Dutch Empire

"In the Netherlands, people are so toilet trained that when they feel the need to spit, they take the train to do it in the countryside."

"The Netherlands, with all its anti-discrimination provisions and especially the moral indignation about anything that hints at making a distinction between people in whatever field, is a rock-hard segregated society."

"But 'the' Dutch identity? No, I have not found it. The Netherlands is: large windows without curtains so everyone can look in; but also adherence to privacy and coziness. The Netherlands is: one biscuit at tea; but also great hospitality and warmth. The Netherlands is: sobriety, control and pragmatism; but also the experience of intense emotions together. The Netherlands is far too diverse to summarize in one cliché. 'The' Dutchman does not exist. As a consolation I can tell you that 'the' Argentinian also does not exist. I therefore find it very interesting that the title of the report of the Scientific Council for Government Policy is not 'the Dutch identity'. But: Identification with the Netherlands. That leaves room for development and diversity."

"Americans reflexively believe that 'Had Germany occupied the United States, nearly all of us would have joined an armed resistance to the Nazis. That's what I thought, too, when I was 16. But that reflects a hopelessly naive view, both of what the world looked like to most people after the Nazis had conquered Austria, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Holland, Belgium, Luxembourg, Denmark, Norway and France, and of what it actually meant to take up arms against an occupying power'."

"But arguably the greatest achievement of the Dutch lay in creating a republic free from aristocratic or clerical domination, as the expulsion of the feudally inclined Spanish overlords empowered the bourgeoisie. The Dutch expanded human rights, including those of religious minorities and women, and cultivated a keen interest in children and the nuclear family. Dutch culture was family-centered, inventive, sober, frugal, and tolerant. A separation of science and philosophy from religion was exemplified in the writings of Baruch Spinoza, among others. Although majority Calvinist, the country boasted large colonies of Catholics, Jews, and other outsiders, including Muslims; roughly a third of Amsterdam's population in 1650 were foreign-born. Some immigrants came as merchants or artisans, but even the poorest, observed one Dutchman in 1692, "cannot die of hunger if he works hard." As late as the eighteenth century, the Dutch Republic was regarded as a poor country, and the British viewed it as "the indigested vomit of the sea." But the reclaimed land helped raise a substantial class of small landowners at a time when most property in Europe was owned by the aristocracy or the church. The growing ranks of proprietors were the heart of Dutch dynamism, and they set down "the geographical roots of republican liberty," notes the historian Simon Schama."

"There have been frequent consultations and close cooperation between our two countries in the political as well as economic fields. I am appreciative of the understanding and support which the Netherlands have given to Malaysia on matters of great importance to us, both internally as well as regionally and internationally. Your support for the aspirations of the developing countries to effect structural changes to the international economic order cannot go without special mention nor can we forget the active role which your country has played in the North-South dialogue. Your support for the siting of the International Natural Rubber Association Headquarters (INRA) in Kuala Lumpur is much appreciated."

"The Dutch, who produced so much in their golden age of the seventeenth century, from Rembrandt to microscopes, also were innovators in war. Maurice of Nassau, who became their head of state in 1585, freed the northern Dutch provinces from Spanish rule in part because he built such an effective fighting force. He organised his forces on the battlefield in ranks, up to ten of them, and pioneered an elaborate form of battlefield movement where, as the first rank fired, it wheeled to the back, allowing the next ones to fire and wheel in sequence. The rate of fire was much greater if, and it was a major if, the troops could stand firm when ordered and move in unison on command. Without discipline, often savage discipline, and repeated drills so that movement and following orders became second nature even in battle, soldiers could not have used the new weapons effectively. The old-style armies, where the ruler hired mercenaries or got their local magnates to raise forces which then tended to disperse at the end of a campaign, were not the right sort of material for the new training and tactics. It was a strong incentive for governments to have their own armies, and, of course, in time that increased their power."

"I've done it, be of good cheer."

"Tromp goes forth today: he trumpets with all his strength, And call to the sea and plunge into your thoughts, A lust to do good, a zeal for the Land, His heart is dear and all his soul is burning, Thou, heed his business and heed his commandments; He will teach you to play with ice, according to art, And bounce with the steel; yes led to the dance, Not a woman and serve, but not as a swift man."

"Here rests the sea hero Tromp, the brave protector; Of seafaring and the sea; in the service of the free country, that keeps man's memory in the precious marble; So lively as he died before the Dutch beach. Sound with murderous cries and thunder of kartouen, Since Great Britain was on fire, all the water fell. He has carved himself in the hearts of the citizens That image endures the splendor of tomb and marble stone."

"There will never be a revolution in the Netherlands, because you are not allowed to walk on the grass there."

"The duller the politics, the happier the country"

"Every Dutchman hates Holland. That is our cardinal national quality."

"Compare Holland with Russia; you see only marshy and sterile islands in the former, which rise from the center of the ocean: a small republic which is only 48 miles length by 40 wide. But this small body is the very nerve-center of the region: immense people live in it, and these industrious people are both powerful and rich. They shook the yoke of the Spanish domination, which was then the most formidable monarchy of Europe. The trade of this republic extends to the ends of the world; and new trade appears almost immediately; it can maintain in times of war an army fifty thousand men, without counting a many and well maintained fleet."

"Greece is a sort of American vassal; the Netherlands is the country of American bases that grow like tulip bulbs; Cuba is the main sugar plantation of the American monopolies; Turkey is prepared to kowtow before any United States proconsul and Canada is the boring second fiddle in the American symphony."

"On December 14, 2023, the Netherlands joined several other democratic countries that have declared the so-called “shunning” practiced by the Jehovah’s Witnesses and other religions not illegal and protected in its teaching and practice by international and domestic provisions on freedom of religion or belief. The Minister of Justice and Security wrote to the House of Representatives explaining the reasons why shunning should not be criminalized in the country."

"In all, 52 per cent of Japanese military personnel deployed overseas served in China, compared with 33 per cent in the Pacific theatre and 14 per cent in South-East Asia. These figures also provide some indication of the relative ease with which the Japanese were able to oust the European empires. By any standards, these were low-hanging fruit. The Dutch colonies were defended by a fleet of 5 cruisers, 8 destroyers and 24 submarines, an air force of 50 obsolescent planes and an army of just 35,000 regulars with 25,000 reservists… With good reason the forces of the European empires in Asia have been called 'Forgotten Armies';"

"The establishment of a sugar processing infrastructure in colonial Java persistently increased industrialization, education, and household consumption in areas near government sugar factories, even after the factories themselves had disappeared. Similarly, villages forced to grow sugar cane for the Cultivation System have more schooling and manufacturing today… the positive impacts on economic activity plausibly dominated [any negative effects] in the long-run."

"The composition of Unilever should serve as a warning that colonialism was not simply a matter of ties between a given colony and its mother country, but between colonies on the one hand and metropoles on the other. The German capital in Unilever joined the British in exploiting Africa and the Dutch in exploiting the East Indies. The rewards spread through the capitalist system in such a way that even those capitalist nations who were not colonial powers were also beneficiaries of the spoils. Unilever factories established in Switzerland, New Zealand, Canada, and the U.S.A. were participants in the expropriation of Africa’s surplus and in using that surplus for their own development."

"These people were of all races, colors, and creeds. French were in the north and in the Carolinas. Dutch had built the town on Manhattan island, and their patroons' estates in the Hudson valley; now they were building their own cabins in the Mohawk Indian country that is now New York State. Germans had settled in the Jerseys and in the far west, beyond Philadelphia. Germans and Scotch-Irish were climbing the Carolina mountains; Swedes were in Delaware, English and French and Dutch and Irish were settled in Massachusetts, the New Hampshire Grants, Connecticut, and Virginia. Mingled with all these were Italians, Portuguese, Finns, Arabs, Armenians, Russians, Greeks, and Africans from a dozen very different African peoples and cultures. Black, brown, yellow and white, all these peoples were some of them free and some of them slaves. Also they were intermarried with the American Indians."

"Jesus Christ is good, but trade is better."

"The preference of the Navy Staff was to launch assaults on Hong Kong, Singapore and Malaya, while at the same time overrunning Dutch Sumatra, Borneo and Java. Their assumption, which proved entirely correct, was that the European empires in Asia had been dealt lethal blow at home by the German occupation of the Netherlands and France and the continuing German threat to the British Isles. The Dutch colonies, in particular, looked like easy quarry; they had the added allure of being oil-rich. Malaya, meanwhile, was the world's biggest producer of rubber. Living space for Japanese settlers was all very well, but the Japanese Empire needed strategic raw materials far more urgently. In 1940 army planners had argued for an invasion of Indo-China, to provide new bases from which to attack the Chinese Nationalists in Sichuan. As War Minister in the new Cabinet formed by Prince Konoe in July 1940, Tôjô had insisted that unless Japan struck soon, she risked being too late. By 1941, it is true, some senior generals had become less enthusiastic about this idea. But by now the proponents of the Southern strategy had the upper hand."