and intolerant (usually but not always right-wing Muslim) values.
I suppose there’s more than a bit of irony there…
How did the Dutch behave in Indonesia?
Well, bad enough for the indonesians to kick us out in 1948.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_East_Indies says the Dutch didn’t care much for the hardships of the Indonesian people untill about 1900.
In addition to what Grimpixie said, don’t forget there was also foreign occupation in there too. The British take possession of the Cape in 1815, and now the settlers are under the control a foreign country, with foreign laws, a foreign language, a foreign religion, and foreign ideas. And these foreigners take over, and take almost all the positions of power. You want to be a lawyer? Better be English. A banker? Better be English. Own a business? Better be English.
So the Great Trek happens and the Boer republics are set up. Then the English come and take them over too.
When, throughout your history, you’re surrounded by people who want to destroy you, either physically (like the Zulu, the Xhosa, and the Ndebele) or culturally (like the British), you don’t tend to adopt a very tolerant mindset.
The British. They have a country on a European island and they have a country in North America (or at least did at one time).
A couple hundred years of being apart, in different environments and dealing with different groups of people, is pretty certain to result in some differences.
This is true, and many here have spotted the irony that you have. These parties* do invoke ‘freedom’ in an attempt to curtail the freedom of others to worship as they please. They want to curtail freedom of speech and religion in order to save the freedoms we cherish, such as the freedom of speech and of religion. I think, though, that this philosophy is not untypical for European anti-immigrant parties such as the Flemmish Interest (previously Flemmish Block) in Belgium and the Austrian Freedom Party. Also, I think that it would be an illusion to believe that all the Dutch that don’t vote for Wilders or Verdonk or who didn’t vote for Fortuyn in the past are tolerant and open-minded. There’s a lot of apprehension vis-à-vis people with other habits and rather than actually being tolerant, the typical attitude is described more accurately as one of pragmatically ignoring differences.