"There is no reason to accept the doctrines crafted to sustain power and privilege, or to believe that we are constrained by mysterious and unknown social laws. These are simply decisions made within institutions that are subject to human will and that must face the test of legitimacy. And if they do not meet the test, they can be replaced by other institutions that are more free and more just, as has happened often in the past."
Noam Chomsky
"The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence that it is not utterly absurd."
Bertrand Russell, British mathematician, philosopher
As I've repeated so many times, The Netherlands is a savory place to live. In the United States, we have the military-industrial complex, corporate controlled media, rising poverty, exploitation, and countless other ills befalling, and controlling the people in unseen measure. The Netherlands isn't much different from the USA in this regard, I'm sure. On days that my stomach isn't all too weak, I sometimes read the Dutch newspaper, the NRC Handelsblad, and it's just as filled with disinformation and hearsay as any other respectable newspaper.
A lot of Dutch people have become obsessed with people who hold dual, or multiple citizenship. There have been heated debates on the pros and cons of getting rid of dual-nationality, forcing people who want a coveted Dutch passport to give up their original nationality to get one.
My status as an American married to a Dutchman give me the legal right to dual-citizenship. When I went in to file for a Dutch passport, all I had to do was to say a few sentences in Dutch, tell them how long I'd lived here, and that I wanted to apply. The woman at the city hall here turned around, got the paperwork out for me, and told me how much the fee was. I asked her if she was kidding, because I couldn't believe it could be that easy. It was.
A lot of Dutch people like to get all hot under the collar when it comes to dual-citizenship. They'd like it if you forgot that you ever lived anyplace else, spoke another language, said, did, or thought anything other than what they think is right and proper.
They've since made it tougher for people to get a Dutch passport, made up a test, and a language requirement. I had already gone through all of the rigmarole of learning the language, and I've discovered that I know a bit more about the country, and its geography, than some of the Dutch people I talk to.
One of my favorite people, the future queen, Princess Maxima, has recently come under fire for saying that the Dutch identity doesn't exist, or that she hasn't found it. She identified The Netherlands as "a cookie with coffee," "open windows," and other deeply sought observations. After being escorted around the society for years, personally taught Dutch by the most highly regarded Dutch language professors, and given every privilege, a job at the UN, palatial homes, travel, couture clothing, etc. since 2001, this is all she could come up with. It goes without saying that a girl doesn't need to be too smart to marry the prince. Still, she's lauded in the press as being a "great woman," with "beautiful," "sympathetic eyes," just like the queen's. Her eyes will save the monarchy, and she'll come into the good graces of the Dutch public, even after summing up their culture as a cookie with coffee. Even I, with all of my problems and disadvantages, could come up with more than that. (More on that later.)
In The Netherlands we are all required by law to subsidize the monarchy. I haven't been home to visit my family in nearly two years because I don't have the money, but I still have to pay for the princess to say stupid things, and to run back and forth to Brussels to get her clothes made. In the land of greater equality, we have a monarchy.
When I was growing up in the United States, I always thought that monarchies went hand and hand with totalitarianism, feudalism, and general repression. I also naively suspected that they were naturally abolished as a society became more modern and sophisticated. They were something that fell away with the right to vote. Not so in The Netherlands, and many other industrialised societies, Belgium, Sweden, Japan, England, etc...
It's become a source of personal resentment that I came here, struggled, shelled out money to learn the language, taken care of my children myself, but that someone like Maxima comes here, and is given everything. I was even accepted to a Dutch university, but was denied funding because I was over 27 years old. As long as Maxima can wear Blahniks, what does it matter. Inequality exists the world over, and the Dutch like to perpetuate it by keeping their monarchy in place. They are an example of supreme egalitarianism the world over, to be sure.
People who criticize the queen, or anyone in her family, are subject to criticism for daring to speak against these holy untouchables. In writing this, I could be committing treason. Maxima could charge me in court for defamation, as has happened with some people who've said unkind things about the queen. In the land of free speech, speech is not free.
If they finally decide that dual-citizenship should be outlawed, that'll be fine with me. Unfortunately, my children will have to choose between the country they were born in, and the country they'll be living in soon. For me, the choice will be clear enough. At least in the United States I can get funding if I want to get an education.
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