How Dutch women got to be the happiest in the world

By Claire Ward - Friday, August 19, 2011 at 8:00 AM - 73 Comments

Photo by: Thomas Schlijper

Like many Dutch women, Marie-Louise van Haeren views herself as liberated. “Every woman in Holland can do whatever she wants with her life,” says Van Haeren, 52, who lives just outside of Rotterdam and rides her bicycle or the train to work three days a week at a police academy, where she counsels students. She has worked part-time her entire career, as have almost all of her friends—married or unmarried, kids or no kids—save one or two who logged more hours out of financial necessity. Van Haeren, who wasn’t married until last year and has no children, says she’s worked part-time “to have time to do things that matter to me, live the way I want. To stay mentally and physically healthy and happy.”

Many women in the Netherlands seem to share similar views, valuing independence over success in the workplace. In 2001, nearly 60 per cent of working Dutch women were employed part-time, compared to just 20 per cent of Canadian women. Today, the number is even higher, hovering around 75 per cent. Some, like Van Haeren, view this as progress, evidence of personal freedom and a commitment to a balanced lifestyle.

Others, however, view it as an alarming signal that women are no longer seeking equality in the workplace. Writer and economist Heleen Mees, for example, argues that the stereotypical Dutch woman has become complacent. “Even at the University of Amsterdam—the most progressive university we have—I had a 22-year-old student say, ‘Why is it your business if my wife wants to bake cookies?’ and the female students agreed with him! I was like, what’s happening here?”

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Holland’s anti-Islamic crusader

By Katie Engelhart - Thursday, March 18, 2010 at 10:00 AM - 23 Comments

Photograph by Empics Entertainment/Keystone

There was never any doubt that Geert Wilders could talk the talk; this most disagreeable Dutchman, head of Holland’s far-right, anti-immigrant Freedom Party (PVV), is famous for mouthing off—mostly against Muslims. (He is famous for equating the Quran to Hitler’s Mein Kampf and for claiming that “Islam is the cause of all our problems.”) The question has always been: could he walk the walk? Well, he’s walking. And there’s new concern that he could walk his way to the prime minister’s office.

During the Netherlands’ local elections last week, the PVV made major gains—carrying the city of Almere and placing second in The Hague. In no time, critics and supporters alike were painting those local victories as a sign of what is to come when the country holds national elections in June. Said Wilders, in a victory speech on Wednesday: “Today Almere and The Hague, tomorrow the Netherlands. We are going to take the Netherlands back from the leftist elite that coddles criminals and supports Islamization.”

His plan to “conquer the entire country” is ambitious—but Wilders’s pledges to “ban the Quran,” unleash “urban commandos” on city streets, and uphold “Judeo-Christian values” are selling well in a country torn apart over immigration policy. A new poll projects that, in June, the PVV will nab more seats than any other party.

Marc Chavannes, a Dutch journalist and professor, laments that his country “is certainly not showing its best face.” Elsewhere, the broader repercussions of a win for Wilders are being sized up. Some express their concerns obliquely: a column in the U.K.’s Telegraph wondered if “Geert Wilders [is] the new William of Orange,” the 17th-century Dutch prince who took the British crown—sweeping in, at the invitation of Protestants, to prevent a Catholic dynasty from ruling the land. Others feel no need to mute their disquiet: shortly after Wilders’s municipal victories were announced, Germany’s Die Tageszeitung newspaper featured a front page photo of Geert Wilders smiling broadly—with a taped-on Hitler moustache.

Holland’s anti-Islamic firebrand

By Katie Engelhart - Tuesday, December 1, 2009 at 2:55 PM - 68 Comments

Geert Wilders is famous for his punchy one-liners. Here’s one: “I don’t believe there is a moderate Islam.” And another: “The more Islam that we get, the less freedom that we get.” Wilders, for all his rhetorical failings, is always to the point—like when he categorically proclaims: “I want to ban the Quran.”

It’s not hard to imagine one of these brash catchphrases serving as a slogan for his possible run at the Dutch prime minister’s office in 2011. Today, Geert Wilders stands at the helm of the Netherlands’ fastest growing political force: the Party for Freedom (PVV), founded by Wilders after his 2004 split with the People’s Party. Wilders, Holland’s most notorious right-wing political rock star, has already managed to win a broad base of support, picking up 17 per cent of the Dutch vote in this year’s European elections.

But the PVV has come to resemble, for many, less of a political unit than a vehicle for Europe’s most brazen and unapologetic crusade against Islam—or, as Wilders is known to say, “that sick ideology of Allah and Muhammad.” That is at the heart of the PVV’s stance on nearly every issue. “Islam,” he insists, “is an ideology, not a religion. And it’s a very dangerous, violent and fascist ideology.” Indeed, Wilders has mobilized the right wing around a shared fear: “the Islamic invasion of Holland.”

Wilders wants to ban Islam’s primary religious text, the Quran, on the basis that it is no different from Mein Kampf, Adolf Hitler’s 1925 articulation of Nazi ideology. He also backs moves to prohibit the headscarf and burka—a policy that is endorsed by the country’s integration and immigration minister. Recently, Wilders has played on economic woes, urging the government to calculate “the cost of multiculturalism.” It’s an approach that has ostensibly met success; polls indicate that were a national vote to be held today, Wilders’s party would walk away with more votes than any other.

Wilders’s rise, some say, can be traced back to the day five years ago when a Dutch-Moroccan Muslim shot and then nearly decapitated Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh, allegedly for insulting Islam. The killing spurred a series of mosque burnings, and pitted Dutch nationalists against a growing body of immigrants. As the German newsmagazine Der Spiegel has written, “Nov. 2, 2004 was the Netherlands’ Sept. 11, and after that day many politicians declared that the country was now at war.” Wilders’s war has included his 17-minute film Fitna, which means “diagreement and division among people” in Arabic. It juxtaposes images of Sept. 11 and the 2005 London transit bombings with verses from the Quran, such as: “Prepare for them whatever force and cavalry ye are able of gathering, to strike terror, to strike terror into the hearts of the enemies, of Allah and your enemies.” (Last February, he was denied entry to London to show the film, although that stance was later reversed.)

Wilders’s rise, says Simon Usherwood, a professor at the University of Surrey, is explained in part by “economic downturn, [which] produces swings toward more reactionary politics.” But another factor is his undeniable charisma. Wilders’s nickname, “Mozart,” is a tribute to his striking hair: longish, cut bluntly, and bleached platinum blond—an attempt, say the rumours, to hide his allegedly Jewish ancestry. But the crux of his support stems from a pressing anxiety about immigration. There are now around one million Muslims—many from Morocco and Turkey—in the Netherlands. But while they only make up around six per cent of the population, there are Muslim strongholds, like Rotterdam, where, Usherwood says, you find white citizens worried that a “national minority will become a local majority.” Tensions are ripe, he claims, because the government has stuck to a policy of “benign neglect”: “simply stick[ing] your fingers in your ears and go[ing] ‘bla bla bla, I can’t hear you.’ ” This has allowed Wilders, with his own crude solution, to sweep in.

Ian Buruma, author of Murder in Amsterdam: The Death of Theo Van Gogh and the Limits of Tolerance, points his finger at a more global phenomenon: “It is a sign of a broader shift that is happening in Europe, or even the United States with Sarah Palin, in that there is a strong populist mood.” Wilders has managed to take advantage of an “anti-elite” sentiment, says Buruma, in part by manipulating criticism voiced against him. “Part of exploiting the fears of being victimized by elites is his own position: ‘look at me, the elites are out to get me.’ It helps cement that image of the beleaguered voice of the little man being stifled by the elite.”

For Wilders, the Netherlands—which Usherwood stresses is still “liberal and permissive”—is filled with hidden Islamic threats. But how much longer this Dutch Mozart, who is under heavy police protection, will be able to run his mouth is a topic for debate. A national court has charged Wilders with hate speech, and the trial will begin in January. But Buruma thinks a courtroom show will only fuel Wilders’s following, especially if tensions around immigration are not definitively addressed. “When people get fearful,” he warns,” they are capable of following demagogues anywhere.”

Help—we're running out of criminals

By Susan Mohammad - Thursday, June 4, 2009 at 2:20 PM - 0 Comments

Some problems are good ones to have. After facing a shortage of prison cells in the ’90s, Holland is now running out of criminals. Last week, the Justice Ministry announced a plan to close eight prisons because a declining crime rate has left nearly 2,000 cells empty. The ministry currently has a capacity to house 14,000 adult prisoners, but only has 12,000 detainees. Meanwhile, Deputy Justice Minister Nebahat Albayrak has told the Dutch parliament that the ministry estimates the decline in crime rates will continue for some time. (According to the International Centre for Prison Studies in London, the Netherlands housed a total of over 20,000 inmates, including juveniles and illegal aliens, in 2004. In 2007 the number fell to close to 18,000.)

Not everyone is pleased, since the closures will also see 1,200 jobs slashed. Both the right-wing Dutch Freedom Party and left-wing Socialist Party oppose the job cuts and dispute the idea of a prison overcapacity—and say they would like to see more criminals spend time in jail. But Albayrak maintains the plan will proceed, although she has said the unions representing workers in the prison system will be consulted (according to some reports the government could save over $258 million by shutting down the prisons).

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