Holland: Paradise or Hell? [Paperback]

A little learning is a dangerous thing, according to Alexander Pope, who wrote at a time when the Netherlands was still establishing itself as a leading exponent of European finance capitalism, a proponent of imperialism and an upholder of the virtues of cultural Renaissance. On land largely recovered from the sea and at the mercy of technological failure at any moment, the Dutch polity overcame religious divisions and control of its land and resources by the Spanish aristocracy to fashion a modern state that is now widely admired for its tolerant nature, for the extraordinary extent to which its people can speak foreign languages (Dutch itself being a little tricky, apparently) and the Total Football tradition introduced by the genius Johann Cruyff, among other achievements. However, we can never escape the events of the past, the dark results of which can lie like a nightmare on the brains of the living. In the case of the Netherlands (of which Holland is a part, in a similar way that England is part of the United Kingdom) that dark past is represented by its imperial past. One episode was the colonization of Surinam, on the American mainland. The connection between the two countries has now adopted a post-colonial aspect, with the former master offering routes out of poverty through the use of soft power in the form of scholarships and the like.

This brings us to author Dewanand, with `100% Indian genes' and a student of engineering, who came to the Netherlands as a student some years ago in his late teens and has remained in the country for some decades subsequently. His time has not been altogether happy, for we learn that he has spent some time in prison (p.136) and appears to have suffered from repaying `bulky' interest rates on student loans (p.15). He is also a devotee of religion, taking his Indian and Hindu heritage seriously (although he has not visited that country, it seems) and also being a developer of the knowledge of the creator God Altecrea, about whom we learn (p.178) "Acronym of `Almighty Technical Creator. This Hinduistic zeta-entity is considered to be the technical expansion of Krishna on planet earth. According to Sri Sathya Sai Baba it is normal and justified that a human, an attached creature, chooses an image of the Creator (Brahman) to get power and inspiration during times of emergency and sorrow. By means of that picture the human can come closer to his/her Creator." Dewanand goes on to describe his own philosophy, which is that of Dewanism (also on p.178): "Dewanism includes everything what belongs to the religious thinking and philosophical mental world of Hindu writer and Hindu Fundamentalist Dewanand. A Dewanistical person is someone or an intelligent being [sic], who has adopted or implemented one or more elements from the Dewanistic mental world, and who sometimes strives to develop it further, while taking into account the Dewanistic constraints in the inner mental world." This philosophy infuses the whole book, which is a form of analytical scrutiny of the Netherlands and Dutch society as a whole, with particular reference to the situation of ethnic minority migrants in the country and an apparently very intense interest (mostly bordering on distaste or even disgust) in other people's sex lives.

Returning to the `little learning' concept, much of the analysis that is included seems to be based on only a slender grasp of sound research techniques and the scientific method and might more accurately be characterised as overly-reliant on the lazy, dishonest right-wing antics of the tabloid media. Indeed, Dewanand seems to recognise this issue since, towards the end of the book, he provides a list of his principal sources (p.138), which includes two online Dutch newspapers, the Central Office of Statistics and Fathers 4 Justice Netherlands. Of this last named source, the British version of this organization consists of a small number of men who believe that they have been improperly treated by the court system in the course of divorce and child custody hearings and who resort to various stunts (i.e. dressing as Spiderman or Batman during rooftop protests) in order to make their grievances better known.

Unfortunately, despite having presented these sources, the author does not provide specific references in the course of the text. To have done so might have lent some credibility to some of the more contentious claims. For example, claims are made about the number of drug addicts and people who have sex with dogs which would have benefited from stricter (or indeed any) sourcing of information. The result of all this is rather uneven, as if informed by the newspaper of the day rather than a coherent ideology. So, the analysis of the honey industry in the Netherlands correctly identifies the fact that most of the profits are retained by the investors rather than the customers or bee-keepers but the idea that taxes are somehow very high and causing an intolerable burden for rich people is a well-known right-wing trope repeated in the media by the bought and paid for lackeys of the rich. Similarly, arguments about the malaise of multiculturalism are something which do deserve to be addressed but calling Pim Fortuyn a `great white prophet' (p.127) in one of the many somewhat muddled treatments of racism in Dutch society simply will not do. As CP Scott observed, `Comment is free but facts are sacred.'

Self-examination is a good practice and at the root of not just religious analysis of the self and the relationship with society but all philosophical approaches. While it may not be possible to agree with all of Dewanand's conclusions and positions, they are at least presented in a straightforward way that invites the reader to formulate a coherent response.