'Freak Show Holland'--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
By BAS HEIJNE
July 28, 2006
AMSTERDAM -- Many years ago, I watched a debate on British television about a proposal to lower the age of consent for sex between males to 18 from 21. At one point a matronly Conservative parliamentarian said bluntly: "We do not want to live in a pedophile society like they have in the Netherlands."
I remember how shocked I was by this lie. The age of consent then was 16, as it still is, irrespective of your sexual orientation. But in the U.K., a similar plan led this MP to paint a vision of pure sexual horror, where the state would promote the abuse of little boys. That nightmare had a name: the Netherlands. And she wanted none of that in her own country. (Eventually, in 2000, Britain did lower the age to 16, the same age as for heterosexual relationships.)
We Dutch are used to having our country serve as a rhetorical device without much regard to the truth. In the popular image, the Netherlands is associated with legal drugs, gay marriage and state-approved euthanasia -- a symbol of liberalism gone berserk. It's the price we apparently have to pay for being on the cutting edge of moral and sexual issues.
Secretly the Dutch are, I think, proud of being badmouthed by American talk-show hosts and Italian senators, who absurdly compare the very strict Dutch law on assisted suicide with Nazi death camps. We know that in the long run even American and Italians hotheads have to push their rhetoric aside, and debate the painful moral dilemma of how to help the terminally ill who wish to end their own suffering.
Recently, the smug Dutch self-image has taken blow after blow. Though most of us would still staunchly defend Dutch liberalism against foreign caricature, there is a nagging sense within the country that perhaps Holland may not be the best of all possible worlds anymore. Since 2002, we have witnessed two political assassinations. First the flamboyant Pim Fortuyn, a defender of liberalism and sexual freedom against the neo-puritanism of radical Islam, was shot dead by a fanatical animals-rights activist. Then maverick filmmaker Theo van Gogh, another self-styled defender of sexual liberalism, was slaughtered by a radical Muslim.
And now a small group of Dutch pedophiles wants to form a political party, the "Brotherly Love, Freedom and Diversity Party," and contest November elections with a call to legalize child pornography and lower the age of consent to 12. "Freak Show Holland" again made the headlines. Have we been tolerating the intolerable for too long?
In fact, the Dutch were as repulsed as anyone else. Party treasurer Ad van den Berg was chased from a holiday trailer park in the Netherlands when his 1987 conviction for molesting an 11-year-old boy became known. In a poll, 85% of the population supported the antipedophile organization Soelaas (Solace) in its law suit to have the party banned. But the judge ruled that freedom of expression can only be limited where public order is at direct risk. Since even the complainants admitted that the men behind the party were merely trying to change laws, not to break them, a direct risk could not be established. The decision can be seen as the essence of Dutch pragmatic liberalism: There is no need to ban even something like a pedophile party as it won't even get a single seat anyway.
Still, there is an element of self-doubt in Dutch public outrage about the party. What really got under our skin was the fact that these men claimed their sexual perversion was a justified political cause, on par with gay marriage and assisted suicide of the terminally ill. They speak the language of individual moral choice, in the best tradition of 1970s Dutch liberalism, abusing and twisting its real meaning. Surely something must be wrong with our cherished beliefs if they can be perverted so easily?
The Dutch may have begun to realize that, in their emphasis on individual rights, they might have neglected their sense of community. How do personal moral choices affect society? Anxieties caused by globalization and immigration have laid bare an unexpected need to belong to a group of shared values, not just individual rights.
For the Dutch, who in the past fiercely contested the enforced morality of church and state and nonchalantly ignored questions of identity, these anxieties can seem overwhelming. After the rapid modernization of our society, we have not much to fall back on.
The incidents that put us on the front pages of the world's newspapers may seem shocking. But our underlying concerns about the individual's responsibility in a fragmented society place us firmly in the modern world.
Mr. Heijne is a Dutch writer and cultural critic.
This is a very important shift in thinking, and is critical to our future way of life. The article is interesting because on the one hand, you have a very proud Dutchman (is that still an acceptable label?), defending his country’s traditions of liberalism and “cutting edge” moral legislation. On the other hand, you have someone who is beginning to “open his eyes” in a Matrix sense, and see the fallacy of rights-at-any-cost unfold around him. He’s put in an interesting position, trying to reconcile years of liberalism with the logical end result (and the scary specter of what the future holds).
This is the dead-end of liberalism that no one wants to talk about. Do you accept ANY behavior based on the very logic you used for generations to melt away Christian morals and decency? In the race to grant everyone special rights to do anything we wish, regardless of consequence, we have failed to neglect the warning signs on the road ahead. Now, this poor Dutchman is standing at the edge of a cliff asking himself why he went this far.
We are heading in the same direction in this country. Although, with typical American gusto we are RUSHING to the precipice, trying to “catch up” with the so-called wise democracies in Europe. Are we prepared to grant sexual relations for anything and anyone? If we do, why stop there?
I think Brigham Young once prophesied that “the traps left to ensnare the Saints and Laws of God will eventually dig the hole into which those who helped in the digging will eventually fall and perish by their own hand.” Or something very similar. This sounds like a partial fulfillment of that prophecy.
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