A round up of the best stories about the Netherlands and all things Dutch from leading international publications
Sylvana Simons’ party will stand in the 2021 Dutch general election. ‘We’re activating people who’ve never felt politicians speaking to them.’ #12DaysofResistance More >
This week the Dutch Forum for Democracy (FvD) experienced yet another scandal, but this time the infighting did not favor Thierry Baudet. And so, four years after founding the party, and less than half a year before the next Dutch parliamentary election, Baudet has resigned as party leader, and withdrawn from the top spot on the electoral list, and we can all refocus our attention on the real leader of the Dutch far right, Geert Wilders. More >
The Dutch great played on until, aged 28, he could stand the pain from his damaged ankle no more. ‘I went from football’s highest level down to the lowest level of personal unhappiness’. More >
Commentators have long drawn sharp distinctions between conservatives in English-speaking countries and Europe’s own far-right traditions. Yet in the famously liberal Netherlands, such divides are becoming increasingly blurry, as reactionaries seeking a cultural counterrevolution try to imitate US neocons. More >
Twanna Hines, who grew up in rural Illinois, moved to the Netherlands to pursue a graduate degree at the University of Amsterdam in 2000. Not totally used to the stream of bicycles and trams in the streets of Amsterdam, she wandered into a bike lane and got a mouthful from a passing cyclist. More >
Last April, while Dutch and Italian politicians were trading insults on the European Covid recovery package, the Corriere della Sera wrote that in early days of European integration, young Italian diplomats posted to Brussels were told to apply the following principle: ‘In case of doubt, f… the Dutch.’ There was even a diplomatic version in circulation in Rome’s foreign ministry, the Farnesina: ‘Let the Dutch speak and take the diametrically opposite position’.’ More >
First there were drive-in movies, now the pandemic brought the concept to the art world; Museum-goers in the Netherlands can view artworks from their cars. More >
Last October, a couple of days before joining Stanford University as the international policy director at the Cyber Policy Center, Marietje Schaake, a former member of the European Parliament, spoke alongside Eric Schmidt, the ex-CEO. of Google, to a large audience of tech employees and academics. More >
Cracks and sinkholes are appearing alongside the waterways of Amsterdam. Bicycles are tumbling into the swirling water as the canalsides vanish beneath their wheels. Quay walls are collapsing against houseboats. Bridges are in trouble. More >
Visiting a Dutch city during a deadly pandemic can be a bizarre experience. Cautiously travelling to a few different places for work this week, I found the shops busy and the streets bustling. Squares and canalside terraces were filled with people drinking beer in the sunshine. More >
Natalia Robledo-Contreras had to fight from the age of eight to be recognised as Dutch and almost lost her family in the process More >
Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte is stuck between European partners urging him to engage in Europe at this critical moment and a growing chorus at home threatening to punish him if he does so. More >
One year after the burqa ban in the Netherlands, Muslim women have reported increased discrimination and violence. Adding to the frustration, face masks against COVID-19 have become mandatory on Dutch public transport. More >
Dutch public health officials are unbending with respect to what they consider to be lack of scientific evidence on the efficacy of non-medical masks in limiting the spread of the novel coronavirus. More >
Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte has taken on the mantle of ‘Dr No’ across the capitals of Europe after he took a tough stance on the EU’s coronavirus bailout fund. But in the Netherlands, most people supported his stance on EU integration. More >
When Donald Trump claimed his administration would be ‘designating ANTIFA as a Terrorist Organization [sic]’ the day before threatening to send the military to quell nationwide protests against racist police violence earlier this summer, he found a notable voice of support in Thierry Baudet, leader of the Dutch far-right party Forum for Democracy (FvD). More >
His boyish features belie the steel of a man with a singular purpose and he believes this could be his year to overthrow Lewis Hamilton. More >
The Netherlands may have figured out something about working from home (pandemic or no) that the rest of the world has yet to learn. More >
Black Lives Matter has shaken up political discussions about racism across the globe. In the Netherlands, it has led to yet another escalation around the ‘Black Pete’ controversy, discussed in this blog earlier this year. More >
This week the building that houses the art institutions TENT and the institution that insists on still calling itself Witte de With was defaced in protest to the delay in renaming the latter institution. More >
