The Low Countries. Jaargang 15

bron The Low Countries. Jaargang 15. Stichting Ons Erfdeel, Rekkem 2007

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Art Matters (and so does Society) Luc Devoldere | Chief Editor

When you walk through the shattered heart of Rotterdam, where now the tower blocks try to ape Manhattan, you will see a building that houses an insurance company and on which in neon letters the words of the poet Lucebert say proudly - or should that be curse: ‘Everything of value is vulnerable’. Money matters. It is the dross of the earth, and according to Emperor Vespasian it has no smell; he came of shrewd peasant stock. But the spices in the Amsterdam warehouses in the seventeenth century did smell, and they brought in gold. ‘Private vice, public benefit’, pontificated Bernard Mandeville of Rotterdam. In Utrecht a Museum of Money is due to open on 25 May 2007. On its New Year card one can read: ‘Nil difficile volenti’. Nothing is difficult if you really want it. Raking in money, for instance. But in 1934 the Belgian Bank van de Arbeid finally went bankrupt and the ‘Ghent Model’ that the Socialist politician Anseele had shown off to the Second International lay in ruins. No-one comes away unscathed from contact with a lot of money. The philosopher says that you should have enough that it doesn't keep you awake at night. And, for the same reason, not too much. ‘Everybody knows the fight was fixed: the poor stay poor, the rich get rich. That's how it goes. Everybody knows’, so the smoky voice of Leonard Cohen sings resignedly. But the Low Countries - Belgium and the Netherlands - have countered that with the welfare state. A complex and much-admired system of redistribution which now finds itself under more and more pressure, while never managing to eliminate the hidden poverty. Diamonds are not forever, not even in Antwerp. But by now everyone, from the small saver to the big banker, has become a capitalist whether they like it or not. Today the language of marketing infects everything and everyone. Even the artist looks for a market. But was Rubens any different? This is just to inform you that the theme of this yearbook is money and business. But besides that it responds to the ever-recurring request for information on what is going on in the Low Countries. After all, there is a life beyond the homo economicus and the calculating citizen. And there the things that matter are very different. Art matters. And so does Society. This book aims to invest long-term in the symbolic capital of the Low Countries, in its writers and painters, its artists, performers, architects and designers of the past and of today. This book is not a shareholder in the multinational company that is the Low Countries, but it is a committed stakeholder.

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Money is the Dross of the Earth Flemish Clav versus Dutch Polder [Erik Durnez]

Quentin Metsys, The Money-Lender and his Wife, 1514. Panel, 74 × 68 cm. Musée du Louvre, Paris.

How do the Flemish regard money? How do they deal with it? And is their financial culture essentially any different from that of their northern neighbours? Of course there's always that cliché lurking in the background: the frugal Dutchman versus the flamboyant Fleming, for instance, or the conscientious post-Calvinist as opposed to the deadbeat post-Catholic. Look a little closer and what you mostly see are similarities. The differences are there all right, but they're more subtle. Although...

For starters, the Netherlands has an estimated 100,000 euro-millionaires. Southern neighbour Belgium has about 65,000. That in itself is strange and coincidental, because when you compare those numbers with the respective populations you come up with just over 0.6 percent in both cases.

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 Belgians save a great deal - ‘Belgians’, that is, not ‘Flemings’, since as far as the theme of ‘saving and investing’ is concerned there are very few sets of statistics that differentiate between Brussels, Flanders and the Walloon provinces. By early 2006 the Belgians had about 150 billion euros recorded in their savings books and savings accounts. The Dutch had saved about 225 billion euros in their books and accounts. Those figures too are very close: that's just under 15,000 euros per capita in the south and just over 14,000 euros in the north. The Flemish are rich, if you can believe the numbers. And the Dutch are, too. In many areas the general resemblance is quite striking as far as finances are concerned.

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Money is no object

‘Close to your money everywhere’: a Dutch cash machine on wheels.

Lucas van Leyden, The Adoration of the Golden Calf (detail from the center panel of the triptych), c. 1525. Panel, 93 × 67 cm. Rijkmuseum, Amsterdam.

For a man of rank and standing money is no object. That's what Mr Bumble, Gentleman Bear par excellence, taught us many years ago. But Maarten Toonder, the Dutch cartoonist who created Bumble, passed away in 2005, and the paradigms he used for his main characters no longer apply. And Toonder himself may well have been a master of irony. Because even if we limit ourselves to linguistic usage, we find that money is a powerful presence in the life of the Low Countries. Look at the dozens of synonyms for money that the Dutch language has to offer: centen, munt, betaalmiddel, poen, pingping, duiten, cash, noppen, schijven, slappe was, vermogen, contanten, kapitaal, kluiten, bezit, spaarpot, reserve, portemonnee, frik.... The Flemish add another whole batch of terms to the list: peeschijven, sollen, censen.... Literally dozens of them. This puts the dross of the earth well above some other basic needs, although you'd be shocked to discover how many words there are in the Dutch language for faeces (drek, gier, beer, to mention only the least scabrous).

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 If we can believe the tentative hypothesis that the importance of a certain object for a particular linguistic community can be determined by the number of names that exist for it, then money must play a significant role for both the Flemish and the Dutch. Yet neither of them wants to accept that. Because money is something one just doesn't talk about.

Taboo

Is it really true that the Flemish don't talk about money? Sure they do: they just never talk about their own money, not concretely, not in terms of euros and cents. They're crazy about lists having to do with other people. They want to know how many billion euros Albert Frère now has, the richest man in the country and the only Belgian on the Forbes list of ‘Richest People on Earth’. But show anyone their own salary slip? Forget it. Up until recently even their partner never got to see it. No less than ten years ago an important chemical company very narrowly avoided a strike when the management decided to stop paying the workers in cash but to put the money directly into their bank accounts instead. The reason for the unrest? Such a system would have made it possible for ‘their wives’ to see exactly how much they earned.

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They don't talk about it to their children, either. Children know whether their parents are in good financial shape or not, but they don't know the figures. For years the Flemish station Radio 1 has been broadcasting the interview programme Titaantjes (Little Titans) every Sunday morning. Major and minor personalities from both North and South are tossed a series of questions, following a fixed structure. One of the regularthemes is ‘money’. ‘So how much do you earn?’ is the question invariably asked by interviewer Pat Donnez. This is Sunday morning's most suspenseful moment. It's not the amount that makes the question exciting; actually the figure itself is not very interesting. What the listeners always want to know is how the featured personalities are going to handle it. Will they beat about the bush? Will you be able to see them go red in the face right through the radio? Will they start to stutter, even though they've known

Jan Vermeer, Woman Holding a Balance, c. 1664. Canvas, 40.3 × 35.6 cm. National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C. (Widener Collection ). the question was coming up? Have they dreamed up an original way round it? Or will they come right out and tell us what they earn? Money is fun to talk about - other people's money, that is. Not your own money. Let's face it, in this respect the Flemish are no different from their Northern neighbours. The Dutch talk openly about everything, but not about their money. They like to buy things for a song, but they never tell their friends exactly how much they ‘only’ paid for them. The weekly Elsevier had even more dreadful things to report at the end of 2005. Even in the best of relationships partners prefer not to play with an open hand. Hidden piggy banks, secret private bank accounts, clandestine expenditures, withdrawing money on the sly from the joint account, hiding bank notes, tinkering with the accumulation of bills from expensive clothing shops... even intimate partners are very secretive when it comes to money.

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 Finances are private. Personal money matters are the comfort zone within which each partner must be able to do his own thing, as psychologists hastened to note in the weeks that followed the Elsevier report. Maybe they're right. The classic family still worked with only one account, and all incoming and outgoing amounts could be traced with total precision. Young people today make differ-

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ent kinds of financial arrangements with each other: ‘my money, your money, our money’. Their financial relationships are temporary and complex. Too little money is a problem, but a lot of money is a problem too. The Flemish associate poverty with financial misbehaviour and lack of effort; poverty evokes mainly negative connotations. But great wealth doesn't score much better. That's because in the perception of the average Fleming, money mainly has to do with power - and with crime, organised crime. The Flemish prefer to simply state that things are going ‘well’ for them. Perhaps ‘very well’. But no one ever says that he or she is ‘really rich’. And ‘poor’? That is definitely taboo.

Illiterate

I have a confession to make. I'm a Fleming, in my fifties, and well educated by any standard. I've read the classics: Caesar, Claes, Claus, Mulisch and Wolkers. But money? Pecunia? They never taught that at school. Sex education - which you can assume is a natural urge - that we did get. And rightly so, of course. But with money you had to conduct your own experiments. It wasn't until I went to university and studied economics that money appeared - cautiously - in my curriculum.

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 Not much has changed in the intervening thirty years. Money is not an academic discipline. National economics is something you can learn at school, but what about private finances? We don't talk about it and we don't learn about it. Allow me to say that as a result the average Flemish or Dutch person doesn't know anything about money. Such a person will buy a house once in his life. That is the greatest financial adventure he or she will ever embark on. Otherwise they're financial illiterates. In that respect they don't score any worse than the Americans. Financial erudition (or the lack thereof) has become one of the hip themes in consumer protection in recent years. Even in the US, the Mecca of personal money matters, illiteracy is widespread. Far-reaching research on this topic has already been carried out in the Netherlands. The DNB, the Dutch central bank, published a number of surprising results in 2006. The bank had put five simple questions about interest and inflation to a broad cross-section of the public. Only four out of ten could answer

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 16 all five questions correctly. And when ‘somewhat’ more difficult questions were asked about money and investment, 80 percent fell short. Women, moreover, did worse in the study than men. That came as quite a shock, since it is often assumed that in their traditional role as guardians of the family budget women have a natural aptitude for finance. Not necessarily, it would appear. Second shock: the elderly did no better than the young. Apparently financial comprehension does not increase with the years. So we lack theoretical knowledge of money. The mystery of compound interest is something we will never really fathom. The fact that a sum of money doubles in value if we leave it for 14 years to accrue interest at 5 percent per annum will always remain a mystery.

Statue of cattle merchants in front of the church at Elst, the Netherlands.

Yet even that kind of illiteracy is no reason for panic. If we look carefully, we see that people from the Low Countries aren't really financial imbeciles. They solve their problems pragmatically. They learn by watching. They observe how their parents - and their friends, their colleagues and their reference group - solve their financial problems. They conform to the behaviour of others in their age group, and that's how they keep from screwing up.

First the sty

This way money tends to assume a fixed behaviour pattern, a life cycle. It goes like this: young people buy first a mobile phone, then a car (the really lucky ones get those from their parents). These already are very heavy expenses. Then they start a family (formalised or not): they live together or they make the deliberate decision to live alone. They buy their first things. Even before they're 30 years old, a family home is on the agenda. This home is purchased with a mortgage, plus (as happens more and more) a parental shot in the arm. Only then do they

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start having children. At least one maxim from the Flemish peasant tradition has survived completely intact: ‘First the sty, then the pig.’ In the period between the ages of 30 and 40 the young family is under heavy financial pressure: the mortgage has to be paid off and the growing children have to be given a good education. That is hard, very hard. Here there is a classic difference in accent between North and South. In the Netherlands student loans are quite normal, and as far back as we can remember young people have contributed to financing their education by means of a variety of small student jobs. In Flanders the parents traditionally cover study costs. It isn't until people reach the ages of 45 to 50 that the family budget acquires more financial headroom: the mortgage is paid off, the end of the children's schooling is in sight, one's career is moving ahead at cruising speed and one's salary reaches an all-time high. For a great many people there is a - sometimes brief - illusion of wealth, or at least an illusion of freedom from worry. Soon enough, however, the impending pension comes looming up. It's a huge shock when people see their friends and contemporaries taking early retirement between the ages of 52 and 58. But it's an even greater shock when they calculate what the financial implications will be for themselves if they throw in the professional towel.

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Worries in Flanders, worries in the Netherlands

What are the biggest financial worries for the Dutch? The Dutch financial columnist Adriaan Hiele recently came up with a list for us: mortgage, pension, investments, the inheritance. ‘Half of all the questions I am asked are about mortgages,’ he says. But ‘gifts to the children’ is also a very popular theme. The urge to give something to the children is very great - especially when those children are about to buy their own home. Emiel Van Broekhoven is the authority on personal money matters in Flanders. His list doesn't look much different. The Flemish, he says, are mainly concerned about their pension, the family home and the expenses involved in raising the children. Flemings usually wait until their fiftieth birthday before they start asking whether they'll be able to live on their savings later on. Investing is rarely a problem for them, since they hardly ever do it. They prefer to pul their money in an ordinary savings account, even though the yield is negligible.

On credit

Until the age of 45 people don't think about ‘later on’. They have eternal youth, and ‘now’ is of paramount importance. Only later do they begin to develop financial awareness: ‘how much do we have, what can we still afford, aren't we living too high on the hog, are we saving enough?’ In the Netherlands, Nibud has the relevant figures. Nibud stands for ‘Nationaal Instituut voor Budgetonderzoek’ - National Institute for Budgetary Research. Reading the Nibud statistics is not a cheerful occupation. The Dutch make lots of big plans, but not when it comes to their own pennies. Half the Dutch never conduct a review of their own finances. Only a quarter make an annual tally of their monetary resources. And a budget? Oh, please. If we look at the figures on savings we get the impression that things are going extremely well in the Low Countries. But averages are deceiving. A quarter of all Dutch families are forced to take out a loan when they're faced with a sudden major expense: the refrigerator breaks down, there's a leak in the roof, the car's rear axle gives up the ghost. Borrowing, however, is not part of the national character. It's a bit different on the other side of the pond. Crack open any book about personal finances in the US and half of it, guaranteed, will have to do with ‘how can I settle my debts’. Brazilians go still further. They even buy T-shirts on credit. Out of the question in the Low Countries. One out of every two Flemings does have personal debt, but in 80 per cent of cases it's a mortgage. That's because three-quarters of the Flemish own their own home, which has to be paid off faithfully over a period of 20 years. This happens much less among the Dutch. For years, fiscal legislation has made it more beneficial not to pay off your housing loan in the Netherlands. If you die, the bank just sells your house to settle your mortgage debt.

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A printer of the Belgian National Bank, checking the quality of a sheet with freshly printed 50 euro notes.

For the Flemish such an idea is intolerable. The family home is a very important part of the Flemish mentality. It's at the top of the list of financial concerns for each and every Fleming. In the Kempen countryside young people still build their own homes. The standard procedure is to buy a piece of land and erect on it a spacious, well-equipped garage. And that's where they live, while building their family home over the next four or five years. They also know exactly what their home is worth, and they follow the figures faithfully. The popular weeklies know this, and every year they publish a special issue full of real estate prices. It's their annual bestseller.

Lose? Never!

Young people also know exactly what's in their bank account, but they haven't the faintest idea how much pension they'll be getting later on. And as for the difficult concept of ‘group insurance’ (the fiscally advantageous bonus their employer sets aside to supplement their pension), they haven't a clue - until they're old. When it comes to money, young people only understand the present tense. After all, planning means thinking about life, and about your own mortality. And that's an exercise that no one seems to enjoy. Even less enjoyable is the concept of ‘losing money’. We're not good at losing. It's built into our linguistic usage. You hear it among football fans. If their team wins,

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 they say: ‘We won.’ If it loses, the phrase is: ‘They lost.’ We want to identify with the winners, not the losers. This is universal behaviour; we find it in both the South and the North. When we make a good investment that pays well

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 20 we're extremely proud of ourselves. ‘Well done!’ we say. But if an investment goes badly, it's the fault of the advisors and the banks. In the past four or five years the relationship between bankers and their clients has rapidly deteriorated, in the Low Countries as elsewhere. For many the stock market crash of 2001-2003 is the reason, but so is the fact that we almost never have any personal contact with the banker any more. We take our money out of the wall, we do our banking through the cash point or the PC. And the banker? We only see him when there are problems.

Black money

Marinus van Reymerswaele. The Tax Collectors. 16th century. Panel. 65 × 52 cm. Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten, Antwerp.

Our aversion to losing is expressed on another level as well. To receive an amount of money gross, before taxes, and not to make the necessary fiscal and parafiscal payments until later, is something we're not at all keen on. You're much more likely to hear a self-employed person complaining about high taxes than someone with a job. It's not because his taxes are objectively higher, because they aren't. It's because he has to part with it. An employed person just gets his net salary. The employer has already withheld the necessary taxes. In this sense employers are a bit like the Biblical publicans, the tax-collector's little helpers. So avoiding the taxman has become something of a national pastime, in both North and South. Adriaan Hiele, the man who wrote a regular column on financial matters for the NRC Handelsblad for many years, once put it this way: ‘The Dutch are prepared to spend a euro to save 20 cents in tax.’ It's no different in Flanders. Sometimes people are prepared to cause themselves financial pain just to keep from having to pay taxes. When the Flemish think about what will happen to their money when they die, they ask only one question: ‘How do we avoid the taxman?’ A great many people still do this by means of the two safe-deposit box trick. Never heard of it? It's very simple. Parent and child each rent a safe-deposit box in the same room of the same

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 bank. When the parent dies, the child discreetly empties the safe-deposit box of the deceased and puts all the securities in his own box. It's become a custom. That explains the panic growing among the Flemish now that securities are becoming more and more virtual. You can't pull this trick with money in an investment account. Even worse are the problems involved in investing black money. After all, you can hardly use money that has not been reported to the government to invest in a legal way. So people with black money end up in an investment scene with very distinct rules: that is, there are no rules. In the Netherlands there are figures about this activity. Each year the Dutch are swindled out of 1 billion euros. Clever fellows with good stories manage systematically to relieve them of their black money. It's the biggest criminal activity in the country. Antipathy to the taxman quite often leads to irrational behaviour. I have a friend in Antwerp who waits until the last day each year to fill in his income tax return. It's stupid, and he knows it, because each year he receives a hefty sum on account of excessive advance payments. So why does he wait so long? ‘Oh,’ he told me once, ‘I just don't like bothering with money.’ Money matters are boring, and many people in the Low Countries would agree. Money is for spending, not for pondering. Translated by Nancy Forrest-Flier

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Robbed by a Cheque An Extract from Tom Lanoye's Do It!

In January 1991, Willy Claes, the Belgian Minister of Economic Affairs, approved ‘cheque charges’: users would from then on have to pay for writing out a cheque. In his weekly column in Humo, a Flemish weekly (which invariably ended with the mantra ‘Do it!’), the writer took up arms against the banks. It was the Generale Bank that, on 1 July 1991, was the first to implement the new charges. Now, in 2007, the Generale Bank is called Fortis and cheques are no longer used for payment in Belgium. Tom Lanoye is still a writer.

Long time since you paid anything by cheque? Yes? Well, you deserve a pat on the back. You are a good citizen. Because all at once our banks don't like it anymore, having you pay by cheque. You should have seen them in the past. Major awareness campaigns. Capitalist agitprop. Everyone had to have a chequebook as soon as possible. From manager to addict, from the nappy to the grave: cheques, cheques, cheques. That's all changed now. Your cheques cost the banks too much. So they say. And if your cheques cost them too much, they say, they will have to come and get the money back from you. Your loans will be more expensive, you will be remunerated less for your desire to save, your mortgage will become unaffordable. Unless you fork out a certain sum for every cheque you write: a user's charge for a system they themselves instituted. I have not heard such crude threats since my contacts with the Japanese underworld. At the same time one reads that the banks made astronomical profits last year. For example, in 1988 the Generale Bank made a net profit of 7.5 billion francs, an increase of 16.3% compared to 1987. And in 1986 and 1987 the net profit had already risen by 20% and 8.7% respectively. That makes an average annual profit increase of no less than 15% over three years. Everyone is aware that the banks employ tax specialists who know every trick there is to know when it comes to avoiding tax. The money they earn from your loans, mortgages and deposit accounts is channelled from one overseas tax haven to another, until all that remains for the Belgian treasury is peanuts, and for the banks an average annual profit increase of 15%. In other words we are being robbed in broad daylight. And then a highly-qualified banking pirate comes on the TV news to tell us that from now on we shall have to pay for our cheques.

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Pay? What, us? You can forget that for a start. I'll tell you what we're going to do. We're going to hit the banks in the only place where it really hurts. In their pockets. We'll do it like this. We know that every cheque we write costs them money. Well, you probably still have a whole stack of cheques in your desk drawer. Put them in your pocket and go to the baker. Buy a small sliced white and pay by cheque. Then go and buy a lettuce and pay by cheque again. Go to the hairdresser, go swimming, buy cigarettes, take the tram. And at the end of the day apply for a new chequebook. When it arrives, repeat the procedure. And the day the ‘cheque charges’ are implemented - and that day will definitely come, as they do indeed have that power - send in your bank card, close your account and immediately withdraw all your money from your deposit account. If everyone does it at the same time, the bastards will be bankrupt. Who do they think they are? Al Capone? Captain Hook? Don't forget. Cut the banks down to size. Write those cheques! Do it!

From Do It! (Doén!). Amsterdam: Prometheus, 1992. pp. 23-24 Translated by Gregory Ball

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The Aroma of Spices and Gold Traces of Amsterdam's Trading Past [Michel Bakker]

The central staircase of the Shipping House.

Many buildings in Amsterdam have historical connections with the trading activities that created the city's wealth. From the seventeenth century there are the offices of the East and West India Companies, business premises, merchants' houses, banks, warehouses and exchanges. The nineteenth and twentieth centuries produced buildings such as the splendid headquarters of the Nederlandsche Handel-Maatschappij (The Netherlands Trading Company) in Vijzelstraat and the famous Scheepvaarthuis (Shipping House). Every building has its own history, and the interested observer can still detect elements that reflect their original links with trade. These centuries were periods of great economic prosperity, during which Amsterdam became the hub of a variety of commercial networks. In the seventeenth century it was the city's staple market that made her important. The great trading companies turned Amsterdam into the dominant commercial centre and the most important port in the world. The Baltic timber trade played a significant part in this development. It is also the period in which the late-medieval system of barter was replaced by the modern market economy. The East India Company is probably the best known of the various companies involved.

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In the nineteenth century the transport network, for the movement of both people and goods, was vital to Amsterdam. The waterways were as important as the roads, followed later by the railways and, from the 1930s, air transport with Schiphol as the national airport since 1939. In 1865 work started on a canal across the narrowest part of Holland and in 1876 King William III opened the North Sea Canal connecting the river IJ in Amsterdam with the open sea at IJmuiden. The North Sea Canal was an important stimulus for the port of Amsterdam and its trade. As shipping traffic grew, so too did the demand for improved and more permanent storage facilities. Notwithstanding the developments in cargo-handling techniques and equipment, general cargo remained traditionally small-scale. Many of the bales of coffee, tobacco and spices were off-loaded by hand and stored in warehouses scattered about the city centre. The growth of trade and industrial production in the late nineteenth century not only laid the basis for continuous urban expansion and suburbanisation but also determined the structure and organisation of the business and professional sectors. The classic system whereby a merchant's office would be located in his residence was unable to handle the steep increase in administration and employees. Existing buildings had to be radically altered or new buildings constructed to create dedicated office premises. Greater commercial activity, especially with the colonies, was matched by an increasing range of possibilities for financing and insurance. Consequently, large numbers of buildings were constructed not only for the trade in coffee, tea and tobacco, but also for banking, insurance and shipping. Proximity to the Exchange, the Dutch Bank and the Main Post Office attracted many offices to such districts as the Damrak, the Rokin and the old city centre. All these trends were strengthened by a flourishing communications network. New properties with trade or business connections probably suffered least from the limitations imposed by the city's building regulations. Merging neighbouring plots of land, extending properties and altering interiors were the order of the day. These buildings are conspicuous for their variety of forms and building styles, which alternated between progressive and traditional trends such as eclecticism, neo-renaissance, Art Nouveau, Americanism and functionalism, with the rapid adoption of high rise and new construction methods such as steel and reinforced concrete frames.

East India House: the heart of a multinational

The Dutch East India Company, which was founded in 1602 by merging a number of smaller companies and became the first multinational in world history, rapidly acquired military, administrative, judicial and diplomatic powers. Operating as the world's first limited company with shareholders, it engaged not only in trade between Europe and Asia but also in intra-Asian commerce. It was a true multinational company, with warehouses for pepper and spices, a fleet, shipyards and offices throughout the world. The Company had six ‘Chambers’ in Amsterdam, Middelburg, Hoorn, Enkhuizen, Delft and Rotterdam. Elected representatives of these local Chambers made up the board of directors, a group of seventeen men: the ‘Heeren XVII’.

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 In 1603, one year after its formation, the East India Company rented a section of the so-called Bushuis on the corner of Kloveniersgrachtand Oude Hoogstraat.

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The courtyard of East India House. Here sailors were recruited for the long voyage to the East Indies.

The room in which the seventeen directors of the East India Company held their meetings.

Built in 1555 as a store for gunpowder and weapons, it would finally be demolished in 1891 and replaced by the current neo-gothic building designed by the government architect C.H. Peters. However, in 1606 it was decided to build a new south wing. A gateway with Tuscan pilasters and a passage with cross-ribbed brick vaults led to an inner courtyard with the impressive facade of the new wing on its far side. The closed balustrade on the top gable and the characteristic sandstone blocks and borders suggest that this section of the complex was designed by the city's public works department under Hendrick de Keyser. In the courtyard below, sailors were signed on and victuals collected for the next voyage. Each year two thousand oxen were slaughtered at the Bushuis. The East India Company remained here until 1798 when it was wound up and taken over by the Batavian Republic. From then until 1808 the buildings served as the seat of the Colonial administration. Joost van den Vondel penned the line: ‘The rich East Indies House still wafts to us the perfumes of the spicy East.’ At the rear of the south wing and extending the full length of the ground floor was the so-called Grote Zaal (Great Hall). On the floor above was an equally large room, though less high. The attics and cellars were used for storing goods. A restoration in 1976 provided the opportunity to reconstruct the oak ceiling of the Great Hall with tie-and cross-beams and corbels of natural stone, based on a drawing of 1771 by S. Fokke. Previous work by the government's Building Department had replaced the

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 original ceiling by a lower, reinforced concrete floor. In Fokke's drawing, which he made to mark the inauguration of Stadtholder William V as Supreme Commander in 1768, one can see a section of the 16 metre long, 8 metre wide and 5 metre high Great Hall. The Stadtholder sits with the company directors at the centre of an oval table in front of a fireplace with closed side walls and a flue. In those days, spices and products from the East Indies were displayed, while paintings and maps hung next to flags and native weapons. A series of six paintings showed various ‘factories’ of the East India Company. Embedded in the timberwork of the chimney-breast was a painting by A. Beeckman, The Castle of Batavia, which depicted the situation there in about 1656. After the company was wound up the building was used for

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 26 a long time as a warehouse for building materials destined for Dutch overseas territories. The supply of these materials was put out to tender by the Ministry for the Colonies by means of public notices. Nowadays, the building at 24 Oude Hoogstraat is used by the University of Amsterdam. A bronze plaque in the inner courtyard commemorates the disaster when the airliner Franeker crashed at Bombay on 12 July 1949.

West India House: from meat market to function rooms

Towards the end of the Twelve Year Truce in the war against Spain, Amsterdam prospered as never before. To make way for future expansion, the city's defences were demolished, including the bulwark that stood on the future site of West India House. This created an open square, known then as Varkensmarkt (Pig Market) and now as Herenmarkt (Gentlemen's Market) on which, in 1617, the city council permitted the building of a meat hall with an entrance under a flight of steps up to Varkensdijk, now Haarlemmerstraat. A guardhouse was built on the first storey for the city militia. In 1623 the Amsterdam chamber of the Chartered West India Company moved into the meat hall, which was then standing empty, adding to it a sub-cellar and two wings on the west and south sides. This created a courtyard with buildings on three sides. The east side was closed off with a wall and a small gateway. The ‘Heeren XIX’, the nineteen directors of the West India Company, had three goals: to establish a monopoly of the Atlantic trade in order to increase the company's profits; to increase the prosperity of the Dutch Republic; and to damage the power of the King of Spain. Their activities extended to New Netherland, the Caribbean, Brazil and the West Coast of Africa. In 1628, the privateer Admiral Piet Heyn captured the Spanish treasure fleet in the bay of Mantanzas and the gold, silver, spices, silk, musk, amber and the costly ‘lapis bozoar’ or bezoar stone (a concretion found in the stomach of a particular breed of goat) were stored in the cross-vaulted cellars of West India House. The capture of the Spanish treasure fleet so fired the imagination of the Dutch that even today at international ice-skating championships they spur on their team by singing the ‘Piet Heyn’ song. In 1647 the directors of the West India Company moved from the Haarlemmerstraat to warehouses on the 's Gravenhekje and for the next ten years the buildings were used by the Office for Insolvent Estates and the Insurance Chambers. It was here that Rembrandt registered an inventory of his possessions to ensure that his son Titus inherited his rightful share of the painter's wife Saskia's estate after she died. After 1657 and some radical rebuilding it then served as the Nieuwezijds Herenlogement (Gentlemen's Lodgings), providing accommodation for the city council's distinguished guests. In 1825 the Reformed Evangelical Lutherans bought the building for 24,000 guilders to house 105 orphans and old men and women from the parish. Their rules were strict. One unfortunate young girl spent 14 days in the stocks on bread and water for being insolent to the house warden. A drunken widow paid for her addiction to alcohol with two weeks in a pillory in the communal dining room. Meanwhile, the front of the building was altered to what it is today: the flight of steps with the city's coat of arms and the stone cross windows with the heads of oxen dating from

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 the time of the meat market disappeared, the gable was plastered over and a pediment was placed high above an Empire-style entrance with Ionic pilasters. An

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 27

The courtyard of West India House with the statue of one-legged Peter Stuyvesant. image of a swan, the symbol of the Lutherans, was carved into the pediment's tympanum. In 1873, two wings were added. The inner courtyard is now surrounded by buildings on all four sides. The courtyard frontage still provides the best record of the seventeenth-century structure. In the courtyard there is a fountain with a statue, carved by the sculptor Hans Bayens, of Peter Stuyvesant, the last director-general of New Netherland. Stuyvesant was born in about 1612 in Friesland. In a battle against the Spanish-held island of St Maarten in 1644. ‘Stubborn Pete’ lost his right leg. On 28 July 1646 in West India House, he was sworn in as Director-General of New Netherland and a year later he settled in New Amsterdam. In 1664 he was forced to capitulate to the English fleet commanded by Richard Nicholls and New Amsterdam became New York. After a turbulent life Stuyvesant died in New York in 1682. His church was rebuilt in the eighteenth century and still stands on the corner of 10th Street and 2nd Avenue as St Mark's-in-the-Bowery. Today, the old West India Company complex accommodates homes for the elderly and function rooms for weddings and parties.

The Commercial Exchange: ‘as plain as the plainest fence’

The Commercial Exchange on the Damrak designed by H.P. Berlage marks the beginning of modern architecture in the Netherlands. Its completion in 1903 signalled the end of the various ‘neo-styles’ that had been so popular in the nineteenth century. Initially the building housed a commodity exchange, a corn exchange and a stock exchange. In contrast to traditional markets the goods themselves were not brought to these exchanges, only samples, a development that had started in the sixteenth century. Berlage's Exchange on the Beursplein and Damrak was the third such building. The first of them, by Hendrick de Keyser, was built in 1613, and was followed by that of J.D. Zocher Jr. in 1840-45. While working on his design De Keyser had made a study trip to London, and consequently his building showed similarities to the London Exchange. In 1883 part of the Damrak was filled in in preparation for the construction of the new exchange, afterwhich a competition for the best design was held. Berlage, with his associate Th. Sanders, was awarded the commission in the

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 second round with a neo-renaissance design. Yet in 1903 a completely different and much more modern building emerged, with an inter-

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 28

Berlage's Exchange. nal riveted iron framework supporting a glass roof. It is typical of the change in Berlage's work to a non-historicised contemporary building style and the open display of building materials. The result did not go unchallenged as can be seen in the critical review by the architect F. Laarman in the Algemeen Handelsblad of 15 March, 1898: ‘Imagine a colossus of stone, 100 metres long, twice the length of the Palace but not nearly as high, a heap of bricks as plain as the plainest fence, reddish grey turning black through the action of smoke and sewage, riddled with a diabolical number of small windows, unoriginal in form and proportion.’ The closed gable walls were decorated not with stylised historical motifs, but with contemporary art reflecting the ideals of Art Nouveau: architectural sculptures by Lambertus Zijl, including the corner statue of Gijsbrecht van Amstel (the legendary founder of Amsterdam); tiled tableaux and wall decorations by Jan Toorop; stained glass windows by Antoon J. Derkinderen; murals by R.N. Roland Holst and wood carvings by J. Mendes da Costa. Albert Verwey penned the cryptic texts ‘Beidt Uw Tijd’ (‘Bide Your Time’) and ‘Duur Uw Uur’ (‘Await The Hour’) on the clock faces of the campanile-like corner towers. The tiled clock faces were designed by Berlage and produced by De Porceleyne Flesch in Delft. The underlying principle was that the various disciplines should come together in a synthesis of the arts, a Gesamtkunstwerk. The traders were unimpressed by the avant-garde character of Berlage's Exchange, possibly because the decorative elements reflected Berlage's sociopolitical ideal of a classless society. It was therefore no accident that soon afterwards, between 1911 and 1914, 26 buildings on the long side of the Beursplein were replaced by a new stock exchange, which in its architectural detail recalled the great traditions of the past. In 1989 a modern glass hall was built inside the former corn exchange for lectures and concerts. The commodities exchange is now used for exhibitions.

Shipping House: ‘together, yet each his own master’

In 1912 six Amsterdam shipping companies - the Royal Netherlands Steamship Society, the Netherlands Steamship Company, the Royal Packet Boat Company, the Royal West Indian Mail Service, the New Rhine Navigation Company and the

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 Java-China-Japan Line - decided to bring their boards of directors and administrative staff together under one roof. A majestic office building was construct-

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 29 ed under the slogan ‘Together, yet each his own master’. The firm of architects, Gebr. Van Gendt A.L. -Zn. was commissioned to draw up the plans while the architectural design was provided by the architect J.M. van der Mey. The choice of Van der Mey as artistic adviser meant that the shipping companies were hoping for something of beauty. Piet Kramer and Michel de Klerk were also brought on board. The three architects knew each other as colleagues in the firms of Gulden & Geldmaker and Ed. Cuyper, the home of the Amsterdam School. Their collaboration and mutual influence produced the Shipping House, which is universally regarded as the first building to be entirely constructed in the style of the Amsterdam School (though there had been a few precursors of this style.) The interior designer F. Nieuwenhuis worked on the interior and other decorative aspects as well as the great meeting hall, together with C.A. Lion Cachet,

The Shipping House on the Prins Hendrikkade

The assembly hall on the third floor of the Shipping House. the sculptors Hildo Krop, H.A. van den Eijnde, Willem C. Brouwer and John Raedeker and the stained glass artist W. Bogtman from Haarlem. Many of them were also involved in fitting out and furnishing luxury passenger liners and were therefore no strangers to the shipping companies. Two periods of building on what is now Prins Hendrikkade, from which once the fleet set sail for the East Indies, resulted in an office building redolent of shipping. Its exterior was in the form of a ship's stern while the interior iconography and decoration included a star-spangled sky and maps. The new building

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 30 was intended to proclaim the greatness and wealth of Dutch trade. Numerous art works provided a visual record of Dutch maritime history, with the voice of the Netherlands re-echoing across the oceans as in its days of greatness. The extremely chic assembly hall on the third floor is richly decorated. There one can see Cornelis Houtman with his four ships setting sail for the Indies for the first time. The former headquarters of the East India Company and the warehouses of the West India Company are also depicted. It is as if by harking back to the grandeur of the past one might invoke a favourable future. Today, the Shipping House contains the offices of, among others, the Municipal Transport Company.

The Netherlands Trading Company: interior with vacuum cleaner

The Nederlandsche Handel-Maatschappij (NHM) was founded on the personal initiative of King William I on 29 March 1824. His objective was to promote ‘trade, shipping, shipbuilding, fishery, agriculture, manufacture and processing’.

Headquarters of the Netherlands Trading Company.

It was an all-embracing attempt to boost the slow recovery of the country's economy on the basis of the industries of the South, the trade and shipping of the North, and the riches of the Dutch East Indies. For many years the NHM enjoyed a monopoly of the transport and sale of products from the ‘plantation system’ of forced farming in the Indies, which yielded enormous profits for the Company. Between 1919 and 1926 it built a grandiose office block on Amsterdam's Vijzel-straat. K.P.C. de Bazel was its chief designer, although he did not live to see it completed. He travelled to Germany, Sweden and Denmark to study the design of modern office buildings and had the co-operation of the structural engineer A.D.N. van Gendt. De Bazel also designed many parts of the interior such as the multi-coloured floor mosaics, ceramic clock faces, ventilator

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 31 surrounds, telephone booths and the layout of the offices. Along the skirting boards were holes, specially threaded for hoses as part of a central vacuum cleaning system. The height of the building was not allowed to exceed that of the nearby Munttoren and for the sake of the view at street level the top two storeys are set back slightly. The concrete skeleton is clad in vertically segmented facings of brick and natural stone. The statues representing Asia and Europe on either side of the main entrance are the work of J. Mendes da Costa and the groups of statues on the corners of the building are by Lambertus Zijl. The sculptor Van den Eijnde carved the figures of three Governors-General of the Dutch East Indies: Jan Pietersz. Coen, H.W. Daendels and J.B. van Heutsz. Inside the building, the offices are grouped around two square atriums with glass roofs in a manner similar to the work of the American architect Frank Lloyd Wright. In 1964 the NHM merged with the Twentse Bank to become the General Bank of the Netherlands (ABN), which in 1991 joined with the AMRO bank to become the ABN-AMRO. By this route, some of the NHM's archives from its Marienburg sugar plantation in Suriname have now ended up in the archives of a Dutch bank.

The ‘Greenland Warehouses’ on Keizersgracht.

Warehouses: the aroma of the past

For centuries, merchants stored their wares in the attics or cellars of their own houses. Goods were hoisted up to the attic by means of a winch and a beam that jutted out over the street. Traditionally the house front was divided into three sections, with a larger window in the centre for the hoist and smaller side windows as openings for light and air. Individual merchants' houses could justifiably be described as multi-functional. In the eighteenth century the storage section was finally separated from the house and successfully developed into a new type of building. If these warehouses were intended for merchants who were also importers, they were often given names that indicated the source of the im-

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 32

The former warehouse Willem de Zwijger, from the south side. ported goods such as Rostock, Antwerp or Batavia. If they were rented, more neutral names were chosen such as the days of the week or months of the year. Only in the second half of the nineteenth century would increasing specialisation and ever-larger cargoes lead to new storage facilities outside the old city. In 1621, the Nordic or Greenland Whaling Company commissioned the construction of the ‘Greenland Warehouses’, a series of five warehouses on Keizersgracht. Unfortunately, numbers 36 and 38 have since been demolished. They were all used as stores for the products of the whale fishery. As many as sixty brick-lined pits were needed for the whale oil, white the attics were used for storing whalebone and transferring the oil into barrels. After 1685, the storage of whale oil was only permitted in the Nieuwe Teertuinen (New Tar Gardens), outside Haarlemmerdijk, to which the storage and processing of tar had already been moved in 1644. Tar was used in the seventeenth century as an impregnating agent for making ships watertight, with pitch as the actual sealant. The danger with tar, and the reason for keeping it away from residential areas, was that it was flammable and, once burning, impossible to extinguish. If a tar store went up in flames in the seventeenth century there was no way of fighting it. During the eighteenth century the Amsterdam whale fishery became less and less profitable and in 1819 it was abandoned. Warehouses 40 to 44 were converted into residential properties. In designing the refrigerated warehouse De Zwijger, a high point of utilitarian architecture, the architect J. de Bie Leuvelink sought the help of the civil engineer, K. Bakker. In accordance with the principles of Modern Architecture, the traditional idea of the warehouse was given a contemporary treatment that included a visually prominent concrete framework. The facade has an infill of vitrified bricks while on the blind wall the names of the cities with branch offices are listed. The warehouse, which was built for Blauwhoedenveem-Vriesseveem Ltd who used to operate along the whole length of the Oostelijke Handelskade, has seven storeys topped with a sawtooth roof with a skylight on the north side. Above the third floor the building extends out on all sides, supported by large externally visible corbels. Internally, it is built around a concrete

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 33 skeleton with tapering octagonal columns. Incidentally, it was Vriesseveem who opened the first refrigerated and freezer warehouse in the Netherlands in 1905. Nowadays, the De Zwijger warehouse forms an imposing gateway to the new development in the Eastern Docklands, which were once part of the mighty port of Amsterdam. Many warehouses were converted to dwellings in the course of the twentieth century and many merchants' houses became offices. The buildings that were once concerned with trade, shipping and storage continue to prove their multifunctionality, and in the converted warehouses one can still smell the aroma of cloves, rope and oil like an ethereal greeting from distant lands.

All photos by Han van Gool Translated by Chris Emery

The end of a trading day.

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 34

The more I get to know humanity, the more I love my dog An Extract from Tea Letters

In 1992 Hella Haasse's novel ‘Gentlemen of Tea’ (Heren van de Thee) appeared, in which she describes the fortunes of the young Dutchman Rudolf Kerkhoven. In the 1870s, this young man leaves for West Java to assist his father in the tea business, where he gradually turns out to be a shrewd, independent entrepreneur. The letters of the real Rudolf Kerkhoven to his parents, his family and his children, the letters of his wife to her family and the letters of their children to their parents form the foundation of Haasse's book. They describe life in the Indies, life on the remote tea plantations, the constant financial worries, business and good fortune. The writer Nelleke Noordervliet, in her ‘Tea Letters’ (Brieven van de Thee. 2004), has selected a number of these letters from the archives of the Stichting Indisch thee- en familie-archief Van der Hucht cs. The letter below is addressed to Johannes E. Henny, government attorney and Rudolf's brother-in-law. At the time of this letter, Rudolf's sons Rudolf (Ru) and Eduard (Edu) are living with the Henny family in the Netherlands.

Gamboeng, January 9th 1895

Dear Henny,

There is just time for me to write a few words. We have had a busy month, which is why your letter of 8th November has remained unanswered until now. In it I noticed your entry of f 62.50 chargeable to me, resulting from expenditure incurred for Ru (Rudolph) and Edu (Edward). For that same reason. I noted your entry of f 160.45, resulting from expenditure incurred during November. Your invoice for the purchase of 1/4 in Gamboeng has yet to arrive. Therefore, I do not intend to say much about it, for I am still ignorant of your estimate. Admittedly, I have heard from Julius that you had spoken of one ton, although this figure you must surely have revised on closer inspection!!! So I am most eager to see the invoice, and thank you for the time being for your co-operation. Apart from my particular interests, it will be in other respects extremely favourable and desirable to simplify the property issue as much as possible.

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 35

Your kindly offer of f 25,000 I would like lo keep in petto for the time being, until I have been more closely informed.

I am unable to share your views completely concerning China tea. The limiting, delaying, withholding, etc. has undoubtedly resulted in the price of bales becoming inflated somewhat; but the advantage of this exclusively benefits those who do not limit or delay but sell instead. I estimate that v. Dusseldorp has caused me a heavy loss of some 100 bales or more at an average of ± 8%. 1st by withdrawing on 4th October, when the ‘Unit’ was c. 3 cents; 2nd by not putting them up for auction on 8th November when the ‘Unit’ was 3 1/2 cents; and 3rd by having offered them once more on 13th December, now that the price (according to the telegramme) has fallen to 2 1/4. If my China has been sold at that

price, I do not as yet know. This method of trading by v. Dusseldorp, completely at variance with my instructions, seems irresponsible to me. It has led to the advantage of others, not to my advantage. Such action, at variance with my given instructions, can only be compensated for by success. And this success has not been achieved and cannot be achieved. The mere lost of interest I am now forced to endure outweighs any possible increuse in price that is envisaged for 1895. I do not expect that increase, nor does Mr Watering! We made his acquaintance with pleasure, but his China forecasts are distinctly sombre. Everywhere he found more, much more China that he had expected. He expressed his strong opinion concerning the administrators who write to their management in Amsterdam that Java has topped and thus lead such managements astray. The facts, i.e. the colossal exports, speak against such optimists. Though those administrators are only writing that way in order to save their own position. Bah! it makes you sick, and I fully endorse the remark of a certain philosopher that ‘The older I get and the more I get to know humanity, the more I love... my dog!’

How kind you all have been to our boys when celebrating St Nicholas. They are most grateful - and we no less.

Please excuse this brief scrawl. I remain,

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 Yours most sincerely,

R.E. Kerkhoven

From Tea Letters (Brieven van de thee). Amsterdam: Em. Querido's Uitgeverij BV, 2004. pp. 201-202 Translated by John Irons

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 36

Brokering Commerce, Brokering Culture in Medieval Europe The Low Countries and the German Hanse [Peter Stabel]

Arrival of a wine cargo in the port of Bruges. Miniature from a Bréviaire attributed to Simon Bening from Ghent, 16th century. Codex lat. 23.638. fol. 11 verso. Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Munich.

Jan Gossaert. Portrait of a Merchant, c. 1500. Panel. National Gallery. Washington D.C.

During the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries Bruges was the main international commercial hub in North-West Europe. Merchants active on the Bruges market came from every known part of Christian Europe and included traders from the Italian cities, from the Iberian kingdoms, from the French Atlantic coast, from the British

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 Isles, from the Low Countries and from Germany. What few tourists visiting Bruges today realise is that this thriving international community traded in the midst of the most severe economic crisis Europe has ever experienced. Bruges' prosperity was built on a pragmatic reaction to economic chaos. The fourteenth century witnessed massive epidemics (the Black Death from 1348) and a complete disruption of the economy that struck the continent after a period of growth lasting three centuries. On top of which, the crisis was worsened by chronic warfare among the emerging European states.

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 37

Because the traditional trading mechanisms in medieval Europe collapsed in the first half of the fourteenth century, the overland routes and the Champagne fairs, which connected two very different systems of trade in Southern and Western Europe, were abandoned. Instead maritime trade took over. Italian and later Iberian merchants entered the Northern seas, while Flemish active trade disappeared from the British Isles, France, the Mediterranean and also the Baltic region. However, the growth of maritime trade also created new possibilities. In particular, Hanseatic trade profited. In trading cities such as Bruges and London, Hanseatic traders could meet with other merchants and develop close ties with the manufacturing capacity of North-West Europe (textiles, in particular Flemish and Brabant cloth). The concentration of international trade in a few cities reduced transaction costs and eased the development of and access to banking facilities. It also allowed a dramatic change in the structure of commercial firms, as merchants became more sedentary and started to rely more and more on agents.

The German Hanse and European history

One of the key players on the Bruges market was undoubtedly the German Hanse. In recent years scholars have shown a renewed interest in this phenomenon. This revival is no coincidence. In a period when globalisation is associated with both economic change and a sense of lost identity, and when the European Union tends increasingly to dominate daily life, such an interest is hardly surprising. The more so, because after German reunification the expansion of the EU towards the countries in Central and Eastern Europe has now become a reality, and hence the geographical scope of the union is shifting in very radical way away from the heartlands of Western Europe, towards Central and Eastern Europe. In fact, this development is quite similar to developments that took place in medieval Europe, when German colonisation reached the

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 Anonymous (Gouda School), Shipyard. 1565. Panel. Stedelijk Museum Het Catharina-Gasthuis, Gouda.

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 38

Baltic region and the commercial expansion of German cities linked North and North-East Europe with the mainstream of the European economic system. And indeed scholars have not failed to point to these remarkable similarities. The more so because the medieval German Hanse proved to be a carrier not only of economic commodities and wealth, but also of language, culture and social custom, in the same way as economic globalisation and political unification in Europe is acting today. The Hanse serves as a historical example of how integration was achieved in the past. When German merchants founded their commercial organisation in Visby on the Swedish island of Gotland in 1161, they undoubtedly failed to realise that this experiment in mutual support would start to dominate and only a few decades later would even monopolise international trade in Northern and Eastern Europe. In the beginning it was only a simple association of individual German merchants trading on the island. The risks involved in international trade required a more formal league of trading towns, however, and so in the thirteenth century the German Hanse was born. The Hanse quickly developed into a territorial power, a league of some two hundred towns scattered from the northern Low Countries (Deventer, Zwolle) in the West, via the North Sea and the Baltic shores to today's Finland and the Baltic states in the East. At the edges of its zone of influence it created trade settlements, the so-called kontore, in Bruges, in London (the ‘Steelyard’) and in Novgorod in Russia and Bergen in Norway. Hanseatic trade expanded rapidly eastward along the shores of the Baltic to Russia. New trading cities were founded along the coast, and local Slavic populations were brought under the control of German law. Rostock was founded in 1200, Riga in 1201, while Stralsund and Danzig (Gdansk) became important transit cities for inland trade. From 1230 the conquests by the Teutonic Order, a religious order of knights, were brought into the Hanseatic sphere of influence, and the towns of Torn and Königsberg (today's Kaliningrad) were founded. In Western Europe there was of course no policy of colonisation, but here trade was organised systematically in the kontor-cities with Flemish, English, French, Iberian and Italian merchants from the thirteenth century onwards. Hanseatic cogs - the most popular ship in the northern seas of medieval Europe - were ever more numerous along the shores of the North Sea, and gradually Hanseatic shipping also reached the French Atlantic coast.

Hanseatic trade

In this way the German Hanse became a unique creation of the Middle Ages, because of its dimensions, its political aspirations, and its commercial impact. Despite the fact that international trade was dominated by the technically advanced Italian merchants, and that it was the North Sea region (with the urban- and rural-based export industries of the Low Countries) which provided the setting for exchange between Southern and Northern Europe, the North German merchants were able to develop international trade in North-East Europe and to integrate this area economically into the mainstream of the European economy.

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 The key to the Hanse's success was the matching nature of the trade flows between Central and Eastern Europe, and Western and Southern Europe. This

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 39 complementarity was based on the balance between an advanced commercial and industrial system in the West and a less advanced mainly rural economy in the East. Very quickly, exchange between these systems became the Hanse's monopoly and from the fourteenth until well into the sixteenth sixteenth century exchange centred on the commercial networks around Bruges, Antwerp and London. Differences in economic organisation in the two economic systems led to different patterns of demand, hence the Hanse supplied the West (and the Mediterranean) with raw materials for its industries (furs, wax, timber, mining products) and gradually also with grain. In return textiles, salt and luxury goods manufactured in the Flemish and Italian cities were brought to the urban consumers in the Hanseatic towns and to the wealthy landed aristocrats of Eastern Europe.

A merchant bargaining in his warehouse, c. 1440. Flemish miniature illustrating a French translation of the Decamerona. Ms. 5070. fol. 314 recto. Bibliothèque de l'Arsenal, Paris

At the international market par excellence in Western Europe, Bruges, the Hanse was undoubtedly the most privileged trading community, which gave them serious advantages over the competition. These concerned mostly the legal status of the Hanseatic merchants and the juridical authority of the Hanse officials abroad, but they also dealt with the course of international commerce (matters of debt, taxation) and with social life. The privileges were considered as crucial to the interests of the merchants and they were fiercely defended. The Hanse did not hesitate to threaten with embargo of trade and on occasion actually transferred the seat of their kontor to nearby commercial cities.

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 40

In Bruges the Hanseatic community was governed by a council of merchants. They defended their members' general interests. But the Hanse was certainly not a monolithic organisation. From the beginning it became clear that Lübeck was the most influential city in the organisation and there were a considerable differences between the various regions and cities in the Hanseatic sphere of influence. Such differences related to political status, economic competition among Hanseatic cities, and even cultural interests. Lübeck, the semi-official capital of the Hanseatic League and because of its central location on the shores of the Baltic Sea the concentration point of Baltic trade before it reached Western Europe, had a very similar function to Bruges, but on a less cosmopolitan level. It was, like Bruges, an active trading city, but with very few foreign merchant colonies. Other cities were less influential, and their trade did not carry so much weight. Claims by historians that a high level of solidarity came naturally to the Hanse's members because of their common commercial interests and their shared political urban ideology, have been put in perspective by recent research. It was rather self-interest, the search for commercial gain, clear-cut pragmatic policies of jealous advancement of each city's privileges that directed decision-making within the league (as they do in the European Union today, of course). Only at the end in the sixteenth century, when the glory days of the Hanse had long gone by, were attempts made to create a more solid organisation, with an internal tax system; but that came much too late to change the course of history.

Pieter Pourbus, Brotherhood of the Holy Blood in Bruges. 1556. Panel. Heilig Bloedkapel, Bruges.

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 41

Hanseatic merchants in Bruges

Hundreds of Hanseatic merchants were present during the trading season in Bruges. Usually at any given time there would be 40 to 50 merchants, but at the height of the trading season their number could easily rise above 200, coming from the major trading cities of Lübeck, Danzig, Hamburg, Bremen and Cologne, but also from smaller towns such as Riga or Stralsund. A pageant in Bruges in 1440 included an official delegation of no fewer than 144 merchants, dressed in red-and-black liveries (in the same pageant there were about 160 Italian merchants). Even when Hanseatic trade was already declining, the pageant in 1468 on the occasion of the marriage of Duke Charles the Bold with Margaret of York (which is still celebrated in Bruges as the ‘Golden Tree’) included 108 Hanseatic merchants. These merchants, however, very rarely became citizens of Bruges. This would have denied them the use of their commercial privileges. The status of temporary visitor did not prevent merchants being able to develop strong ties with the Bruges, Flemish and Burgundian elites. Merchants became members of religious and cultural guilds, they were buried in Bruges churches and monasteries, and they had close links with leading Bruges politicians and financiers. In general, Hanseatic merchant companies were family-based, and trust among merchants was considered as one of the preconditions of successful trade. Merchants like Hildebrand Veckinhusen had partners, usually family or friends, scattered all over the Hanseatic area. As most merchants remained in Bruges only for a limited period they usually rented houses, rooms and storage space. There were no separate residential areas in the city, but merchants usually lived close together in the commercial heart of the city near the harbour and the central market area, and, of course, at close quarters with the other foreign merchants in Bruges. We have very little information about the contacts between these various nationalities, but these must have been very frequent. They often shared the same space for their reunions, burials and ceremonies. Contacts with Bruges citizens are better documented. Most merchants stayed in hostels and inns owned by wealthy and politically influential Bruges citizens. This had obvious advantages for both parties. For the merchants it offered a highly flexible system of storage and accommodation. Moreover, the local hostellers and brokers acted for them as agents, trading experts and bankers. This stimulated close and long-lasting personal ties between local elites and foreign merchants.

Trade and culture

The commercial cities of Western Europe were not only places for business transactions. They also became places that allowed cultures to interact and smoothed the way for a shared urban culture that was expressed in various cultural organisations, social practices and even visual arts. In the course of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries not only economic, but also cultural differences between North-West and North-East Europe became smaller, without, however, getting to a point of integration. Nonetheless, Hanseatic urban culture was strongly influenced by Flemish, Italian,

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 Spanish, English and French elements. Bruges functioned not only as an economic, but also as a cultural trans-

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 42 mitter. The Hanse not only exchanged luxury goods, spices and textiles, it also proved to be one of the highways of cultural transfers in Europe. It stimulated the exchange of ideas, (urban) ways of life, literature, art and architecture. Hanse merchants became keen consumers of Flemish paintings, sculpture and fashion. Although only very few Hanseatic works of art could be found in the Low Countries, it was artists from the German Empire who came over to the cities in the Low Countries. Hans Memlinc came from Seligenstadt in Central Germany and his most important pupil Michael Sittow came from the Hanse town of Talinn. One look at the actual cityscapes of Hanseatic cities and of North-West European cities demonstrates this exchange all too clearly. Bruges, Lübeck and Gdansk have many architectural elements in common: the extensive use of brick, typical decoration of facades, various examples of civic architecture. The

The Hanse Oosterlingenhuis in Bruges, as portrayed on a 16th-century painting in the Bruges beguinage. hospital in Lübeck and the town halls of Talinn and Gdansk still remind us of this phenomenon. Lübeck had a civic organisation which organised and staged cultural events, such as jousts, which resembled similar organisations in fourteenth-century Bruges, while other cultural groups helped to spread French court culture. But this exchange of information, of perceptions of the world, of political ideas was not only a one-way system. The famous story of Till Eulenspiegel was probably introduced to the Low Countries through an early printed book from Lübeck.

The end of a commercial empire

The developments triggered by the Hanseatic expansion towards the East did not always go unchallenged, nor was the League bound to last long into the Early Modern Period. In the course of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 43 the growing Dutch and English maritime powers and the rising trade cities of southern Germany took over. These new rivals could no longer be scared away by an aggressive foreign policy or by war, and Hanseatic merchants relied too much on their traditional monopoly trades; they also failed to realise that general commercial axes, and with the rise of nation-states also the general political situation in Europe, had changed drastically. In reality, Hanseatic trade was in decline from the fifteenth century. Gradually new systems of fairs become more important in Southern Germany and Brabant (Antwerp, Bergen-op-Zoom). There were gradual but structural shifts in commercial routes, with greater use, once again, of overland routes. For a long time the Hanse was able to resist these tendencies and to remain a leading trading force, willing to defend its interests with armed might, as

Anonymous. Market on the Antwerp Meir. Late 16th century. Panel. Koninklijke Musea voor Schone Kunsten. Brussels.

Danish and Dutch competitors more than once found out. But competition from Holland, Normandy and England became stiffer, and from the late fifteenth century Hanseatic trade was in full decline. In sixteenth-century Antwerp the Hanse was only of marginal importance, despite the League's tradition of trading in the Low Countries and its ostentatious new building in this commercial metropolis. When the ‘common interest’ of the community failed to produce results, the individual cities chose to go their own way. A few were successful and managed to thrive (Hamburg). But the Hanse as an organisation gradually dissolved between the 1630s and the 1660s.

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A Businessman's Thoughts on Concentration Camps and Capitalism

Two Extracts from Hellema's The Wrath of the Wind

Hellema - aka Alexander Bernard (Lex) van Praqag - is a master of letters who has remained unknown-a writers' writer. Van Praag (1921-2005) was a member of the Resistance during the Second World War who ended up in a number of German concentration camps. After the war, he travelled as a businessman through Europe to obtain orders for a textile factory. In doing so, he also had to do business with the very same people who had once consigned him to Buchenwald. Life goes on.

After the first pilot projects, the privatisation of the prison system is now really getting underway. Van der Kamp & Kamp Executive Recruitment. For the creative posting of managers. Flossenbürg, subdivision of a reputable nationwide concern, is a medium-sized concentration camp with, as its special field, the business-like and cost-conscious contracting out of the supplied human resources via head office in Berlin. The marketing section investigates the feasibility and potential of the market and is responsible for the drawing up of strategic guidelines regarding a product-oriented supply of the materials involved. The optimalisation of efficient work conditions within the camp and the supplying of all services related to general and technical management is also in accordance with the deployment policy of available detainees. For the transportation and/or elimination of superfluous and non-detachable forces, there is close collaboration between the firing squads and the sanitary experimental barracks. For our client, we are looking for a marketing manager to lead the section. The candidate is expected to implement a structure within which the functioning of his own organisation can be benchmarked by means of index numbers with corresponding sections in the camp of similar nature and extent within the concern. A flexible personality that can easily operate within a continuously changing and expanding organisation, innovative and diplomatic. Good communication skills, capable of handling the major accounts himself.

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Completed higher SS training and at least five years' experience in a comparable position in an organisation within a closely related sector. Career boost for top talent. Wage classification according to the gravity of the duties involved. Send your CV by e-mail to kampkamp.com@euro-on-line

●

I have worked for fifteen, twenty years - or even longer - in a biotope where such concepts as return on investment, positive cash flow and the entire caboodle of capitalist expletives were living conditions. For the person who does not guzzle from the pot of capitalism, drinks from the cup of death. By so doing, I have contributed more to the clothing of the naked than if I had continued to run around waving a red flag. Quia absurdum.

From The Wrath of the Wind (De woede van de wind) Amsterdam: Em. Querido's Uitgeverij BV, 2003. pp. 21-22 & 97 Translated by John Irons

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Are Diamonds Forever? Antwerp, World Diamond Centre - but for how much longer? [Ewald Pironet]

Antwerp Diamond Conference, 2004.

Take a walk around Antwerp's diamond district, and all seems to be peace and tranquillity. In the three streets by the Central Station where the diamond trade is concentrated, Belgian-Jewish, Indian and other diamond dealers are going briskly about their business. They all have the same aim: to buy and sell dia-

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 47 monds and make as much profit from it as they can. And that seems to be going well. But appearances can be deceptive. Among the smaller diamond dealers more and more shutters are staying closed. Never before has there been so much bickering among the Antwerp diamond dealers. And Antwerp's position as an international diamond centre is under greater pressure than ever before from the increasing competition from Dubai, in the Arab world, and Mumbai, in India. ‘Diamonds are forever’, as the saying goes, but can the same be said of Antwerp as the world's diamond centre?

A twilight area

The Antwerp Diamond Exchange

Antwerp has been the international diamond centre for centuries. Diamonds have been cut and polished and traded in Antwerp ever since the fifteenth century. Today some eighty percent of all rough diamonds and half the cut diamonds come through Antwerp. For the rest, there is a lot of juggling of figures, which means it is not clear what they are worth. According to the professional body of the Antwerp diamond industry, the Antwerp World Diamond Center, some 30,000 people are employed (directly or indirectly) in the diamond trade. Other estimates reckon there are only about 2,500 jobs. There is disagreement too as to the turnover. Is it realty 16 billion euros per annum, or does this figure contain a lot of double counting because it includes first the price of the rough diamond and then also the price of the finished stone? In some people's view you need to take this 16 billion euro turnover figure with a large pinch of salt. Nor, in many cases, do the diamond companies' annual accounts shed any light on the matter, because they are often far from transparent, since fiscal constructs and tax havens are the warp and woof of the diamond trade. And the fact that much, if not everything, takes place in the strictest confidentiality between the diamond dealers, with very few papers or contracts, does not make for greater transparency. Moreover, the diamond industry is very much a closed world. The problem is: there are no

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 reliable figures. But, for the time being, Antwerp remains the most important diamond market in the world, and everyone is stilt agreed on that. Incidentally, Antwerp is not only the most important international diamond market, it is also the world's largest black market for diamonds. African dictators and rebel leaders flog gems in this city on the Scheldt to fill their personal coffers and finance their wars. These are the so-called ‘blood’ or ‘conflict’ diamonds. The international and Belgian authorities are trying to stop the trade in conflict diamonds by imposing a system of certification that enables the origin of the gems to be traced. But in the shops around Antwerp's Central Station no one seems to ask for such a certificate if you go in and offer some rough diamonds for sale. The consequence of this total lack of clarity: some maintain that the Antwerp diamond sector is extremely important to the Belgian economy. They argue that it provides jobs and revenue (for the state). But others defend with equal conviction the view that the number of jobs is relatively insignificant and point to the fact that the diamond sector pays hardly any taxes. According to them Antwerp's diamond trade isn't all that important to Belgian economy. The truth must lie somewhere between the two.

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World centre under pressure

For centuries the cutting and polishing of gemstones was an important activity in Antwerp, and in many of the surrounding Kempen villages. But that has changed: increasingly the diamonds are cut and polished in India, Sri Lanka, Vietnam or China, for the simple reason that it can be done much more cheaply

Diamond cutters in Antwerp. 1912. there. Of the 25,000 Belgian cutters there used to be, a mere thousand or so now remain. Generally speaking, the cheaper gemstones are cut and polished in the low-wage countries. The high-carat stones are fashioned to perfection in Antwerp, where you have not only the cutters with generations of experience behind them, but also extremely expensive machines and sophisticated software. These machines can calculate to within one hundredth of a millimetre how best to cut the gem, before it goes to jewellers such as Tiffany or Van Cleef & Arpels. In the last few years Belgium has become a transit market for diamonds. Antwerp's position as the world centre of the diamond trade is under increasing pressure. Other places in the wortd, such as Tel Aviv, Mumbai and Dubai, have made their mark in recent decades. This has been a severe blow for Antwerp as far as the cutting and polishing of stones is concerned, and the city's trade in gemstones is facing ever-growing competition from abroad. So it is not surprising that the diamond dealers in the city on the Scheldt are becoming more anxious by the day. In the last few years tensions between the diamond dealers reached an all-time high, and that didn't do the image of the Antwerp diamond sector any good either. In 2003 De Beers, the gigantic diamond company that has almost a world monopoly in diamonds, changed its tactics. And this change had serious consequences for Antwerp and its diamond dealers. De Beers, which had always presented itself within the industry as a ‘Benevolent Father’, was no longer making the desired profits and was looking for a solution. De Beers realised that the greatest profits were no longer coming from the cutting and polishing of diamonds, but from the sale of gemstones. So it decided to claim a greater role in sales: the firm drastically thinned out the number of privileged buyers (the businesses who took consignments on approval). Then the selected buyers took

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 49 over the greater part of the business. Result: the larger diamond dealers became larger, while an awful lot of the smaller dealers found their backs to the wall. And the atmosphere among the Antwerp diamond dealers grew worse. Another problem was the rise and ever-increasing strength of the Indian diamond dealers. In the old days it was the Belgian Jews whose businesses

‘Sights’ (parcels of diamonds) at De Beers in London, ready to be sent off. lined the streets of the Antwerp diamond district, today it is the Indians. There are some 20,000 Jews in Antwerp, and until recently they accounted for something like 70 percent of the turnover in diamonds in the city. Today they still make up something like a quarter of that turnover, but that figure will fall further. As a consequence many Jews are living on the brink of poverty. Every year 1,000 to 2,000 Jews are leaving Antwerp, mainly for Israel or the United States. Although the Jewish and Indian diamond dealers are in competition with each other, there is no great racial tension between the two groups - there have even been a few marriages between Jews and Indians in Antwerp. But things aren't exactly perfect either; the Indian diamond dealers have the reputation of being not only ambitious but also extremely tough businessmen. They flaunt their wealth by building ostentatious houses in the north of Antwerp or giving extravagant wedding receptions. Each year the annual cricket match organised by the Indian community seeks to surpass the previous year's game in pomp and splendour. And that while most of the Jews live in houses that could do with a good lick of paint. Furthermore, people wonder whether the Indian diamond dealers really feel any deep attachment to Antwerp: the Indian families have offices all over the world and if it suits their purses better to leave Antwerp, they will promptly do just that, and without shedding a single tear; or so it is said.

When the wind blows it's time to build windmills

The reduction in the number of diamond cutting and polishing workshops in and around Antwerp, the pressure on Antwerp as a trade centre, the battle of the big diamond dealers against the small, the rise of the Indian dealers - all these

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 50 were elements that raised the tension in the Antwerp diamond district to fever pitch. The Antwerp World Diamond Center got caught up in the complicated tussle between the large and small dealers, and also between the Jewish and Indian dealers. At meetings of the Council there was more name-calling than constructive talk. Within the Council the diamond dealers literally came to blows over the issue of who could have a seat in the organisation, who ultimately

Interior of the Antwerp Diamantmuseum.

Sardar Singh, Maharajah of Jodhpur, 1902. Photo from Babur's Legacy, a recent exhibition at the Antwerp Diamantmuseum. Photo courtesy of Air-India Collection. would hold the reins: the big overlords or the small diamond dealers. In 2005 the internal battles led, among other things, to the dismissal of the director-general of the Antwerp World Diamond Center, Peter Meeus, who had failed to resolve the differences of opinion in the industry. But early in 2006 it was learned that Meeus, who of course knew the Antwerp diamond business and its weak points inside out, had been made special advisor to the diamond trade in Dubai, one of Antwerp's competitors. It is Meeus' job to use his experience to see to it that Dubai

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 better meets the needs of the diamond merchants. The city in the United Arab Emirates wants to set up an extensive infrastructure to attract still more diamond merchants. The principal element of this is the Almas Tower, a sixty-five storey building where diamond businesses can rent office space. A good many Antwerp firms already have a presence in Dubai, and one can assume that others will follow suit. During the recent wrangling in the Antwerp World Diamond Center the governor of Antwerp, Camille Paulus, declared at one point that he was ‘ashamed’ of the industry. This led to Belgian prime minister Guy Verhofstadt taking a personal interest in the matter, because Antwerp must and would be saved as the world centre for diamonds. And according to the diamond dealers Antwerp has other trump cards to play: there is a wealth of expertise in the city and, unlike Tel Aviv or Dubai, it is in a stable region. But that is not enough, as the Belgian government also decided. Entrepreneurs are always very appreciative of favourable taxation rates and that is certainly true of the diamond dealers. The Belgian government has now

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 51 conceded this. The diamond dealers can ‘launder’ their ‘black stocks’ at a special rate of tax: a sort of amnesty was worked out for this, in the hope that the diamond dealers will now declare these ‘black’ diamonds. In addition the government has devised a whole range of other fiscal concessions, so that the diamond dealers, who already benefited from a favourable tax regime, will hardly have to pay any tax at all. And the Bijzondere Belastings Inspectie (BBI

The famous ECC Racket. The European Community Championship Tennis Tournament took place in Antwerp until 1998 and was the precursor of the Proximus Diamond Games. It's a magnificent trophy: a couple of kilos of gold with inlaid diamonds, ‘cut in Antwerp’. Diamantmuseum. Antwerp.

- Special Tax Inspectorate), that was responsible for dealing with tax fiddles and regularly honoured the diamond sector with a visit, ‘may not target the diamond sector more than other sectors in our country’, according to government statements. Some people interpret this as a broad hint to the BBI that it should leave the diamond sector alone. The government hopes that all these measures will enable it to keep the diamond dealers in Antwerp. In Autumn 2006 the Flemish government, for its part, convened a round table conference on the diamond sector, at which all concerned were able to discuss the position of Antwerp and how it can be strengthened. At the Flemish level there were ideas on support for research and development, training and export. A great many Jewish diamond dealers have doubts about their future in Antwerp. Nowadays not many of their children want to go into the diamond business. Others, including the Indians, do believe in Antwerp's future as a diamond centre, based, for instance, on the cutting and polishing of the most expensive stones of all. The small diamond players, who risk being pushed aside, will have to regroup and come up with an answer to the new market conditions. The diamond dealers need to show more assertiveness; as the phrase goes: ‘There is too much whingeing, and people forget: when the wind blows, it's time to build windmills and not to scurry for shelter’. The question is, whether it is now blowing too hard to set foot outside.

Diamantmuseum Provincie Antwerpen: www.diamantmuseum.be

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 Antwerp World Diamond Center: www.hrd.be Translated by Sheila M. Dale

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My cheese will is made An Extract from Willem Elsschot's Cheese

1933 sees the publication of Willem Elsschot's short novel Cheese (Kaas). His protagonist Laarmans, a clerk working for a port authority, is inveigled into setting up as a dealer in cheese, but comes to grief because the work goes against his abilities and his nature. And so a novel about business becomes in fact a textbook on unsaleability.

I'm incapable of working and have lived through the last four days as if in a dream. Do you suppose I'm really falling ill now? I've just been visited by that son of Van der Zijpen the solicitor, whom Van Schoonbeke had talked about. He's a distinguished young chap of about twenty-five, who smells strongly of tobacco and can't stand or sit still for a minute without trying out a dance step. ‘Mr Laarmans,’ he said. ‘I know you're a friend of Albert Van Schoonbeke, and hence a gentleman. I'm counting on your discretion.’ What was I supposed to reply to that, especially in a mood like mine? So I just nodded briefly. ‘My father is prepared to buy a partnership in your Gafpa business. I reckon we can take him for two hundred thousand little ones, perhaps more.’ He paused to offer me a cigarette, lit one up himself and looked at me as if to see what impression his preamble had made on me. ‘And what then, sir?’ I asked him coolly, because I did not like the sound of ‘little ones’ and ‘take for’. ‘Well, then it's very simple,’ he said impudently. ‘I become your partner, for a fixed monthly sum of four thousand francs. You take out four thousand francs a month too, obviously. But I have absolutely no aptitude for business and I certainly don't intend to drag out my days here. So I propose that you give me only three thousand each month and I sign receipts for four thousand, on condition that I don't have to set foot in your office, not even to get my money. I'll tell you where you can deliver it. At any rate we'll be able to get through a couple of years with that two hundred thousand and when that's gone we can see what happens. Perhaps we'll decide to inject some more capital. As far as my share of the profits is concerned, I make you a present of it. Isn't that a splendid offer?’

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I told him that I would have to think it over and that I would let him know via Van Schoonbeke. When he had gone I took off the wall my festively flagged map of Belgium, on which the cheese area of the local agent was marked out around each flag, and put it away. Should I write another letter to my agents? Come on, let's get it over with. It's time the cheese misery came to an end. I had a thousand sheets of Gafpa headed notepaper. I cut off the blank bits. They may come in handy for Jan and Ida. The other bits are for the toilet. Then I went down to the cellar. There are still fifteen and a half cheeses in the case Let's just check: one stayed with the customs and Blue Hat, a second was shared between Van Schoonbeke and myself; seven and a half rounds went to Van Schoonbeke's friends, I gave one to that cadging agent and one to my brother-in-law. Twenty-seven minus eleven and a half. That's right. Hornstra won't be able to complain about my meticulousness. That half-round is bothering me. Anyway, why did that old fellow have to take only a half round? I pick up the piece and stand there dithering. I can return whole rounds, but not half-rounds. It would be a waste to throw it away. I hear my wife going upstairs - to make the beds, I expect. I wait until she's upstairs, then creep quietly into the kitchen and lay the red half-moon on a board, round side up. To stop it drying out. Then I go back to the cellar, count the Edams once again and nail the case shut. I hammer as carefully as possible so as not to alarm my wife upstairs. She might think I was hanging myself. Right, that's that. Now to the office to phone for a taxi, which arrives at the door soon afterwards. Along with the case the remaining fifteen cheeses still weigh over thirty kilos. And yet I am able to lift the monster, carry it up the cellar stairs and then down the hall to the front door. I open the door and the taxi driver takes the case from me. He has the greatest difficulty in getting it four more steps into his car.

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 54

I go and put my coat on, get my hat and join the case. Mrs Peeters, our neighbour, stands at the window and follows the whole operation with the greatest interest. Upstairs I see my wife appear between the curtains. I deposited the case in the patent store and paid off the taxi. My cheese will is made. I can't understand why, but my wife, who saw the taxi drawing up, didn't ask a single question and my brother seems to have no interest whatsoever in sold and unsold quantities. He talks about his patients, about my children, about politics. Has he discussed things with my wife, I wonder? And so Hornstra will be here tomorrow. The proceeds from the case Jan sold and from the eleven and a half rounds is ready in my office in an envelope. Wouldn't it be best to tell my wife what awaits us tomorrow? No, she has worries enough as it is. However much I am dreading that conversation with Hornstra, I'm starting to long for it as a martyr yearns for redeeming death, for I imagine my prestige as a man and a father is diminishing daily. And what kind of situation is this anyway? My wife is left with a husband who is officially a clerk with General Marine, but who is playing the role of director of Gafpa, under cover of a doctor's certificate. A neurotic who has to sell cheese unheard and unseen, as though it were a crime. And then there are the children. They show nothing of what they're feeling, but I'm sure that between themselves they are discussing that outrageous cheese fantasy as a pathological symptom. After all a father should be consistent. Whether he's a mayor, a bookmaker, a clerk or a casual labourer, is less important. But someone who does his duty for years, whatever that duty is, and then suddenly, and without being asked, starts acting out an operetta the way I did with that cheese - is he still a father? It's definitely not normal. In this sort of predicament a minister resigns and bows out. But a husband and father can only resign by doing away with himself. And what about my brother, who has so suddenly and obviously stopped asking how sales are going? He knew from the beginning how it would turn out. So why didn't he refuse to give me that certificate? That would have been more sensible than bringing samples of medicines every day that no one needs. The wimp. I can almost hear him asking my wife discreetly if it's over yet, the way one asks after the health of a dying man. And she probably replies that I've already taken the case out of the cellar. I'm overcome by a frightening feeling of abandonment. What good is my family to me now? Isn't there that wall of cheese between us? If I weren't a miserable freethinker, I'd say a prayer. But can I, at the age of fifty, suddenly start praying about a cheese issue? I suddenly think of my mother. It's lucky she has not witnessed this cheese catastrophe. Once upon a time, before she started picking kapok, she would have paid for those ten thousand cheeses to spare me this suffering.

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And now I ask myself whether I deserved all this. Why did I jump on the cheese bandwagon? Was it because I was urged on by the desire to improve the lot of my wife and children? That would be noble, but I'm not that much of a saint. Was it to cut a better figure at Van Schoonbeke's? It wasn't that either, because I'm far too vain to be satisfied by such a thing. But why did I do it then? Cheese makes me sick. I've never wanted to sell cheese. I think it's bad enough going into a shop to buy cheese. But wandering round with a load of cheese, pleading for some Christian soul to relieve you of the burden, is something I just can't do. I'd rather be dead.

So why? It's not a nightmare - it's bitter reality. I had hoped to bury the cheeses in that patent store for ever, but they have broken out; they are looming in front of me, weighing on my soul and stinking. I think it happened to me because I'm too easily led. When Van Schoonbeke asked me if I would take it on, I didn't have the guts to reject him and his cheese, as I should have done. And I'm paying the price of that cowardice. I deserved my cheese ordeal.

From Cheese (Translation or Kaas, 1933). London: Granta Books: 2003. pp. 105-111 Heirs of Alfons Josef De Ridder / Amsterdam: Em. Querido's Uitgeverij B.V. Translated by Paul Vincent

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Artist Seeks Market - and Vice Versa? [Marc Ruyters]

How do artists deal with the market? Are art and economics each other's opponents, as they have traditionally been regarded? Is it a question of a stronger and a weaker sibling? Or can they go hand-in-hand and even sustain each other? In the Low Countries in recent years, there has been a good deal of discussion about the relationship between ‘art’ and ‘money’. But first: this article focuses on individual artists who work for themselves. They are mainly visual artists and, in smaller numbers, writers. Most other artists - musicians, stage actors, dancers etc. - are in some form of paid employment with an artistic organisation and, as individuals, are less subject to the risks of ‘the market’. This discussion will concentrate on contemporary visual artists.

David Teniers the Younger, The Art Gallery of Archduke Leopold Wilhelm, 1651. Canvas, 127 × 162.6 cm. Petworth House, Sussex (The National Trust).

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Art and the Powers That Be

Painters on paper: James Ensor and Constant Permeke, as portrayed on old Belgian franc notes.

Any discussion of artists and the market in the Low Countries needs to be based on a number of starting points. Until the end of the 1980s, the Netherlands had the Beeldende Kunst Regeling (BKR; Regulations for Visual Arts), a scheme for providing additional employment opportunities in the visual arts. Basically, under this scheme the work of visual artists was automatically bought by the public sector by way of a benefit payment, a form of subsidy that eventually led to overflowing museums, warehouses and other storerooms in virtually every municipality. For many years after the scheme was abolished, the Dutch media was full of stories - some of them hilarious - about what those local authorities and government organisations should do to try and dispose of the tons of ‘superfluous’ artworks. Today, visual artists in the Netherlands can apply for government subsidies through various channels, including the Fonds voor Beeldende Kunst, Vormgeving en Bouwkunst (Fonds BKVB; Foundation for Visual Arts, Design and Architecture) and the Mondriaan Foundation. However, since the abolition of the BKR it has become more difficult for individual artists to qualify for government subsidies, particularly in recent years with the many government cutbacks. In short, artists in the Netherlands seem to have surrendered a great deal financially in recent decades. In Flanders, to some extent the reverse appears to be true: since the Flemish Community began to award subsidies to artists and artistic institutions in the 1960s, the ‘contemporary visual arts’ sector was always the neglected child. Most of the (scarce) subsidies were allocated to the performing artists and (classical) music, and to the construction of cultural and other art centres. Visual artists could apply for project subsidies and working grants, but the number of ‘lucky ones’ was limited and the sums remained inadequate. The Kunstendecreet (Arts Act) came into effect on 1 January 2006. Under this new Act visual arts will in principle be treated in the same way as other art forms.

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Financial measures to redress the balance were successfully launched, but are far from being finalised, and there is still a bone of contention: many artists believe that too much money is going to institutions (museums, art centres, workshops), and too little to the artists themselves. The memorandum on culture policy for 2007, presented by Bert Anciaux, the Flemish Minister for Culture, contains the following shaky but intriguing sentence: ‘The increase in resources

David Oyens, Memoirs of the Artist's Studio, 1878. Panel, 34 × 25 cm. Private collection. for visual-arts organisations must be matched by direct support for visual artists, so that they too can continue their artistic activities in a professional context.’ The increase in resources for the organisations is a fact: since the Arts Act came into effect, support has almost trebled compared with previous years. That ought also to apply to visual artists. However, the same document states that the resources will remain the same until the end of 2009. If more money is to go to the artists themselves, this will have to be at the expense of the organisations. What are we actually talking about? How serious is the situation? A survey carried out by Kunstenloket, a contact point for artists that is subsidised by the Flemish government, showed that only ten percent of Flemish artists earn more

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 59 than 10,000 euros net per year (this sum is regarded as the minimum income for a ‘self-employed person’). Sixty percent earn less than 3,000 euros net per year! Obviously, not all artists regard their work as a source of income, or their main source of income, but the figures speak for themselves. It is clear that both the Dutch and the Flemish governments still have a great deal of work to do.

The Ten Guilders Man: painter Frans Hals on an old Dutch banknote.

Art in the free market

But is this what those governments really want? Subsidies, even when substantially increased, are only one side of the pecuniary story; the market is also a factor. In the world of the visual arts it is known as the ‘art market’. It only makes the news if work by Jackson Pollock, Gustav Klimt or Pablo Picasso is auctioned in New York for vast amounts. But that is just the spectacular and speculative side of the art market. The essential players in the contemporary art market, certainly in the Low Countries, are the gallery owners, in particular the managers of the ‘promotional galleries’. These are more than a display window or ‘shop’, they select their artists and help them to establish themselves nationally and internationally with catalogues, stands at art fairs, and through international networking. In short, the gallery owner and artist ‘run the course’ together. An artist who finds a good gallery owner (and vice versa), and creates work that is ‘saleable’, has the prospect of an attractive income (the sale price of a work is usually divided fifty-fifty between artist and gallery owner). Museums and arts centres can also provide an income for artists in the form of a fee for taking part in an exhibition, or the purchase of works for museum collections (which is usually done through the galleries). In principle there is even, via the resale right, an income set aside for artists whose work is sold by public auction. Most European countries apply this legislation, but not Britain and the USA - the countries where the most important and most expensive works are auctioned, with no income generated for the artists. The European Community is working towards uniform regulatory measures, with which Britain will eventually have to comply. This is the ‘art market’ that simply plays by the rules of the free market economy and a keen business sense.

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 But there is another, rather deeper, aspect to the ‘economic’ side of things, namely that artists are increasingly regarded as potential innovators, whose creativity can stimulate economic projects.

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Various approaches are evident in this context. And here, too, Ftanders and the Netherlands seem to be developing different ways of thinking. In Flanders, as in the Netherlands, the idea of ‘culture industries’ is taking hold. These are businesses that produce ‘culture’ or ‘entertainment’ with the help of artists and their creativity. Public authorities contribute by giving financial support to those businesses, for example in the form of subordinated loans. Economic principles are beginning to exert a strong influence on - or even dominate - such cultural-economic co-operation. But some in Flanders think differently. In the book Artists and Entrepreneurs. A New Relationship (Kunstenaars & Ondernemers. Een nieuwe relatie, 2006), I edited the thoughts and ideas of academics, artists and entrepreneurs that were expressed in 2004 and 2005 at eight seminars on the theme ‘Art and economics: we see no difference’. The seminars revealed that the relationship between art and economics takes several forms, from harmonious to discordant. Each seminar dealt with a specific subject, although the discussions sometimes overlapped. Five types of relationship between art and economics were defined. First: art and economics can attract and repel each other like magnets. Economics posits its laws, art demands its artistic freedom. But the economy also benefits from freedom, and art too has its limits. Second: art and economics are like two brothers. The economy - the big brother - is a large and powerful world player, an indispensable force in terms of feeding, clothing and housing people. Art is ‘only’ to feed the spirit, to meet intellectual and aesthetic needs. Yet that too is essential to life. Third: art and economics can face each other as true antagonists. Economics has different priorities and objectives to the arts, and sometimes they get in each other's way. Four: art and economy join hands, through compromises or otherwise. Art and economics can work side-by-side, with the artist and the entrepreneur each fulfilling their own role. But art and economics can also co-operate on the same project. Five: art and economics are merely parts of a greater whole that transcends a simple division. They fulfil a role, through interaction and sometimes through a compromise with other players such as the market, opinion-makers and the community. The seminars also clearly showed that in recent decades the relationship between ‘the artist’ and ‘the market’ has been sadly undervalued and all too often seen from a one-sided and antagonistic perspective. The view of quite a number of decision-makers in Flanders is that today, at the beginning of the twenty-first century, that relationship needs to be celebrated, seen from a new perspective, and deepened. With equal and mutual respect for ‘the artist’ and ‘the market’.

The culture industry

The Dutch view appears to be somewhat harder and has more in common with the Anglo-Saxon model: if you want to earn money you have to work hard and be smart - and that goes for artists too. In the autumn 2006 issue of Boekman, a Dutch journal for art, culture and related policy, Ryclef Rienstra paraphrases the poet Lucebert: ‘Anything that is resilientis not worthless.’ This periodical, too, has pondered the issue of ‘art and commerce’. Ought the arts sector to become commercialised? How creative are

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Euro coin, minted on the occasion of the 150th anniversary of Vincent van Gogh's birth. cultural entrepreneurs? Can the production and consumption of culture be left to market forces? ‘Increasingly, art and business are going hand-in hand’, writes editor-in-chief Anita Twaalfhoven. And so it appears: the Dutch supermarket chain Albert Heijn enriched the 2006 celebration of the four hundredth anniversary of Rembrandt's birth with its ‘Night Watch bread from the Golden Age’. The packaging informs us that the dark multi-grain bread is decorated, like a painting, ‘with a rich palette of seeds and grains’. The second Balkenende cabinet attached great importance to creativity and allocated a subsidy of 15.4 million euros to its culture and economy programme. In the Netherlands, too, artists are seen as invaluable if you want to innovate, make progress, establish yourself in the market. That is why, in the Netherlands, the Ministry of Economic Affairs and the Ministry of Education, Culture & Science work together. Money is no longer a dirty word in matters relating to art. The Vincent-van-Gogh image, the artist as philanderer and bohemian, is very definitely a caricature from a distant past. Yet the question remains whether there is a hidden agenda behind the image of the art world as an industry, ‘creative people as money-makers’. In his policy document A Culture of Enterprise (Een ondernemende cultuur), Rick van der Ploeg, former Secretary of State for Culture, gently advocated the cultural enterprise approach, which focuses on deriving ‘a greater artistic, professional and social return from cultural facilities’. Should artists concentrate on the market for their work? Shouldn't they be given a good shaking by ‘brokers’ and ‘cultural entrepreneurs’, who force them to consider whether there is a demand for their work? Economists have pondered these questions. More and more studies

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 62 are appearing on the ‘culture industry’; the main emphasis is of course on the integrity of the artist, but with particular stress also on the unhelpful attitude of the government (cutbacks) and the fact that art is a commodity - to put it in Marxist terms - that has to deliver added value. The ‘creative industry’ is an economic engine - at least, according to the titles of Flemish as well as Dutch policy documents and advisory reports such as

An excellent investment in art: Wim Delvoye's Cloaca shares. Photo courtesy of Wim Delvoye Studio.

Cultural Industries, Creativity-the Weightless Fuel of the Economy, or Our Creative Assets. One Dutch newspaper stated that people no longer harp on about ‘the social relevance of art. Now its relevance is primarily economic’. Artists should be involved in all public-sector projects. This sharp economic reasoning changes the status of the artist: whereas, in the past, the ‘artist’ was a marginal figure, today he/she is ‘an artist in the service of economic development’. The way in which we think about art is being turned upside down; everything has to change. Artists must focus on the market by producing their work as something to be sold. The ‘creative class’ is a potential job creator and also a revenue generator. People no longer talk in scornful

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 tones of the growing influence of arts management, marketing and market forces in the art world - so we read in the journal

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 63 of the Boekman Foundation. The debate is no longer about ‘the pernicious influences threatening the high arts’. Artists ought, some people believe, to be more calculating about putting their work on the market ‘in order to secure a solid income in the long run’. Then they will no longer be dependent on subsidies or social-security benefit. Giep Hagoort, Professor of Art and Economics at the Faculty of Art of the University of Utrecht, has developed a ‘theory of Strategic Artistic Calculation’. His method dispenses with the ‘the indolence, the informality and the gut feelings surrounding the relationship between artisticity and commerciality’. We must adopt a more businesslike approach - and that goes for the arts too. The government should no longer play a central role; there are funds, company initiatives, private sponsors - in short, taxpayers' money should be spent on other things than art.

Market forces as art

How do artists themselves react to this new, neo-liberal tinted development? Every work of art has within it a certain measure of commitment, which incorporates an element of social criticism. But any artist who wants to make a living from his or her work will be aware that economic strategies are essential to that. There are few artists who take precisely those subtle market mechanics as the subject of their work. We will restrict ourselves to one Flemish and one Dutch example. With his spectacular work (from stained-glass windows with X-ray porn to concrete mixers sculptured in wood, and Cloaca machines with vacuum-packed faeces as commodities) the Flemish artist Wim Delvoye holds up a mirror to an ever more materialistic society. It is even possible to buy shares in Wim Delvoye, with the reassurance that they are an excellent investment in art. In the Netherlands Rob Scholte has for many years played an equally sublime and perfidious Warhol-style game with market forces to draw attention to his work. He copies the work of other masters, staying just within the boundaries of the law, with the aim of raising questions about the value of ‘unique masterpieces’. Ultimately, the transition to a harder market climate will have to be made. Artists in Flanders and the Netherlands be advised: if there is no demand for your work, that is painful. You will have to take up something else - or depend on your partner's income.

With thanks to Paul Depondt Translated by Yvette Mead

Bibliography

Marc Ruyters, Kunstenaars & ondernemers. Een nieuwe relatie. Tielt, 2006. Boekman 68, Tijdschrift voor kunst, cultuur en beleid, ‘Kunst en commercie’. Autumn 2006 (www.boekman.nl)

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Stupid People Pay More An Extract from Marja Brouwers' Casino

In Marja Brouwers' novel ‘Casino’. Rink de Vilder, a journalist on a national newspaper, meets the yacht designer Philip van Heemskerk in Monte Carlo. It is the onset of an acquaintance with a tempestuous, somewhat whimsical hut astoundingly capacious mind. In addition to being an experienced solo yachtsman, a sponsor of Formula I racing and a talented amateur mechanic when it comes to Harley Davidson engines, Philip is the unfaithful lover of Moura, who, with his approval, seeks consolation in Rink's arms. At an Amsterdam restaurant, Philip offers to give Rink and Moura a house free of charge.

‘You don't mean to say he can do that without the transfer of money?’ Rink asked. ‘Oh yes, he can.’ Philip replied airily. ‘My notary can do anything.’ Wooow,' Moura said. A candle flame fluttered. ‘I love to hear Moura say wooow,’ Philip said. ‘Have we reached a decision?’ He meant the menu. He closed it and gazed imperiously into space. Immediately, there was a waiter at his chair, ready to note down the Sicilian salad and the veal escalopes. Without much consideration for other possibilities, Rink ordered the same salad and the same escalopes. All his antennas were rustling, but that did not stop him from realising at lightning speed that most of his colleagues had to slave away from morning till night for half a lifetime with their co-earning partners, before their editors' salaries would buy them a residence in a fairly comfortable fashion. And here he was, being offered a house for the taking whose present market value might be put at seven to nine grand! Without a mortgage, in an upscale neighbourhood, so its value could only increase. SSPM!, he thought in a flash. Stupid People Pay More. It was Philip's catchword when he produced his deck of platinum and gold cards, to which various discounts applied. It was true enough. Some other guy would be paying the standard rate of three hundred dollars a night at the Mariott, while Philip could get the same room for one hundred, with a rental car thrown in, including insurance. Dopes paid more. And worked harder. That was how it was. Rink de Vilder's attitude towards money was what you might call the European approach. He thought it practical but otherwise of no importance. It would never occur to him to evaluate human beings in terms of their economic or financial

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 65 strength. This was possibly the reason why he could never get a hold over Philip's American business partner Scott Rider. He had met him two or three times and found him not only shallow but also needlessly ironic or even boorish. Scott could be so boorish, even towards Moura, that you almost felt tempted to give him silent thanks for that desultory American geniality with which he treated everyone except Philip. In his dealings with Philip, Scott sounded different, casting off the cloaks and daggers he always seemed to need to cancel everyone out. Rink believed the difference was caused by Philip's command of languages. Philip could speak twelve languages, at least seven of them fluently, one of these being the midwest variant of American English as it was spoken in Chicago. Perhaps Rink ought to have understood that Scott's behaviour was guided by his personal sense of a man's worth, but he would have been unable to identify the value factor correctly. That is to say, until this moment, for now it began to dawn on him what difference a lot of money might make. It is amazing how rapidly the mere mention of a sizable money supply inspires new insights and especially if the supply is mentioned to someone's advantage. Money, Rink suddenly recognised, was not an idea. It was a vital substance and the substance was freedom. Freedom to do what? We would prefer to hear some positive plan, not that someone just threw off a yoke, Nietzsche wrote somewhere. A positive plan of freedom in a society of consumers is bound to reach its highest implementation in the free choice between one article of consumption or the other. At this stage it was asking too much of Rink that he should think twice abiut his freedom, for as soon as the waiter had disappeared with the noted orders, Moura grabbed hold of Philip's sleeve. ‘Philip!’ she said with all the symptoms of a woman who wishes to avoid any time for reflection. ‘Are you really serious about this?’ ‘About the house. Yes, I'm serious. I'm in the process of shifting my real estate to Manhattan and I've asked Bills to wind up the Reloc Rentals here. It will keep him going for another couple of years, for there are two-year contract terms involved, but sooner or later it will leave him with your house and the house which Bob is using. In both of them an apartment is kept occupied by a tenant under rent protection. I would guess that this may take longer than two years. With nothing left but those two rents to deal with, Bills will cease to find me an interesting relation and I'll agree with him. I'll have to sell the premises while they're indefinitely occupied, which is always a bad deal. So isn't this the simplest solution? Your only drawback is the upstairs Mrs Tol. Give her the legal percentage rent increase each year. Once every five years she swings into action to stop you and that's when you've got to watch her. I find the drawback large

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enough for ample compensation, so I'm giving you the title to the house. That way I am rid of it.’ ‘I think you ought at least to name a price.’ Rink said. ‘A price? I don't ask my friends for money - and certainly not my lady friends. The simplest thing to do is state a price in a deed of purchase, so no one will have to justify any sort of gift to the tax authorities.’ ‘That still leaves you with having to report a non-existent purchase price. There's a problem either way.’ ‘Not my way, because I've got my company and it's part of a corporation with its main office in Chicago. It's no problem for me to enter a six-figure amount somewhere along the line.’ Money laundering, Rink thought. Three and a half grand in dollars while as snow, another four and a half from Bob for the canalside property makes eight. Sale of real estate in Amsterdam, with some currency fluctuations via Dutch guilders. If he believes this is the way to do it, then this is the way to do it.

From Casino, Amsterdam: De Bezige Bij. 2004. pp. 368-371. Translated by John Irons

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The Welfare State in the Netherlands and Belgium A Story of Identical Challenges, Different Structures, Identical Instruments... and Jealousy Guy Tegenbos

The website www.belgendoenhetbeter.nl, which was launched in 2005, ushered in a new era in Belgo-Dutch relations: the era of mutual constructive jealousy. Right from the start the website sought to convince the Dutch that the ‘Holy Grail’ of social and socio-economic policy can come not only from the North (the Scandinavian countries) or the West (Great Britain), but also from the South, from Belgium. Until then, many Dutch people thought they had little to learn from the Belgians in that department. In the 1990s, the Netherlands was the guiding light in Europe. And the country enjoyed its role - that is, until the engine of the Polder Model began to stutter. The lower economic growth created scope for new relationships with its southern neighbour: a relationship of mutual constructive jealousy.

Saint Martin Divides his Cape. Design for a stained-glass window by Martin Linnartz.

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In Belgium, and particularly in Flanders, that jealousy was already present. The Dutch approach and the Dutch achievements are often held up as an example. However, this Flemish jealousy now has a Dutch counterpart. That jealousy is even becoming a useful tool. Those who want change will often find examples across the border which could be put to good use in the home country. Stressing that the neighbours are doing things better then becomes

The Triumph of Riches. Copy by Jan de Bisschop after a lost painting by Hans Holbein the Younger, c. 1670. British Museum, London. a political weapon which boxes the opponents of change into a corner. If the greener grass on one side of the border inspires those on the other side to do better, what is wrong with that? And there is no need for over-meticulous comparisons or for dragging in too many nuances and qualifications: in policy matters jealousy - constructive jealousy - is a virtue that can rapidly erode resistance to change. Two recent examples in which the two countries have learned from each other are the introduction of e-government in social security and the personal budgets (PB) for people with disabilities. From its beginning www.belgendoenhetbeter.nl drew the attention of the Dutch to the success of the Belgian Crossroads Bank for Social Security (CBSS), which was responsible for the digitisation of the flow of data and funds between employers and social security organisations - a move which has already saved those employers and organisations billions of paper forms and euros. The motto of the CBSS was: the back office first, and only then the front office; the Netherlands had worked more on the front office and on short-term e-government successes. It is now forced to admit that the Belgians are doing it better, and have perhaps been doing so for some considerable time. For their part the Belgians, and particularly the Flemish, are very taken with the idea of personal budgets for people with disabilities. These budgets replace the funding of institutions which admit disabled people. The personal budgets increase people's self-reliance and, once the system is up and running, make the overall costs more manageable. In Belgium, Flanders is now experimenting with this system.

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The two neighbours now look over the fence more often. Yet the impression remains that, when it comes to matters relating to the welfare state, the inspiration from across the border is confined to instruments and minor initiatives. And that is curious.

The same challenges

It is curious because both welfare states are under severe pressure and face the same major challenges. The biggest of those challenges is the ageing of the population, whose impact will increasingly be felt from the year 2010. The number of births will then be far outstripped by the growing number of older persons. The working population will shrink, the economically inactive population will grow. The large ‘baby-boom’ generations born between 1945 and 1965 will leave the working-age population between 2010 and 2030. All later generations, and particularly the generation which reaches working age in that period (those born in and after 1990) are much less numerous. The working population is shrinking just as drastically as the retired population is growing. The effect is to push up spending on pensions, health care and care for the elderly. In the years immediately following 2010 this process will be more marked in Belgium because the fall in the birth rate was more rapid there, though the ultimate difference will not be great. The same applies for the second challenge: the slowdown in economic growth.

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For decades, both countries achieved growth rates of more than 2 percent; today they are down to 1.75 percent, while the USA and Canada, and above all Central Europe and some Asiatic countries are achieving much higher growth rates. The growth rate in Belgium has been slightly above the European average in recent years, while the Netherlands was above the average for a while in the 1990s, but these differences change nothing in the long-term trend. The explosive increases in oil and energy prices only make things worse. Domestic natural gas production has helped cushion the shock somewhat in the Netherlands, while the large part played by nuclear energy in electricity production in Belgium is doing the same there. But that, too, does little to change the fact that energy prices will continue to rise in both countries. Both countries are also wrestling with a painful relocation of economic activities - mainly industrial activities, but also services - to Asia and to the new EU member states and Eastern Europe. In addition, both countries are being bypassed by foreign investors who are targeting their investments further east, where labour costs are lower and there are still growth markets to be found. The ‘free movement of labour’ from the new EU member states is also causing problems for both the Netherlands and Belgium. These new workers are taking a considerable number of jobs, including in the construction industry. And although in the future both countries will need immigration to supplement the shrinking working population, both are today doing everything in their power to curb the number of incomers. Family reunification, political refugees and illegal immigration are putting pressure on the social fabric, social expenditure and social provisions such as health care and housing. And because these immigration flows are unsolicited and therefore not selective, they do not generate the labour supply that a planned selective immigration policy could produce. Thus we see that identical factors are putting pressure on the welfare state in both countries.

Identical strategies

The main strategies adopted by the two countries in response to these challenges are also identical. The first is ‘activation’. The welfare state has inherent within it forces which encourage passivity in the population. It makes labour expensive and businesses consequently seek to use as little labour as possible, secure in the knowledge that the welfare state will take care of those who are rejected. If it is possible to live on benefits, there will always be people who take unfair advantage of them. The narrow gap between income from employment and income from benefits has created unemployment traps. Moreover, a great many older workers were pushed out of the labour market through early retirement schemes and more flexible incapacity arrangements for older persons. Increasing the employment rate is the core policy objective in both countries. That is reflected in similar policy strategies: the abolition or reduction of early retirement; the activation of low-skilled workers, benefit claimants and economically inactive

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 women; increasing training opportunities; and reforming social security benefits and employment legislation. In addition, both countries are seeking to reduce their high labour costs, though the opportunities for doing so are limited if they wish to maintain the

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The Triumph of Poverty. Copy by Jan de Bisschop after a lost painting by Hans Holbein the Younger. c. 1670. British Museum. London. welfare state. They are also both opting for scientific research and innovation, realising that the only sustainable way of maintaining a high level of prosperity is to develop into a knowledge economy.

Continental, Anglo-Saxon and Scandinavian welfare states

Yet these identical strategies are not translated into identical policy measures. That is not really surprising: the welfare states in the two countries each belong to a different model. Europe has three models of welfare states or social security systems. The continental or Bismarckian model (dating from the end of the nineteenth century) is based on compulsory social insurance for each occupational group (employees, the self-employed, civil servants) which confers entitlement to benefits depending on the amounts paid in relation to income from employment. France, Germany and Belgium are examples of this model. The Anglo-Saxon or Beveridge model was created in the mid-twentieth century. It is based on the principle that people have an income from employment and from that income they can take out (private) social insurance; the government regards it as its task to provide a safety net of minimal basic benefits and provisions, paid for from general taxation, for those who fall outside the system.

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Finally, the Scandinavian model does not confer minimal Anglo-Saxon entitlements, but instead broad continental benefits and provisions; these are not based on contributions paid, nor on need, but simply on citizenship. The system links these entitlements to an obligation to accept work and training. It is funded by central government and often administered by local authorities. All countries have over time adopted elements from all three systems. The Netherlands did so to such an extent that it became a hybrid form; it is developing further, partly in the direction of the Anglo-Saxon model (privatisations) and partly in the direction of the Scandinavian system (activation). Belgium belongs to the continental model and is hesitating between a ‘no-change’ scenario and a move towards the Scandinavian model. Belgium's northern federal state, Flanders, is inclined towards change and is looking closely at the activation-based Scandinavian model, less so at the Anglo-Saxon system. The French-speaking inhabitants of Belgium's southern federal state, Wallonia, look towards France, where the continental model is undisputed. Via the social security system, a large amount of money moves from the economically stronger Flanders to Wallonia and Brussels. The French-speakers fear that changes in the system would lead to a reduction in the funds flowing from Flanders to Wallonia and Brussels, and this leads them to block virtually every move towards change. The social partners - trade unions and employers' organisations - continue to play a big part in potitical decision-making and do their best to maintain the continental system, in which they are able to play a very important role. The end result at federal level is that little changes in Belgium, with just a few watered-down measures in the direction of the Scandinavian model having been adopted. There is also a clear difference in the decision-making cultures. The Netherlands is capable of making drastic changes, and discusses these openly. The government has no desire to be accused of failing to intervene early enough. It sometimes acts in a very dynamic way. Belgium is not dynamic. It is more often able to prevent vulnerable groups being affected, but in many cases fails to take any decisions or decides only very late in the day. There are several reasons for this. The great power of the pressure groups limits the politicians' ability to take decisions. The fact that there are such wide differences in prosperity (more than 20 percent) between the two major regions, and the fact that the two regions follow different systems and therefore have very different policy preferences, further weakens the ability to take decisions. As a result, few or no decisions are taken. Belgium rarely introduces radical changes, and if it does, the government tries to do so as invisibly as possible. Real changes in Belgium only become visible when the system is viewed over periods of 20 years. These differences in welfare state model and decision-making culture mean that identical challenges and solution strategies have not led either country to seek inspiration from its neighbour in day-to-day policy implementation, except for small instruments and minor initiatives. A brief look at a number of core sectors and problems will make this clear.

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Health care costs

Both Belgium and the Netherlands are wrestling with sharp increases in spending on health care, and are fully aware that the ageing population will exacerbate this problem. In general, they adopt very different strategies to deal with this problem. For a long time the Netherlands succeeded in curbing the growth in spending, among other things by restricting the medical provisions covered under the state health insurance system. The result was long waiting lists, which were often dealt with by referring patients to Belgium. The new solution chosen in the Netherlands is privatisation of the health insurance system. The new system came into effect on 1 January 2006; plans are already being developed to make adjustments to it. Belgium has virtually no waiting lists and actually has an oversupply of hospitals and doctors; it is therefore able to attract patients from abroad. On the other hand, it is faced with the problem of care-providers moving to the Netherlands, where they are better paid and do not have to work such long hours. Belgium has no time for privatisation and is sticking to a publicly funded health insurance system. As a result, it wrestles with very large increases in expenditure, necessitating major spending cuts twice a year or even more often. In practice those spending cuts come down to a partial shifting of the costs onto patients (so that the difference compared with the Netherlands is in reality smaller than the theory would suggest). The so-called Maximum Medical Invoice limits the impact of this for those on the lowest incomes. Although Belgian politicians claim that supplementary private health insurance is unnecessary, more than half the population have taken out such insurance because of the continual increases in their own contributions to the publicly funded system.

Pensions

The Netherlands has a two-stage pension system. There is a limited basic pension - the same amount for everyone - which is paid by the government and to which every citizen is entitled by virtue of their citizenship. In addition, people

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 74 in the Netherlands build up a supplementary pension through company pension plans, enabling them to maintain their standard of living in retirement. The pension funds are capital-growth investment funds. Dutch government spending on the basic pension is set to rise sharply due to population ageing. Similarly, Dutch pension funds will have to distribute much more in the coming years than they did in the past. What effect this ‘dissaving’ will have on the economy is not yet clear. What is clear is that the returns achieved by pension funds have been eroded by the low interest rates and low stock market yields in the past decade. As a result, the benefits they are able to pay out are falling. In a bid to ameliorate the effects somewhat, the Netherlands launched the Zilverfonds (Silver Fund) in the 1990s, in order to build up a reserve to meet the higher government spending on pensions in the future. To feed this reserve, a statutorily fixed percentage of government revenues is saved into the fund. The Belgian pension system is also under heavy pressure. Here, the statutory pension is funded to only a small extent from general taxation; most of the funding comes from the compulsory social contributions paid by employers and employees, which are topped up by the government with subsidies to the pension system. That government subsidy will have to rise to prevent the contributions by employers and employees rising too steeply. The Belgian pension system is a redistributive system, which is not based on saving. Instead, today's active working population pay contributions which are used immediately to pay today's pensions. And today's working population hopes that tomorrow's working population will be willing to do the same. Such a system is less susceptible to fluctuations in interest rates and stockmarket yields. It is a system which sought to combine the objectives of the two stages in the Dutch system, aiming to provide at least a minimum level of benefit for everyone who had worked for at least part of their working-age lives, and at the same time to pay a higher level of benefit to those who had worked for longer and earned more, so that they were more or less able to maintain their standard of living. Since so few people work, and so many people live on benefits, the value of Belgian pensions - apart from those received by civil servants - has gradually been eroded. In fact they have sunk to very low levels by European standards. Consequently, the trend is for the statutory pension to become a low basic pension which is the same for everyone. The government has responded in three ways to these challenges. First, it has followed the example of the Netherlands by launching a Silver Fund. To date it has placed funds in this reserve only sporadically, mainly the proceeds from the sale of state-owned companies. The present government has however decided that the next government must begin systematically paying a part of its revenues into the Silver Fund each year, the amount to be fixed by law. Secondly, since the previous government term the ideological resistance to supplementary company pension schemes has been broken and Belgium has embarked on a system of supplementary capitalised pensions, set up on a voluntary basis by employers and employees in each sector or individual company. However, it will be twenty years before these funds have grown to sufficient size to generate serious supplementary benefits. And thirdly, the government is very quietly attempting to increase the general pension somewhat.

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 To complete the picture on pensions, one further important detail needs to

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 75 be mentioned. The low Belgian pensions are compensated for by the very high rate of home ownership in Belgium: 75 percent or more. This situation is the result of systematic fiscal incentives from the government to encourage home ownership. As a result, most Belgians possess a certain capital or are able to greatly limit their housing costs. The Dutch do not enjoy this benefit: they are more likely to live in rented accommodation and save predominantly via their pension funds.

Working longer

Hieronymus Bosch, The Prodigal Son. 1510. Panel, diameter 64.6 cm. Museum Boymans-van Beuningen, Rotterdam.

The ‘activation’ or ‘active integration’ of those who do not work or who have stopped working began earlier in the Netherlands than in Belgium. Virtually all early retirement schemes have been scrapped. A savings system was introduced which enables people to interrupt their careers, for example to bring up children - though in reality many employees tend to use this money to fund early retirement. Disability benefit (due to illness or reduced capacity for work) was the second exit route for older workers in the Netherlands. So many people were claiming this benefit that the level of benefits was very low, and it was therefore decided to increase these benefits for those who were ‘genuinely’ incapacitated for work. The pressure on the remainder to accept work was increased, following the Scandinavian model. Responsibility for those unfit for work was largely pushed onto the shoulders of employers, who now act more quickly. The nega-

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 76 tive side-effects are slowly becoming clear, and the possibility cannot be ruled out that the new Dutch government will modify this policy. Belgium has been seeking to peg back the rate of early retirement for a long time, largely without success. At the end of October 2005, following long negotiations and heated protests from the trade unions, the government finally passed a ‘Generation Pact’, a document comprising 66 smaller measures to encourage people to work for longer and above all to make the changes more digestible for both trade unions and employees. The conditions for entitlement to early retirement are being tightened up: people may only take early retirement as a result of company restructuring if intensive efforts have first been made to find other work for the older workers whose jobs are threatened. Pseudo-early retirement schemes (designed to circumvent the conditions for official early retirement schemes) are being made financially more unattractive for employers. Anyone who continues working beyond the age of 62 receives additional pension. In addition, a raft of measures has been introduced designed to make it easier for the trade unions to swallow the more stringent regulations. Pensions are being increased for those at the bottom of the scale and for older pensioners. Extra measures are being introduced to help young people find work. All employees over the age of 45 are entitled to career counselling. A prize is being introduced for the company which has taken the best initiative to retain older workers. The average age at which people stop working (57 years) has very gradually began to rise, though this may have more to do with the atmosphere that has been created than with the actual measures themselves.

Unemployment

When it comes to helping the unemployed back into work, both countries can draw inspiration from each other. Here again, however, there are differences. Belgium has an exceptionally large number of people in receipt of unemployment benefit. Benefits are paid for an unlimited period; there are unemployed people who have been receiving unemployment benefit for 40 years without interruption. Benefits are low. Unemployment insurance is also used to finance employment programmes, facilitating growth in the health care, welfare and environmental sectors. Unemployment benefits in the Netherlands are higher but short-lived, with recipients rapidly falling back onto social assistance benefit. The local authorities responsible for that social assistance are quick to begin their activation in line with the Scandinavian model. The Netherlands also has a more flexible labour market and labour market legislation, with many part-time jobs and a strong temporary employment sector. The activation of unemployed people along the lines of the Scandinavian model is only now beginning to get off the ground in Belgium. The unlimited duration of unemployment benefits remains, but unemployed people will henceforth be systematically monitored and voices are again being heard arguing that they must be prepared to accept work and training offered if they wish to keep their

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 unemployment benefit. The main resistance to these measures, from the trade unions and the French-language parties, appears to have been

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 77 broken. The latter resistance was based on different views of the labour market in the two federal states (more resistance to increased flexibility in Wallonia than in Flanders), but above all on the differing economic situation: the unemployment rate in Flanders is 7 percent, compared with around 20 percent in Wallonia and Brussels. All this is what makes decision-making so difficult in Belgium. Devolving unemployment benefit schemes to the federal states would make it easier to take decisions, but the French-speaking regions of Belgium fear that they would then receive less money and therefore resist the change. This topic will be explicitly on the table following the elections in June 2007; the Flemish parties say that they are not willing to form a government unless labour market policy is largely devolved to the federal states so that they can pursue their own policy.

Constructive jealousy

Belgium and the Netherlands, two neighbouring countries whose welfare systems face virtually identical challenges, are responding to those challenges in very different ways. That is largely due to the different structures present in the two systems. Yet they sometimes turn out to use comparable models and strategies to find solutions, though the differences in political culture between the two countries lead to wide differences in the way in which those models and strategies are translated into practice. Most recently, however, it has become increasingly common for the two neighbours to call attention to each other's successes in specific areas, in a bid to eliminate the resistance to change in their own country. We call that constructive jealousy. Translated by Julian Ross

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Anything I set my hand to falls to bits An Extract from J.M.H. Berckmans' The Investigation Begins

Fits of depression, manic spells, a failed marriage, 12 different jobs and 13 disasters, one attempt at suicide. The utter hopelessness of an existence on the fringes of society, with a few shreds of comfort from beer, tobacco, and a bit of warm food. Despair, paranoia, sadism, hope and relentless brutality. All this is to be found in the books, and the life, of J.M.H. Berckmans, the Flemish writer who declares: ‘The only way I have of staying alive is writing’.

Kind Emmy,

It's spring once again in the Grubbyzone and green mould is taking over Berckmans' Biotope. My doggie Charlowie is still alive, as too am I, though only sporadically and wimpishly so, only now and then and more lying down than walking, more slouched than sitting and I was supposed to come and see you on Thursday 30/03/00 between 8.00 and 9.00 but the increasing severity of claudicatio terminans in my left leg foiled the plan. My left leg doesn't look good at all and I might have to have it removed, which is no laughing matter but nothing really to cry about either. A chop can be neatly arranged. What I wanted to say, kind Emmy, is that I thought that the OCMW social services, well as far as my affairs are concerned, that they had made an arrangement with Belgacom concerning the monthly payment of the telephone bills that are still due. Why then, kind Emmy, did I receive a registered letter - see said letter included - from Belgacom? And another thing. Could you please, before it's too late or before it becomes impossible, ring me at a potty-trained time of the day and inform me of all the necessary concerning my life allowance (sic) for the month of April. I sorely need my life allowance for bread and bacon and coffee and for my little doggie Charlowie too, as the poor creature is more than fed up with fasting and has begun to protest very loudly and has even started biting my neighbours. David Geluk and Dinah Washington's calves. My father is not long dead and my mother has just passed away and I must face it all on my own and arrange everything myself, something I can hardly manage to do, if at all, kind Emmy.

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Anything I set my hand to falls to bits. Could you come and do the dishes for me or hoover my mats or make me a pallet on someone's floor; could you come and wash my sheets for me or would you happen to have a spare stove lying about because it's cold here; could you buy one of my paintings because I've still got a whole set of them left, would you please (urgently) transfer my life allowance to account number 789-5455045-74 at bollock-Bacob Bank who, as far as rent surety and other matters are concerned, have been seriously taking the mickey, but never you mind, kind Emmy, I'll be taking a firm hold of theirs, all in good time. And now on a more serious note, I'm in need of psychotherapeutic help, for I've fallen overboard and though I'm still floating around a little, sinking and being sunk are more than imminent and death by drowning doesn't seem like a pleasant prospect and besides who's going to pay for the funeral? And to continue briefly on that more serious note. Notwithstanding the above-mentioned drivel, which is literature and solely designed for the purposes of publication. I kindly ask you to get in touch and try to sort out the one thing and the other with me; that would be really nice because I can hardly put one foot in front of the other, and have to rely on help from family and friends and as my family is mad and my friends are few, my family is magenta and my friends are blue and as you can see I'm a poet and I don't know it, but still I implore you to come and help me support my lot, my accursed lot, my damned piddley pot of a lot, now that the spring is here once again in Grubbyzone and that the green mould is about to take over Berckman's Biotope yet again. P.S. I've come to the realisation that, according to my tenancy agreement. I should be paying the monthly sum of BEF 9,500 in rent to KBV/Van Nederkassel. And by mistake, I've been paying BEF 10,000 for a full thirteen months. Are they going to reimburse the difference or how or what or who's going to arrange that for me as I myself am so totally disarranged and don't know my arse from my elbow and haven't a clue which driftwood to make arrows with and besides there's no point in chopping firewood anyway as my stove is broken. Well OK I look a bit blue but I'm still alive and I have a couple of heavy overcoats and my uncle Henry gave me a woollen scarf as a New Year's present; I got a sailor's cap from my late father and I can put on three pairs of socks, one over the other, except I'll have to buy shoes a size bigger and I'd go ha-ha-ha but I don't find it at all funny; in fact it makes me very depressed, but after a bout of depression I always get manic and then I'll be all happy and then you won't have seen the

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end of me yet, even though they'll have put me inside and I won't be able to get out because I'm penniless. So please send my life allowance to account number seven eight nine five four five five ought four five seven four or give us a call to check or to double-check or to triple-check this, that and the other and maybe we'll discover together how to square the circle and if so then we'll never have to do a tap of work again in our lives just like Plato or that bloke Aristotle, or like some of those epicurean bollixes at the heart of the government with their gobs and pusses full of rubbish about an active welfare state, ah sure aren't they the decent fellows, sure don't we know, kind Emmy, me and you, sure aren't they the guys that get the dolls, Emmy, who know where the party's at, but all the girls are dead and those who aren't are either scarred or crippled and that's why I live alone and that's not easy. Hoping for a speedy reply, I send you my heart-felt greetings, you're not the worst, there certainly are worse. Arrividerci, till the left leg gets better again. My good friend Kernwinkel has disappeared off the face of the earth and Zachaar hardly ever shows; only Goedertier is doing relatively well, even though he too has lost his way in Kromsky's hell, a place in which I myself am trying to vegetate and exist and reside, while trying as much as possible to be unconcerned about the doings of messrs Schmit, Brackeva, Vernimmen and Courboin. They are no friends of mine but in you I've put my trust.

Kind regards, Jean-Marie

From The Investigation Begins (Het onderzoek begint). Amsterdam/Antwerp: Nijgh & Van Ditmar, 2002. pp. 11-14. Translated by Peter Flynn

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A Not So Splendid Isolation Poverty...but not as we know it [Filip Matthijs]

It is not easy for men to rise whose qualities are thwarted by poverty. (Juvenal, Satires)

The poet Emma Lazarus could be regarded as ‘the poor man's Emerson’ - albeit in a literal rather than a literary-historical sense (although she did actually follow in the wake of Emerson, who was even her poetic mentor for a time): ‘“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she / With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor, / Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, / The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. / Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, / I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”.’ The Statue of Liberty in New York was originally erected in honour of the principles of international republicanism, but these lines from Lazarus' sonnet ‘The New Colossus’ - immortalised in bronze within the pedestal of the statue - lent Miss Liberty the aura of a welcoming adoptive mother for immigrants sailing into New York. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth century thousands of outcast and penniless Flemish and Dutch left for the US, and for many of them the lady with the torch was their first sight of the Promised Land.

Today, ‘the lamp beside the golden door’ has lost much of its allure for those in the Netherlands or Flanders who perceive themselves as poor. What may still be possible for someone from Nigeria, Mexico or the Philippines, is no longer an option for Western Europeans: true happiness is no longer to be found in the land of the free and the home of the brave. There is no public social-security system to speak of, and emigrating to the US means being sucked into the local labour market and having to struggle through the application process for a coveted Green Card. Impoverished Flemings or Dutch will find no milk or honey there. If, on the other hand, you are a

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 smooth IT specialist, a skilled brain surgeon or a visionary nuclear physicist, there are many more opportunities open to you with even higher salaries.

Poverty as a career opportunity

In the welfare state as it exists in Belgium and the Netherlands, the poor are no longer underpaid factory workers or Godfearing smallholders who dream of brave new industries or vast open plains. They are people like the unemployed chicken packer Bert Meijer, introduced to us by journalist Rob Schoof

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 82 in ‘Penniless in Oude Pekela’ (‘Berooid in Oude Pekela’), an article that appeared in the glossy supplement of a Dutch newspaper at the end of 2005. Schoof himself describes the piece as a ‘report from the impoverished north, where some people drink hot water instead of coffee or tea’. Bert Meijer is poor. He is 44 years old, has two young children, and recently became a widower. For years Bert worked nights, putting broiler chicks in crates. The wage may not have been fantastic, but the children had a decent games console and new clothes when they needed them. Bert is now unemployed. He lost his job because, as a single father, he could no longer work nights - and he finds it extremely difficult when friends and acquaintances send him new shoes and coats for his son and daughter. The Belgians we meet in Bart Demyttenaere's In Free Fall. Poverty in Belgium (In vrije val. Armoede in België, 2006) are also poor. As a child, Linda was already

a Cinderella who suffered systematic sexual abuse, and escaped into alcohol and drugs. Sus is one of the new poor: the spacious villa, successful career and wealthy wife have been replaced by memories of a dark period of non-stop drinking and a stay in a centre for the homeless. Circumstances forced young Mehmed to become a Dickensian extra: ‘I started stealing when I was seven. I nicked food from a supermarket because I could see that my Mum couldn't look after us’. And then there is the chaotic past of Richard. Demyttenaere points out that Richard's dreadful experiences cannot be summarised in just a few lines, but that doesn't stop him trying. Richard's father died when he was young. He had a ruthless, harsh upbringing and was sexually abused by his stepfather and guardian. His catalogue of problems also includes drink, drugs, seven children from three relationships, an abortion, the death of a young son and serious financial problems. He has moved home countless times and experienced the iniquities of a dishonest slum landlord. As a result, Richard has become an expert on poverty, a fact that has not gone unnoticed. Richard's poverty has become his profession. He has been appointed as a ‘Life Experience Expert in combating poverty and social exclusion’ in an Antwerp community centre, where he acts as an intermediary between deprived people and welfare providers.

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The federal government in Belgium has been aware for some time that people like Richard can make a valuable contribution. In 2004 a project was launched with the aim of bridging the gap between deprived people and government authorities. To that end, sixteen Life Experience Experts (‘ervaringsdeskundigen’) were appointed in 2006. They all have first-hand experience of the misery of poverty, and now work with various organisations to help provide services and combat poverty.

Two hundred tins of salmon

Poverty also featured largely in party manifestoes during the latest Dutch elections in November 2006. The manifesto of the orthodox-left Socialist Party (SP) tells us that, after a long period during which social division has only worsened, the income gap must now be reduced. The Christian-socialist Christian Union (CU) describes poverty and social exclusion as ‘unacceptable’, and the social democrats of the PvdA believe that work must be rewarded and the poverty trap eliminated. Inevitably, the powers that be came up with a Good News story. ‘We are always being told that the poor are becoming poorer. But in fact that is not the case’, Prime Minister Balkenende proudly announced. He even did the sums for us: in the period up to 2005 the number of households below the poverty line increased by 11.1 percent. Reason: the unfavourable economic climate. The figure fell to 9.7 percent in 2006 and will decrease further to 8.8 percent during 2007. Reason: Balkenende's policy (not, of course, the swings in the economic cycle). His Minister of Social Affairs and fellow CDA member, Aart Jan de Geus, backed him up with the cheering comment that ‘after years of hard work, all the indicators in the Netherlands are now positive’. The Balkenende government has long been criticised for its ‘anti-social’ policies, and De Geus thought it was time to point out that in 2007 poverty will be at its lowest level since the introduction of the Poverty Monitor (‘Armoede Monitor’) in 1990.

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In 1997 the Social & Cultural Planning Office (SCP) and Statistics Netherlands (CBS) jointly launched the Poverty Monitor and the Poverty Report, which present an annual overview of the scale, causes and consequences of poverty in the Netherlands. This information enables the government to keep its finger on the pulse and show that it recognises the problem of poverty. Flanders has a National Action Plan for Poverty Reduction 2005-2009, approved by the government of Flanders. The plan, which was drawn up with the participation of the target groups, sets out short-term and long-term policy measures, and evaluates policy followed to date. Problem areas such as housing, employment, healthcare and the administration of justice are discussed in detail. So there is indeed something rotten in the states of Belgium and the Netherlands - and the politicians do not want to be left behind. In June 2006 a sit-in protest was held in Ghent under the title Poor Flanders (Arm Vlaanderen) - ‘30 minutes of perplexity and silence to raise awareness of extreme poverty in Flanders’. Many politicians sided with the initiative. Official concern had to be shown - although this can sometimes go wrong, for example when the Dutch Minister of Finance, Gerrit Zalm, an economic liberal of the VVD (Liberal Party), talked flippantly about poverty, commenting that the label ‘poor’ is too readily applied in the Netherlands. This caused quite a controversy. Clara Sies, founder of the Food Bank (‘Voedselbank’), pointed out to him that seven thousand households every week receive their portions of apple sauce, green peas etcetera from the Food Bank, and that people are not entitled to assistance unless two adults in a household can show that they have no more than 200 euros per month to spend on food. As a playful protest against Zalm's statements, a socialist MP promptly donated 200 tins of salmon (‘zalm’ meaning ‘salmon’ in Dutch) to the food bank in Haarlem. Martinus ‘Tiny’ Muskens, the Bishop of Breda who caused a stir in the past by stating that people who are poor and hungry are entitled to steal bread, responded by commenting: ‘It is nonsense to make comparisons with one's own youth or with Africa. Above all else, poverty means social exclusion. People become isolated, and we should be concerned about that. You are poor now, so any reference to another timeframe or area is pointless. We believe that people have a right to relaxation and enjoyment, so television is not a luxury that the poor should have to do without.’

People with little money want to have fun too

Money is money, whether it is ducats or twenty-first-century euro notes. In his history of money, Ducats, Thalers and Dosh (Dukaten, daalders en duiten, 2006), Ton Kappelhof points out that even black money existed back in the Middle Ages. But poverty isn't what it used to be. In Poverty in the Netherlands, 1815-1990 (Armoede in Nederland 1815-1990, 1992), L.F. van Loo argues that poverty is relative to time, place and criteria. He describes poverty before the nineteenth century in the Netherlands as ‘absolute’. Over the course of the twentieth century this evolved into ‘relative deprivation’ and, particularly in the period after 1945, the emphasis shifted to the social consequences of this type of poverty, such as limited prospects and social isolation. In other words, the material consequences of poverty are less serious

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 in highly industrialised welfare states such as Belgium and the Netherlands than in, say, West Africa or South-East Asia.

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Rembrandt Harmensz, van Rijn, Beggars at the Door, 1648. Etching, engraving and drypoint, 16.6 × 12.9 cm. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.

Consequently, hard-hearted individuals could conclude that ‘our’ poor are not doing too badly. Let's look at the photograph of Bert Meijer in the article ‘Penniless in Oude Pekela’. There is a cat sitting next to him (It costs money to feed that beast). On the table in front of him we see a packet of tobacco and a lighter (He smokes... that's an expensive habit!), a Gameboy (But his friends had to buy coats for the children!), and a remote control (Television? Well, things can't be that bad after all). The chairman of the Pekela branch of the Arme Kant van Nederland (the ‘Poor Side of the Netherlands’, a church organisation that campaigns against impoverishment and enrichment, advises the poor and provides free goods) takes a more lenient view: ‘People who have very little money are entitled to some enjoyment too’. Moreover, people sometimes choose to incur debts as a form of social participation: ‘They buy a DVD player, or Nike shoes for the children, to give the impression that they have enough money’. Let's be honest, why should the poor be expected to look like pitiful beggars from an etching by

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Rembrandt? Our poverty is poverty too, but not as we know it from the pictures of starving babies in Ethiopia or deformed beggars in Bangladesh. Being poor in the Netherlands or Belgium does not mean that you are dying of hunger, but it does prevent you from participating fully in society. That is why, for example, the Arme Kant van Nederland publishes a guide to affordable holidays. As they point out in the guide, ‘Are holidays a luxury? Everything is relative, but in our society, holidays are a necessity for people in all social groups.’ The same goes for leisure and entertainment. In Flanders, the central theme of the World Day for Overcoming Extreme Poverty on 17 October 2006 was the right to culture and leisure time. In this context, reference was made to Article 27 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (‘Everyone has the right freely to participate in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts’) and to Article 23.5 of the Belgian Constitution (‘the right to enjoy cultural and social fulfilment’). On that occasion the Flemish Minister of Culture, Bert Anciaux, also announced his intention to make the wide-ranging - but more expensive - commercial cultural offerings gradually more accessible to those who are now often excluded from them. Obviously, there is more to poverty than expensive cinema tickets. In Belgium, the gap between rich and poor pensioners is widening, and is even affecting the basic needs of the latter group. In the fifteenth edition of the Poverty and Social Exclusion yearbook, the researchers rightly point to a number of basic problems in Flanders. There is a serious shortage of social housing, housing benefit is unequally distributed, and child poverty has increased sharply. In addition, today more so than ever before, ethnic background is a risk factor for poverty and social exclusion. In Flanders, which has a total population of 6 million, no less than 300,000 people delay seeking medical care because they cannot afford it. Another much-discussed problem - mainly in the Netherlands - is the poverty or unemployment trap, an effect that often occurs when someone on social security benefit takes a paid job. It occurs because people with a very low income or benefit are often entitled to allowances and other income-dependent provisions. If they take a job, the consequent improvement in income is partly or entirely cancelled out by loss of entitlement to income-related benefits. The University of Amsterdam (UvA) is currently researching the phenomenon of the ‘working poor’. These are not yet as numerous in the Netherlands as they are in the US, but there too their numbers are increasing. These people are in work, but still live in poverty because they often have barely enough money to buy food and pay the bills. According to the Poverty Monitor, more than one-third of Dutch women in single-parent households are below the low-income threshold. And in the Netherlands the income of small farmers fell by an average of 30% in 2004 alone. Consequently, almost 50% of farming families live on incomes below subsistence level.

Money is belter than poverty

At the end of 2006, on Flemish public radio, listeners continually heard an announcement, which gloomily informed them that 14 out of every 100 Belgians are

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 poor. In the same period, the two-part documentary The Circle of Poverty (De cirkel van armoede) was shown on Dutch television. The Rijksmuseum and the newspaper NRC Handelsblad organised the joint photographic exhibition Bare

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(Schraal), which opened on 9 December 2006. Photographer Geert van Kesteren sought out the hidden poverty in urban neighbourhoods and in the countryside. He photographed food banks, teenage mothers, mothers on social security, and people disadvantaged in the labour market. In many cases, their poverty is evident only from the text accompanying the photographs. In 2006, the Netherlands ranked first overall in the list of countries whose aid does most to combat world poverty, but all is certainly not well at home.

Photo by Geert van Kesteren, from the Bare (Schraal) exhibition in Amsterdam. 2006-2007.

If poverty can no longer remain hidden in our hyper-mediatised world, then the same goes for wealth. And there's the rub. Frank Beke, former mayor of the city of Ghent in Flanders, rightly argues in a Flemish newspaper that poverty should be measured by the wealth of others: ‘Many people today can afford virtually anything, while others are really struggling.’ In this light, the glad tidings brought to us by government ministers about falling poverty statistics are futile, to say the least. To put it another way, it is not a question of how many people live below the poverty line, but how far below it they exist, as NRC Handelsblad editor Dick van Eijk remarked in his speech at the opening of Bare. In a society that likes to present itself as a well-run business, every impoverished person is one too many. The ‘how far’ question inevitably brings us back to money. The Dutch sociologist Herman Vuijsje was clearly right when he argued in a Dutch newspaper that poverty is not necessarily about the lack of money. He wrote that ‘poor’ can atso mean ‘poorly organised’, and criticises the difficulty of accessing welfare and social services. The fact that there are poor people in the Netherlands is not due to a lack of money, but to that fact ‘we have made the path to the welfare coffers into a maze’. This appears to correspond perfectly with the prevailing impression that the Dutch system is becoming ‘harder’ in its approach. On the other hand, as Nibud - the National Institute for Budgetary Research - correctly points out on its website, there is also the phenomenon of ‘non-take-up’: people who do not claim benefits to which they are entitled. People, for instance, who fail to take advantage of housing benefit, local taxation relief and supplementary benefit. The reasons behind this non-take-up are shame at being dependent on state handouts and/or ignorance of what is available; but the complexity of the benefit system itself also plays a part. According to Nibud,

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Vagrant in Amsterdam. this complexity and fragmentation could be countered by much more intensive provision of information; and then the Netherlands would appear a great deal less hard. Nevertheless, politicians in Belgium as well as the Netherlands are often quite keen to promote the concept of the self-sufficient citizen, whereby people are largely responsible for their own welfare. Yes, there is a safety net, but they should not make it into a comfortable hammock. However, those politicians tend to forget that the poor are increasingly pushed to the margins of our society, with its 24-hour economy. It is alarming how quickly financial poverty leads to poverty of opportunity. Anyone who lacks knowledge and self-confidence will be crushed by bureaucracy. This is the real vicious circle: poverty of income perpetuates poverty of opportunity, and vice versa. So it always comes down to money. How can someone who is poor, struggling with heavy debts and unable to make ends meet, possibly avoid thinking about money? There is only one thing worse than having to think about money, and that is thinking about money that you do not have, and probably never will have. Financial need leads to social isolation, which does not bring any financial rewards either. In order to break that circle, it is better to have money. Or, in the words of Woody Allen: ‘Money is better than poverty, if only for financial reasons.’ www.armoedemonitor.nl www.armoede.be Translated by Yvette Mead

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It's only a live-minute walk from poverty to wealth An Extract from Frans Pointl's The Rich Have Awkward Sizes

A critic once wrote that Frans Pointl's short stories air populated with people like himself: ‘they hover between the social and the antisocial’. The Amsterdam Soup Kitchen, grimy coffee tables, his ‘dingy, dead-end street’, the comforting companionship of ‘ex-stray cats’. Pointl's Jewish mother and a peculiar uncle who is subject to severe depressions ‘in which he is supported by King Alcohol’: that is the setting for the stories in his collection ‘The Rich Have Awkward Sizes’ (Rijke mensen hebben moeilijke maten).

The only pupils still stuck in the second class at secondary school at the age of sixteen were Hugo and me. Hugo was tall and slightly-built. I was jealous of his straight nose and his almond eyes that gave him an Oriental look. Whenever he couldn't grasp something properly - which was quite often - he ruined that elegant appearance with a sheepish expression. He had told me that his mother had been seriously ill for a year and a half. His father was a businessman, which meant nothing to me. They had a housekeeper, and one of her jobs was to nurse the patient. They lived in the impressive ‘skyscraper’ in Deltastraat, five minutes' walk from our back room three floors up in Stalinstraat. Hugo had everything I dreamed of: an electric train set, a steam engine, a gramophone, a radio, a box of Meccano, a bike, a watch and a room of his own. One Tuesday afternoon he asked if I felt like coming over to see his things the following Wednesday afternoon. I could go with him straight from school and have sandwiches at his place. My mother made a fuss as usual. ‘What kind of people are they?’ ‘How am I supposed to know if I've never seen them? Why don't you go over and check them out first?’ With the trace of a smile she shook her head. ‘You cheeky little sod.’

We whizzed up to the seventh floor in the lift. There was so much glass! There was a huge room - ours could have fitted into it ten limes over - full of modern steel furniture. On the walls there were large, multi-coloured paintings into which you could read anything you liked. Or were they just practice pieces painters had done?

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I stood at one of the big windows as if enchanted. ‘What a view! Look, four different colours of tiles. You're higher than the trees!’ Hugo observed me with a look of boredom. ‘I know the view,’ he whined. I was in awe of his father. His manner was severe and he spoke in clipped tones, like someone used to giving orders. The housekeeper, a lady about the same age as my mother, with grey hair, sounded just as if she were a speaking doll. She spoke really posh as if playing a part in a play. It was an effort not to laugh in her face. Hugo told me she came from a very good family. ‘We come from a very good family too but we don't talk weird.’ I said. There was lots to eat. The housekeeper asked me why I didn't take a slice of ham. ‘I'm not allowed to eat that, ma'am.’ ‘Well, well.’ She looked insulted. ‘Is that what the doctor says?’

The sick mother proffered a dry, bony hand. She had shiny chestnut-coloured hair that fanned out over the light-blue pillow. Her intense blue eyes were beautiful. She was thin as a rake. On one of her cheekbones there was a distasteful brown scab. Her nose, which was red, stuck up like a beak. She lay in an oversized cradle. ‘What a funny bed.’ ‘That's a four poster,’ said Hugo. She asked me if I was doing my best at school. What did I want to be when I grew up? I replied ‘yes’ to the first question, and ‘rich’ to the second. She breathed rapidly and laboriously. I found the sweet sickly smell that surrounded me alarmed me; it was almost as oppressive as the patient.

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‘I'm an optimist to my last breath!’ she cried, and started laughing oddly. Then she raised a hand and waved us out of the room.

While Hugo kept the steam engine running, he asked me if I really understood how Magdeburg hemispheres worked. That morning we had had physics, a subject that fascinated me. It was a mystery to him that ten horses could not pull apart the two halves of the sphere with a vacuum inside. I told him about the power and force of the vacuum. In my enthusiasm I even started drawing it for him. ‘What's the point of all that nonsense? What good will it be to me later when I'm a businessman.’ He gave me a dissatisfied look. I realised that he was not driven to learn like me. For a moment I envied him. Half of his enormous room was taken up with rails, stations, barriers, piles of rock and tunnels. Only now did I realise how childish my wish to have a wind-up train was (my mother couldn't even afford one of those). I came back down to earth with a jolt when the trains stopped and the room fell silent. He looked at me darkly. ‘I'm alone a lot, it's no fun. My father is usually away.’ I nodded. ‘Your mother's healthy.’ I detected a hint of jealousy in the tone. ‘My mother's sixty.’ He said his was only thirty-seven. With great conviction he maintained that mine would die first. ‘What make of car does you father drive?’ He looked at me in alarm. ‘A Standard Vanguard.’ I asked him what model. Shrugging his shoulders and looking sheepish he replied that he didn't know. ‘If there's a car in the family you ought to know these things.’ He started the trains up again. When I looked at his watch I had a shock: it had turned five o'clock in no time. ‘I've got to home right away or my mother will get worried.’ He asked if I wanted to ring her, it was fine if I stayed for supper at six. ‘We haven't got a telephone. We're a respectable family but have no money.’ ‘So you're not staying for supper’ For a moment I thought he was going to burst into tears.

Back home I had to give a full report. It was always a nice opportunity to give my fantasy free rein. Hugo's father was the director of Woolworth's, they employed two housekeepers and a nurse. My mother was very unimpressed by this. ‘So you had a good nosh there, and on the Fast of Gedaliah too.’ ‘It's only a five-minute walk from poverty to wealth,’ I concluded my account. ‘God, if I had wonderful things like that I'd be singing all day long.’

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Mr Flentrop decided to move all the pupils around. I wondered why. For months I had had the desk all to myself. Now Hugo came and sat next to me. He was ridiculously pleased about it. All the time he sat next to me he got good marks. One odd coincidence was that we were only one day apart in age. He had been born on the second. I on the first of August 1933. In dress, however, there was a big contrast; me with my odds and ends gathered together from the clothing warehouse for the needy, he dressed to kill. I thought his gold monogrammed signet ring was the last word in wealth. I asked him how much pocket money he got. ‘I get six guilders every Sunday.’ ‘I only get one.’ I begrudged him all that money. I pressured him to give me a guilder a week ‘copying money’. For a moment he gave me a hurt look, then he nodded subserviently in agreement.

Mr Flentrop realised that Hugo was copying from me. From then on he had to sit alone. Oddly enough I continued to get my weekly guilder. I realised I no longer had any right to it. As he handed over the silver piece he glanced sadly at me. For a brief moment the look haunted me, but then I said to myself aloud, ‘There's no need to feel pity for rich people.’ His next report was dismal. ‘My father says I'll never make a businessman with a report like that.’ I suggested that he might as well become a furniture maker.

From The Rich Have Awkward Sizes (Rijke mensen hebben moeilijke maten) Amsterdam: Nijgh & Van Ditmar, 1993. pp. 22-26 Translated by Paul Vincent

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The Dislocated and Disconcerting World of Aernout Mik [Saskia Bak]

In 2005 an exhibition entitled Slow Art was held at the Kunst Palast Museum in the German city of Düsseldorf. The aim of the exhibition's organiser, Mattijs Visser, was to capture the mentality and background of the Slow Food movement. The exhibition was a plea for attentiveness in looking at and experiencing art. On display were works by modern Belgian and Dutch artists, in the tradition of the classical genres: portraits, still-lifes and landscapes (the permanent collection of the Kunst Palast Museum contains a tot of art from the Low Countries). By analogy with the Slow Food movement, the creation of all the works of art had required a great deal of time and attention; and so it followed that they in turn required time on the part of the viewer for their effect, content or impact to be properly appreciated. One of the most fascinating works in the exhibition was the video-installation Kitchen, by the Dutch artist Aernout Mik (1962-). The work, which dates from 1997, has since become a classic in Mik's oeuvre. It is shown with great regularity and always manages to attract and hold the attention of the viewer, even when said viewer has seen the video several times already.

Aernout Mik, Kitchen. Video installation, 1997. Still courtesy of earlier/gebauer. Berlin.

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An intriguing scuffle

The video is a loop with no clear beginning or end. In a neutral, meticulously tidy and gleaming kitchen five elderly men are having a fight. They are hitting and thumping each other, grabbing hold of each other and tugging at each other's clothes. Sometimes it's just two of them, sometimes more. Sometimes a man disappears from view without it being clear whether he is the winner or the loser. And now and then one pops up again and throws himself energetically into the fight. There are no sides, but definite alliances are forged; time and again two men will have a go at one of the others, often the weakest. The video is presented low down. Mik doesn't hang his projection screens high up in the exhibition space, or on the wall, but places them on the ground. Unless violence holds some fascination for you, recordings of fights are usually not particularly pleasant to watch. As a viewer you would rather not look. That is not the case with Aernout Mik's ‘old men fighting’. Quite the reverse - the images exert a lasting hold on you. You hope to find a reason for the fight and a structure: who is fighting whom, and why? The battle appears to be

Aernout Mik, Territory. Video installation. 1999. Still courtesy of earlier/gebauer, Berlin.

Aernout Mik, Lick. Video installation, 1999. Still courtesy of earlier/gebauer. Berlin. friendly: they are not lashing out at each other with any real force, and the men seem to be enjoying it. The impression of a mock battle is strengthened by the absence of sound. There are no slaps to be heard when blows hit home, and no groaning. But occasionally the image of a mock fight is disturbed and there enters an old man who takes the playful battle for bitter earnest and hits out hard or does something really nasty. This reinforces the image of a teenage brawl, with youths testing their strength

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 and their place in the group. But why are the men fighting? Their youth is long since past.

Absence of contact

Kitchen is from roughly the same period as Territory (1999). A group of swing-dancing people is projected on two video screens placed on the ground. They are dancing in white foam that is more or less hip deep. In certain respects each of these works is reminiscent of the other, namely in the use of colour and the

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 96 rhythm. The background of both videos is fairly neutral and the colour of the clothing of the figures is beautifully balanced: white, grey and blue with an occasional touch of brown. The fighters have a marvellous rhythm in their movements and it sometimes seems as if they are dancing. But whereas the old men relate to each other in their trial of strength, that is not the case with the dancers. They have no contact with each other or with their environment. They are completely turned in on themselves. A similar absence of any contact is characteristic of the video Lick (1996) that was exhibited at the Venice Biennale in 1997. This shows two girls sitting on a floor. At fairly regular intervals a blue liquid comes out of a hole in each girl's chest and they regularly levitate slightly. Opposite them is a man kneeling on a tray that slowly moves up and down. Both the man and the girls are looking straight ahead without the slightest trace of emotion. They seem completely absorbed in themselves. The imperturbability or apathy of the people makes the video somewhat disturbing. The figures have landed in a crazy situation, but none of them is doing anything to get out of it. Or are they not aware of the situation?

Dislocation

In other work Mik suggests a disaster, as in Float from 1998, in which two people lie on moving ground and are thrown up and down. There is absolutely no contact between these people either. They undergo the literally shocking experience stoically. The behaviour of people in exceptional circumstances is one of the main themes in the work of Aernout Mik. He puts this behaviour on the agenda by creating situations which are at the lowest level unusual (Kitchen and Territory), but sometimes also strange and disturbing (Lick), or which suggest an outright disaster (Float). He does this in such a way that it is not, and does not become, entirely clear what is actually going on. The above videos are quite easy to describe, but in a number of his works all kinds of things are going on at once, as in the more recent Refraction, from 2004, which has been exhibited in a number of places in America1.. Refraction shows a motorway disaster. A wrecked and overturned bus has caused havoc and rescue workers, firemen and ambulance personnel are hard at work. A massive tailback has formed behind the bus accident and the other carriageway is closed.

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 Aernout Mik, Float. Video installation, 1998. Still courtesy of earlier/gebauer. Berlin.

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Aernout Mik, Refraction. Video installation, 2004. Still courtesy of earlier/gebauer, Berlin.

So far it is an image that we know, alas, all too well from news bulletins and photos in the papers. In this video, however, elements are missing that are always present in a disaster, namely blood and people in tears. The rescue workers move around mechanically and unperturbed and there is no question of strong reactions or emotions. This forces the viewer into the position of someone watching the news. How often do we watch images of frightful events that come to us via the media detached and devoid of feeling? The image in the video is further skewed by a flock of sheep purposefully crossing the road, straight through the disaster area. With this Aernout Mik once more dislocates the image with which we are so familiar. Mik himself says of his manner of working: ‘I like to begin with images that everyone thinks they are familiar with. But as the viewer spends more time looking at them, the situations disintegrate before his eyes into tiny, strange events that make the whole ever more complex’.2. The way they are presented is crucial to the disconcerting impact of Mik's videos. He doesn't hang his screens on walls or ceilings in the usual way, but creates its own environment for each work. So he places the video screens on the ground and builds low walls round projections. For a large exhibition that he held in 2000 in temporary accommodation in the Van Abbe Museum in Eindhoven, he transformed the space into a labyrinth. The effect of this architectural intervention is that to a considerable extent the viewer remains aware of the space and is not totally absorbed by the image, as can happen with an ordinary film or video-presentation. And this awareness you as viewer have of your own position in the space makes the videos' blurring of reality and unreality, of human behaviour and human actions, all the more meaningful. Translated by Chris Emery

Eindnoten:

1. Refraction was conceived in the context of the Three M Project in which three important American modern art museums give artists who are not so well known in America the opportunity

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 to create new work. The museums concerned are the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, the New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York and the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles. 2. Hans Den Hartog Jager, ‘Het gevaar komt van alle kanten’ (in: NRC Handelsblad, 8 February 2002).

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Identity between Diversity and Uncertainty History in Contemporary Society [Kees Ribbens]

Is it possible nowadays to think of any field whose historical dimension has not been insistently brought to our attention in recent years? Is it possible to think of any subject whose history or heritage is not being presented today as ‘interesting’, ‘compelling’ or ‘neglected’? Indeed, it's no exaggeration to say that history nowadays is coming at us from all sides. A great interest in history - or at least a considerable number of historical activities and representations - can be observed in recent years in the Netherlands and Flanders. This strongly suggests a powerful attempt to refocus on the past. In March 2004, for example, the Flemish newspaper Het Nieuwsblad came out with the headline ‘History is hipper than ever’, implicitly labelling the interest in the past a historical phenomenon - because it's subject to change. A great variety of examples can be given of this recent revival. One of them is History Night, an event first organised in 2003, giving the Flemish the opportunity to enjoy a spring evening of tours, lectures, exhibitions, film showings and meals and so expanding their knowledge of history. The Netherlands has its History

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Week, that was first held in the autumn of 2004. This is also an annual phenomenon with an extensive programme. The Week is organised by the budding institution known as Anno, an initiative of the Actueel Verleden (Present History) foundation (created by organisations cooperating to increase Dutch interest in history) in an attempt to depict the past as widely attractive and relevant. On television, too, history is being regarded more and more as a subject that can attract viewers. Since March 2000 the public broadcasting networks VPRO and NPS in the Netherlands have been showing the programme Andere Tijden (Other Times). Like the programme Villa Historica, launched in the summer of 2006, Andere Tijden presents mainly twentieth-century Dutch history. Furthermore, The Netherlands has been broadcasting an annual Grote Geschiedenisquiz (Big History Quiz) since 2002, while Flanders has so far seen two seasons of the Grote Geschiedenisshow (Big History Show), a game show produced by the public broadcasting company that features a very wide range of historical periods. A similar attempt to appeal to the contemporary citizen was discernible during the Netherlands' Book Week, another annual event that in 2005 was devoted (not coincidentally) to books about the country's history. At the same time more and more emphasis was being placed on specific representations and overviews of the past: a successful political appeal was made to establish a National Historical Museum, independent of Amsterdam's Rijksmuseum for art and history. In addition, two genuine historical canons (one of national and one of international history) have appeared in the leading daily NRC Handelsblad, providing a compact overview of the knowledge regarded as essential by the compilers.

A winner who wasn't a winner and two winners

But perhaps what attracted most attention was a series of television programmes broadcast by the KRO (Catholic Broadcasting Corporation). Following an announcement in the spring of 2004, with the support of the print media De Telegraaf and the Historisch Nieuwsblad, a contest was held that autumn to elect ‘The Greatest Dutchman of all Time’. From a list of more than 200 candidates a selection was made of the ten most eligible ones, who then entered the championship (most of them posthumously) which consisted of a series of ten programmes in the autumn of 2004. The contest reached its zenith in a live broadcast on 15 November 2004. In the end, most of the votes cast by TV viewers, by telephone and text messaging, went to William of Orange, the Father of the Nation. But because of technical problems, not all the incoming votes could be counted and processed in time. At the end of the broadcast, therefore, it seemed as if most of the votes had been cast for Pim Fortuyn, the populist politician whose rapid and tumultuous emergence had ended with his murder in May 2002. So the title ‘The Greatest Dutchman of all Time’ was awarded to him, with notarial approval. Shortly after the broadcast it became clear that the awarding of the title to this very recent public figure had been a mistake, but the KRO decided to stick to the announced outcome. Although the supporters of Fortuyn's political ideology were charmed by this decision, it was heavily criticised elsewhere. Contemporary reassessment of both the recent and the distant past is apparently a

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 controversial matter, especially when modern participatory methods are used to express it.

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The shooting of William of Orange by Balthasar Gerard in Delft, 1584 (plate from an old Dutch schoolbook).

How extraordinary is the revival in historical interest in the past couple of years? In order to answer that question, it's worth taking a closer look at the television programme that attracted so much attention. ‘The Greatest Dutchman of all Time’ was not an isolated Dutch phenomenon. The series was based on a British concept. Back in 2002, the BBC produced the very successful programme Great Britons, a format that turned out to be highly suitable for export: a year later it was adopted by the German ZDF under the name Unsere Besten. The initiative was also copied elsewhere, in France and other countries. In 2005 Belgium came out with its version. There the choice of the greatest Belgian had both a ‘Flemish’ and a French-speaking variant, organised separately by the Dutch-speaking and the French-speaking public networks. To a great extent this involved two quite different sets of nominees, and as a result Father Damien was voted the greatest Belgian for the Flemings while Jacques Brel turned out to be the greatest for the French-speaking Walloons.1. Interest in history is obviously alive in several Western countries in which mass media like television play an important role. It's an indication that the way individuals and groups relate to history today, the way they assign a place and impart significance to the past - the core aspect of ‘historical culture’ - adjusts itself to contemporary forms (of representation and transmission) and preferences. Historical information is not found exclusively in books and archives. While these may be the most reliable gateways to the past in the eyes of many professional historians, they are by no means the only building-blocks for constructing an image of history. In contemporary Western society information about the past is interpreted in very diverse ways, and the Netherlands and Flanders are no exception in this regard. People get in touch with history by reading newspapers, magazines, novels and comic strips, by watching historical documentaries and films, by playing historical computer games, by visiting museums, theme parks, historic buildings and old city centres, by taking holidays in places of cultural or historical interest, by telling and listening to personal stories, by attending commemorative ceremonies, by collecting old objects and in a dozen other ways. ‘Historical’ in this context is a broad notion; the use of the term does not imply that all the representations of the past which people may encounter always do full

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 justice to the way past events actually happened (or to our current knowledge of those events). Contemporary expectations and a highly inventive imagination not uncommonly play a part in the production of ‘historical’ repre-

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sentations. But regardless of the level of ‘purity’, these encounters with historically inspired portrayals influence the contemporary picture of the past as well as people's knowledge and beliefs concerning the past. It should also be noted that the degree of involvement in the various activities relating to historical culture varies from person to person, while there is no fixed standard of how much knowledge is being transmitted and absorbed. In fact, this wide variation is characteristic of the kind of popular historical culture that has developed since the second half of the twentieth century.

The Father Damien statue, also called the Blessed Damien of Molokaï statue, in front of the Hawaï State Capitol. A second statue is displayed in the United States Capitol (Washington, DC).

Dissatisfaction

This development is not entirely new. Even before the Second World War there were many official commemorations (such as for the first century of the newly established kingdoms of the Netherlands, 1813-1913, and Belgium, 1830-1930). These events were celebrated not only by historical studies and public ceremonies, but also by the issue of commemorative stamps, festive songs and performances, picture postcards,

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 biscuit tins and otherforms of historicising merchandising. What is new in the early twenty-first century is the attempt to more actively involve broad sections of the population in historical events such as the televisual election of the greatest compatriot of all time. Of course, in previous decades too the organisers of such events would address and attract large groups of people, relying on a docility that was taken for granted, and aided by the available media of those days. The motivation for those events was a combination of nationalistically inspired solidarity and ideals of cultural edification. Today, even more strenuous efforts are made to take the distinct voice of the people seriously. This was clearly expressed in the attempt to make a canonical ranking of historical persons via the television. The result was a great deal of dissatisfaction among historians and other professionals whose job it is to be custodians of the past and among those who do not share Pim Fortuyn's controversial political ideals. This dissatisfaction is not solely due to the political position of the official title-holder. It also has to do with a certain inconvenience about the direction that historical culture has taken in recent decades. There is a growing awareness that there is more to history and the practice of history than just the work of academic historians and the forms of historical knowledge authorised by the

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 102 government and the education system; and this means that popular culture, also in this area, has gained in influence. There are many manifestations of this in the historical-cultural realm, a few of which have just been mentioned. Because their form and content rarely conform to the more traditional way of relating to history that has been fostered by historians, museum curators, education experts, officials and others who see themselves as the defenders of high culture, it all takes some getting used to, to say the least. As far as content is concerned, the varieties of popular historical culture have a number of characteristics that differ from the more official, authorised way of relating to the past. They tend to put a great deal of emphasis on more recent history, there is a clear preference for visualising the past, and it seems that those historical subjects that are regarded as small-scale or easily accessible

Pim Fortuyn (1948-2002) Rotterdam. are the ones that are most appealing. These phenomena can also be seen to a certain extent in the election of Fortuyn: he was a contemporary politician whose personal charm reached many of his admirers by way of television. As a dandyish intellectual his message may not have been entirely accessible, but because he presented himself as an alternative to the gap between the citizen and ‘old’ politics he was nevertheless regarded as the approachable guy who did not betong to the establishment. The lists of candidates for the election of the ‘Greatest Dutchman’ and the ‘Greatest Belgian’ included a relatively large number of persons from recent decades and not least from areas such as sport and other forms of entertainment, in the hope of appealing to younger viewers. This, too, reflects the idea that history that appeals is often recent history that does not limit itself to the main lines of politics, economics and the arts.

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Diffuse picture

The choices being made today in the realm of historical culture reveal preferences that do not always coincide with what was formerly regarded as the kind of serious and respectable history deserving everyone's attention. The increasing amounts of leisure time in which people are coming into contact with history (consciously or not) and the increasing accessibility of sources and sites of historical information (physical and virtual) have contributed to a growing freedom of choice, and people are taking full advantage of it. And this certainly isn't making the image of the past any less ambiguous. The growing diversity in the way we relate to the past has not always led to a greater sense of connection with the past, or to a deeper sense of continuity between present, past and future. In that respect the picture is diffuse. On the one hand there are signs of a gap between present and past, or at least of a widespread view that the present is pretty well disconnected from the past. This view derives from the idea of progress that became rather entrenched in the sixties and seventies: that our past is distant and foreign to us - despite the apparent accessibility with which the media prefer to serve it up to us - rather than close and familiar. From that perspective, history's appeal mainly has to do with the variety of experiences and forms in which ‘old’ is not infrequently understood as ‘outdated’. On the other hand there is considerable evidence that history plays a vital role for individuals and groups in contemporary society, where history still contributes to shaping and cementing identity. But the relationship between history and identity is not by definition similar to the way in which this relationship was interpreted roughly fifty years ago. Whereas in the past the nation-state - in the case of Belgium, in a complex combination with the Flemish community - and the social pillars woven into it were generally essential to the frame within which historical knowledge was passed on and, above all, given meaning (in the sense of a past with which the ‘recipient’ could identify as a partner), this context has now become less unambiguous. Of course there are still citizens who, when asked about their identity, describe themselves as Dutch or Belgian (or Flemish), but this is not always the identity with which they feel the strongest kinship. Likewise, the national history is not always that history with which they feel most closely connected. As a result of an array of phenomena such as individualisation, globalisation, and the removal of traditional social and religious barriers, other frameworks for a sense of identity and history are being emphasised. The Netherlands and Belgium, like many other West European countries, have grown into multicultural societies, and this has put pressure on the unquestioned status and dominance of traditional national history. Citizens may now identify primarily with their family and their family history, or with the history of the place or region where they live. For immigrants and their descendants, certainly, the latter choice is anything but strange, though they are just as likely to identify first of all with their own ethnic-cultural or religious group. The way that interest in history has changed in form and content - which are certainly more diverse than before, but not necessarily the worse for that - has contributed to a sense of anxiety concerning the decline of the nation, especially in the Netherlands. That has been further reinforced by more or less abstract phenomena

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 such as European unification, the globalisation mentioned above and the development of the multicultural society. History, on the other

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 104 hand, has been regarded for some years now as a fairly concrete subject that can be latched onto with relative ease in an effort to arrest the sense of insecurity about our collective identity. And this brings us to the really remarkable tendency in the contemporary historical culture that is particularly evident in the Netherlands: the relatively recent development of making a politically inspired appeal to the past - from the top down - as the dominant framework for the collective identity of today's society. National history is then trotted out as an old, nineteenth-century remedy for a contemporary problem. That explains the discussions about creating a museum of national history, why an official commission, chaired by the president of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (Prof. Frits van Oostrom), was tasked by the government with developing a national canon of history and culture, and why some people are arguing that ‘the’ story of ‘the’ Dutch history should be used first and foremost as an emotionally charged binding agent for young people, immigrants and all those who (in the eyes of other people) don't feel or act Dutch enough. Such renewed attention to Dutch history, the search for a beacon that offers something to hold on to in turbulent times, can certainly count on the heartfelt interest of some people. But others - those who are conscious of how few women, residents from outside the western urban regions, immigrants, religious minorities and other members of more or less marginal groups were usually given a chance in the overly selective and limited canonical story of great Dutchmen - are less enthusiastic. The search for whatever connects today's residents of the Netherlands is an understandable and reasonable pursuit. But to go about it by making an easy appeal to history in a kind of politically motivated knee-jerk reaction seems less wise, certainly if that history is placed within a (national) framework that has been devalued, does not sufficiently acknowledge contemporary multiplicity and certainly does not appeal to everyone - not by a long shot. If history is going to mean anything to society and its contemporary orientation, it can only do so by doing justice to the diversity of historical experiences and stories. Paying attention to this diversity also means being genuinely interested in any differences in levels of appreciation and interpretation. In the twenty-first century, those differences cannot be smoothed over by an overly simplistic and opportunistic appeal to ‘the’ national past that proudly unites all the country's citizens. History is an intransigent phenomenon that has been interpreted, and will continue to be interpreted, in a great many different ways - as we can learn from the TV contests for the greatest Dutchman and the greatest Belgian. At the present juncture, that view is sure to be shared by people beyond the borders of the Netherlands and Flanders as well. Translated by Nancy Forest-Flier

Eindnoten:

1. Three ‘Great Belgians’ were among the top ten for both the Flemish and the French-speaking networks: Father Damien, Eddy Merckx and Jacques Brel.

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Verboeckhoven's Sheep The Rediscovery of Belgium's Nineteenth-Century Painters [Jo Tollebeek]

Those who frequented the auction rooms and antique shops of Brussels over the past few years will often have met them: obscure nineteenth-century painters with unfamiliar names, but whose mental world was wide-ranging and full of variety. The visitor could be drawn into idyllic landscapes and carefree scenes in cosy interiors, but just as often he was faced with blood and carnage. He could look at portraits of men in black, smartly dressed in the uniform of the bourgeois, but whose eyes betrayed intense emotion. Auctioneers sold panels with macabre and bizarre images - Death on horseback, giants, hourglasses. They sold canvasses bearing images that were all too realistic - potato harvests, funeral repasts, exhausted miners. Meanwhile, Rhenish Romanticism changed hands and historical paintings were being turned out in vast numbers. Italian country-folk rubbed shoulders with national heroes. How could all these images possibly emerge from the same nineteenth-century mindset? What kind of mindset was it and how can one enter into it? In particular, why was all this not noticed earlier? Where had they been all these years, those paysages animés and sheep's heads that nowadays are so enthusiastically bought at auction?

Lost generations

The disappearance of the nineteenth-century painters began in the nineteenth century itself, though in their day they had been extremely successful. Trained in famous and illustrious academies, working according to prevailing conventions and respecting the existing hierarchies between the genres, these painters had functioned within a smoothly operating system. They received government commissions, worked for an expanding art trade, exhibited in the Salons, and were admired in bourgeois homes. As elsewhere, Romanticism, Realism and Naturalism also put down roots in Belgium. But in the late nineteenth century, from the 1880s on, a new generation of painters began to propagate new styles, themes and conventions. Whether they embraced Impressionism or Symbolism, whether they were Luminists or Pointillists, they all looked to the future. They reproached their predecessors for being lazy, and aspired to a dif-

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 106 ferent, more modern art which would give more scope for experimentation and personal creativity. Their high-flown rhetoric soon branded the nineteenth century a dull, self-important century. A soporific age. In the twentieth century these modernist dogmas were accepted as self-evident. For the successive avant-gardes - from Expresssionism and Fauvism through Surrealism to the abstract painters and Cobra - originality and renewal were virtues in their own right. This had far-reaching consequences for the perception of the nineteenth century. Although the late nineteenth century was esteemed as the prehistory of their own twentieth century, the century as a whole was dismissed as an age of failure, of missed opportunities and, furthermore, of second-rate imitators: supposedly, Belgian painters had never done more than imitate the French masters. Gradually, this criticism subsided into a simple lack of comprehension. Artistic Modernism no longer possessed a conceptual framework that was able to encompass, for instance, the hierarchies of genres that had existed in nineteenth-century painting. Modernist assumptions became a screen behind which the nineteenth century simply disappeared. Not only was it incomprehensible, it also became invisible, and its painters ended up in attics and museum storerooms.

Eugène Verboeckhoven, Resting Cattle in the Campagna Romana. 1843. Koninklijke Musea voor Schone Kunsten, Brussels.

Only when Modernism's self-evident certainties were later unmasked as no more than choices that could be argued about, and the canon of modernist art began to lose some of its authority, could this process be reversed. Not that the image of the late nineteenth century altered greatly: it continued to be seen as the prehistory of the now waning twentieth century, though with more emphasis on its complexity. But growing awareness of Modernism's one-sidedness did bring about a fundamental change in the perception of the nineteenth century as a whole. It emerged from behind the screen of Modernism and could be approached thematically in its own right. Its lost generations returned, and with them their winter landscapes, their seascapes and so much more. Naturally, the most successful exhibitions remained the preserve of those regarded as ‘innovators’: the Symbolist Fernand Khnopff, the Neo-Impressionist Théo Van Rysselberghe, the multi-faceted pioneer Léon Spilliaert. But painters from the rest

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 of the nineteenth century were now also exhibited. In 1996 the Naturalists were taken out of the storerooms and exhibited in Antwerp. And in

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Adèle Kindt, The Revolution of 1830. 1830. Canvas, 123 × 150 cm. Museum van de Stad Brussel - Broodhuis. Brussels.

1999 Brussels played host to an exhibition of Belgian nineteenth-century painters whose works had been collected by Russian aristocrats, partly through the efforts of the art dealer Arthur Stevens, and had ended up in the Hermitage. In Ghent, in the same year, on the occasion of the 500th anniversary of the birth of Emperor Charles V, it was the turn of the history painters. And, finally, in 2005 there was a special exhibition in Brussels of the Romantics in which deliberate emphasis was placed on their diversity. Moreover, during the past decade a number of studies, often of great documentary value, have been published. In 2000, for example, the Tervuren School was the subject of an extensive study, while in 2006 a monograph on Eugène Verboeckhoven was published. In October 2006 Verboeckhoven's Leading the Flock was sold at a personal record price of 56,000 euros by Christie's in Amsterdam. So the resurgence has taken place on many fronts.

A rich world

What was there to see in these exhibitions, and what did these pubtications rediscover? First of all there were the history painters. The close relationship between the Romantic movement and the patriotic euphoria of the 1830 Revolution that had created ‘a young state’ out of ‘the ancient nation’ produced a body of powerful history painting in Belgium. Monumental and theatrical paintings depicted episodes in the national struggle for freedom (or its concluding treaty, as Adèle Kindt did) or portrayed national heroes. These were now appreciated as expressions of a broad historical culture that had been utilised to strengthen the process of nation building and which had also found expression in, for instance, historical pageants. But as well as these grandes machines there were also historical genre paintings. Instead of a grandiose past, they showed, usually on a small scale, popular anecdotes from history and scenes taken from daily life or from the margins of the great historical dramas. At the

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Théodore Canneel, Emperor Charles and his Mistress Van der Gheynst. 1844. Canvas, 108 × 80 cm. Museum voor Schone Kunsten, Ghent

Théodore Fourmois, Panoramic Landscape. 1841. Canvas, 48.5 × 66 cm. Royal Collection, Brussels.

Ghent exhibition Théodore Canneel showed an emperor not as a majestic prince but as a father inspecting his illegitimate baby daughter. Such canvasses were not intended for palaces and buildings of state but for bourgeois interiors. There they would be placed next to scenes from the daily life of their own time: a child in a drawing room, travellers returning home, guests making music. In the auction rooms they are once again seen as ‘touching’ or ‘charming’. Their prices have risen, particularly if they show evidence of technical virtuosity and ‘local colour’ (clothing, furniture, fine detail...). In any case, aren't they amusing, those merry-making villagers and clerics frittering away their time talking and playing cards?

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 Meanwhile, it became apparent that landscape painting too had developed into an independent genre. For the Romantics Nature was, after all, the mirror of one's soul and one's feelings, a landscape state of mind. It was no longer a static decor but a constantly changing living organism with mystical powers. These painters had captured Nature in compositions that were at once recog-

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François Roffiaen, Monte Rosa. 1875. Canvas, 131 × 242 cm. Koninklijke Musea voor Schone Kunsten, Brussels. nisable and surprising. Permanent landscape features such as valleys, ruins, lakes, ancient trees, sunken roads, were combined into panoramas that were now once again thought pleasing. In the landscapes of Théodore Fourmois and many others, viewers not only saw how carefully nature had been observed but could also rediscover a sense of the picturesque. In other paintings, however, they were confronted with scenery that was wild and inhospitable, and whose attraction derived from the aversion it aroused. And that sublime nature too - the mountain tops, glaciers and ravines of François Roffiaen for instance - was now retrieved from museum basements. This was even more the case with paintings of animals, which began to pop up everywhere and in all shapes and sizes. For even the animalists had filled their works with feeling. Their animals were not merely useful sources of labour but the embodiment of what the nineteenth-century bourgeois regarded as worthy or admirable: innocence, calm, reliability, primitive strength. These solid citizens seemed to have made an emotional pact with these animals and rewarded those painters who repeatedly put their stamp of approval on it. Eugène Verboeckhoven, it appears, had a mania for painting cows, horses, donkeys, goats, ducks and chickens, but especially sheep, hundreds of sheep. He enjoyed a succession of triumphs in the Salons during the 1830s, 40s and 50s until he finally outlived his success. But in the meantime a whole crowd of painters had followed in his footsteps. Joseph Stevens, the art dealer's brother, painted dogs, dozens of dogs. But his work had a different scope than that of Verboeckhoven. In Brussels in the Morning, one of the star attractions of the 2005 exhibition of Romantics, stray dogs were joined by those homeless women who survived on the margins of capitalist industrial society by begging. The painting was produced in 1848 - the year of revolutions - and it introduced Realism into Belgium. The results could be viewed in yet more exhibitions: paintings that illustrated the hard life of the peasants or highlighted the lives of the proletariat and the darker side of city life with its gambling, egocentric bourgeoisie. But in the auction rooms such miserabilism and social criticism has been markedly less popular than the opu-

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Joseph Stevens, Brussels in the Morning. 1848. Canvas, 139.5 × 190 cm. Koninklijke Musea voor Schone Kunsten. Brussels.

Alfred Stevens, Autumn Flowers, 1867. Canvas, 74.5 × 55 cm. Koninklijke Musea voor Schone Kunsten, Brussels. lence of Alfred Stevens, the best-known of the three Stevens brothers. His elegant Second Empire ladies, always in subtle compositions, became highly desirable items in the art market - just as they had once been in fashionable Paris, where Stevens made a fortune out of them. Inevitably, Brussels has announced an exhibition of his work. But there was yet more to rediscover. The philhellenic images of the 1820s revealed the sympathy for the Greeks (and their dead hero Lord Byron) in their struggle for independence from the Turks. Orientalist paintings, increasingly sought after in the art market, betrayed the predilection for the exotic in nineteenth-century bourgeois society. Scenes from the lives of famous painters of the past (the ‘Flemish primitives’, Rubens, Van Dyck) and portraits, including self-portraits, of contemporary artists

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 showed how the artist had acquired a new identity and status. And then there were the literary themes: Faust and Marguerite was the title of lot 86 in Vanderkindere's auction of September 2006 - Goethe, then, but also Shakespeare, Scott and Victor Hugo. The world that re-emerged from behind the screen of Modernism was a rich world in which historical and contemporary, familiar and strange, near and far, fact and fiction were boldly combined.

Amazement

This diversity was greeted with acclaim. Curators, auctioneers and antiquarians ensured that the rediscovery of the nineteenth-century went hand in hand with a re-evaluation. The historical and landscape painters, the animalists and philhellenes, so it was claimed, had all produced work whose artistic qualities were now rightly being recognised and praised. The atmosphere was triumphalist: as one exuberant art critic claimed, one could at last enter the ‘forbidden world’ of the nineteenth century and carouse with the Salon artists untrammelled by the ponderous seriousness of the Modernists. At last, too, it was possible to take a fresh and unbiased look at that study ‘attribué à Verboeckhoven’. There was

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 111 even a widespread desire for revenge, as if it was important to pay back those who had squandered the legacy of the nineteenth century. In their enthusiasm the new admirers of nineteenth-century art were not averse to using the enemy's weapons. Evidence of this can be seen in the way they justified their interest in the Tervuren School. In the mid-1860s a colony of artists settled in the village of Tervuren near Brussels and, like the painters of Barbizon, devoted themselves to landscape painting in the open air. The most important of these painters was Hippolyte Boulenger, who died young. Their story was now told as one of resurrection and the triumph of justice. At last, it was claimed, the importance of Boulenger and his companions could be appreciated: they had been ‘modernisers’ who, not least through their affinity with the Société libre des Beaux-Arts, which was founded in 1868, had contributed to the creation of a modern art free of any form of academism... Triumph, revenge, rebukes: those who in the past few years visited the auction rooms and antique shops of Brussels must have had a turbulent time between the idyllic landscapes and the painted Goethes. Or did they? Perhaps they were only prompted by amazement; perhaps they were only asking questions.

Hippolyte Boulenger, The Approaching Storm. 1871. Canvas, c. 30 × 40 cm. Private collection.

The first of which would probably be: ‘why did nineteenth-century bourgeois hang enormous canvasses of resting cattle in drawing rooms already full of bibelots and brilliant refinement?’ Why, in a world full of stations, arcades and constructions of steel and glass, should images of Algerian orange markets be so popular? And what are we to make of the ‘melodramatic’ sentiments aroused by paintings with titles such as The Orphans, At Mother's Grave or The Fisher Girl at the Door in a society where businesslike and scientific attitudes were so highly regarded? These are historical questions that deserve a serious answer, now that the noisy celebration of Canneel, Roffiaen and Boulenger is dying down. They require wide-ranging cultural-historical research into values and ambitions while at the same time demanding a more specific art-historical study of the infrastructure of nineteenth century art, artists' organisations, art collectors and the art market. Verboeckhoven's sheep will then regain their true significance. It is an attractive prospect. Translated by Chris Emery

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The Face and Voice of Flanders Six Family Novels by Erik Vlaminck Frank Hellemans

Maurice (de) Vlaminck was a Fauviste painter who at one time caused a sensation in pre-1914 Paris. August Vlaminck was one of the first Belgian photographers, having begun his career in the nineteenth century as court painter to King Leopold II. And now we have the writer Erik Vlaminck (1954-), who in a cycle of six novels uses verbal photography to portray a century of Flanders through the maternal and paternal side of his family. The voice of the common people resounds in all its proverbial pithiness and wisdom. But after each soundbite the sound engineer Vlaminck steps aside and the lucid photographer in him produces a lucid and vivid snapshot of the scenes just shot with a soundtrack. It is this combination of popular empathy and photographic distance that makes Vlaminck's cycle such an exceptional narrative. It puts Vlaminck among the ranks of eminent Flemish epic narrators such as Hugo Claus (The Sorrow of Belgium - Het verdriet van België, 1983) and more recently Erwin Mortier (Marcel (1999), My Second Skin - Mijn tweede huid, 2000 and Exposure Time - Sluitertijd, 2002). All three chronicle the pulsating life of a century of Flemish family history lovingly and with great stylistic finesse, but at the same time none of them spares the rod. Ember Days (Quatertemperdagen, 1992) is the title of the first panel of Vlaminck's double triptych, taken from the Catholic days of fasting in each season which were once landmarks on the Christian's way through life. The hilarious tone of the dialogue that gives the whole cycle its flavour is already emphatically present, but so too is the poignant undertone. For the family chronicle begins with the suicide of Jaak Van Riel. So however exuberant things may get in Vlaminck's work, he almost always ends on a muted note and reverently bids farewell to a scene before moving on to the next slice of life. In Wolves Howl (Wolven huilen, 1993) the narrator goes to Canada to dig up the wartime past of an unknown half-brother of his grandmother's. In Stanny, a Still Life (Stanny, een stil leven, 1996), the third part, Vlaminck zooms in on the sad life of a young neighbour who came originally from a polder village that had to be cleared to make way for the expansion of the port of Antwerp. Through Vlaminck's skill in montage the personal tragedy of this Stanny is enlarged into the tragedy of a whole village that is wiped off the map. In this subtle way the writer shows how the personal misery of the little man and the great social suffering are

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Photo by Walter De Mulder. bound up together. In Schismatic Writing (Het schismatieke schrijven, 2005), the last volume of the six, Vlaminck returns at length to Stanny and to himself as an author-in-the-making, but first he explores the up and downs in the lives of his paternal grandparents. The Vlamincks are very different people, and are far from accepting life's setbacks fatalistically or silently as the Van Riels do. With their artistic imagination and their taste for adventure, they try to make the best of things. In The Portraitist (De portrettentrekker, 1998), the fourth volume, and Wooden Clogs (Houten schoenen, 2000), the fifth and penultimate part, it is the war scenes particularly that stick in the memory. Now that Vlaminck has concluded his six-volume cycle, no one can deny the stature of his brand of literary folk music. Translated by Paul Vincent

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Six Extracts by Erik Vlaminck

Penance every day

My grandmother: ‘Oh, Anneke, could you bring some fish tort... Three or so herrings for frying.’ My mother: ‘But mother, it's not Friday, is it?’ My grandmother: ‘It's an ember day.’ Me: ‘Mummy, what's an ember day?.’ My mother: ‘It's when the Church says you have to do penance.’ Me: ‘And when's that?’ My grandmother: ‘Here, it's every day.’

From Ember Days (Quatertemperdagen. 1992).

Misery

‘Why do people commit suicide?’ he had asked father. ‘Out of misery.’ ‘Do we live in misery?’ ‘We don't, but the blacks in the Congo do.’ Yet Stanny had often heard father going on about ‘living in misery’.

From Stanny, a Still Life (Stanny, een stil leven, 1996)

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Soldering pheasant is a craft

The pheasants in the right-hand crate are already blind, those in the left-hand one aren't yet. A new consignment of pheasants has arrived. Eight hundred dazed chicks. And the first job is to make the damn birds blind. The sooner it's done the better. Fons uses a soldering iron to blind his pheasant chicks. ‘Soldering pheasant is a craft,’ he always says. He takes one chick at a time from the left-hand crate and brings the red-hot soldering iron close to its eyes. He has to be careful not to touch the creatures with that soldering contraption because that will leave burn marks. Which will lead to scarring and hassle with customers. Only the lens of the eye must be scorched. Fons finds it harder and harder to do the work properly. He has lost the strength in one hand and that makes it difficult to hold the chick properly. Apart from which his sight is going. ‘Cataracts,’ says the priest. ‘Glaucoma,’ says Liza. ‘Old man's eyes,’ Fons' grandfather used to call it and he knew what he was talking about, since he spent the last years of his life sitting stinking in his chair blind as a bat. All of which makes soldering pheasants an even worse chore than it used to be. Sometimes the creatures get badly burned; others don't go completely blind. Not that there have been any complaints about the quality of his pheasants yet, but Fons knows that there might be complaints. He knows his craft well enough for that. Things would be different if he didn't have to do it all himself. But Liza wouldn't dream of helping him with the pheasants. Liza always feels compassion. Compassion for animals and compassion for people. As if the animals would have any compassion for her. Anyway, animals can't feel compassion. And Fons refuses to feel compassion. Even for himself. Anyone who feels compassion is done for. And Fons puts down the soldering iron and picks up the chick he has caught in his good hand. He puts his forefinger round the little creature's lukewarm neck. He places his thumb over its head. His thumb fits exactly in the hollow at the top of its skull. Then Fons squeezes. And he hears and feels the cracking of the skull. The head is now hanging limply over his forefinger. Fons feels a final convulsion pass through its body. Anyone who feels compassion is done for.

From Wolves Howl (Wolven huilen, 1993).

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Pain, punishment and schnapps

Henri doesn't write. Because there's just no point. The postal service doesn't work anyway. For almost a year now the front line has acted as an effective blockade. Anyway, what would he write? That toothache is killing him. Toothache doesn't get any better from writing about it in letters. A shot of schnapps might help but a shot of schnapps costs the earth. Sometimes, when the pain gets really unbearable, when it's like someone constantly boring into his jawbone with bradawls, right into the centre of his eye, the only eye he can still see out of, he ‘rents’ some schnapps. In the Poles' quarters, three blocks further. Three blocks of rubble further. Then he walks over there, shy and afraid. Under no circumstances must Westarbeiter have any contact with Ostarbeiter. If you're caught it means eight weeks' ‘ab nach Farge’, to Lager 21, the punishment camp. No argument. And yet, or perhaps for that very reason, Germany is losing the war. Even as a child Henri understood that mindless severity got you nowhere. It hasn't made him any less afraid of punishment, though. But never-ending toothache is a good cure for panic. And now with the Allies so close that the roar of their guns has been audible for days, he has plucked up courage. The Poles, now that's what you call living in misery. It's indescribable, worse than a dilapidated pigsty. After he has paid, over the odds, he is allowed to pour the measure into his mouth, allowing the fiery alcohol, which these guys had got from god knows where, to burn his rotting teeth and inflamed gums. Under the dark gaze of one of the Poles who keeps a close watch on everything. And especially to make sure that he spits everything back into the sticky glass. Right up to the mark. And with no bubbles of spit, otherwise you pay extra. Can he put that in a letter home, that he can spit out schnapps without making bubbles?’

From The Portraitist (De portrettentrekker, 1998).

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Flag

(Kapellen, November, 1961)

Armistice Day. The brass band marched through the village. And we - father, mother with my little sister on her arm, and me - we stood watching from behind the net curtains. Other people went out into the street to watch, but mother thought that wasn't done and so we watched from behind the net curtains. And without touching them, because that wasn't done either. ‘Then people will see them moving.’

The musicians marched past in neat ranks. In other processions the brass band was invariably followed by a host of handbag-swinging ladies. Today there were only men in the march. Rows of gleaming medals pinned to their chests. Many houses had the Belgian flag hanging from their bedroom windows. ‘Why don't we put out the flag?’ ‘We don't have a flag,’ was father's laconic answer. ‘Why don't we have a flag?’ ‘If you don't have a flag you can never put out the wrong flag.’ ‘I don't understand.’ ‘It took me a long time too.’ The brass-players lowered their instruments. And then there were only drum rolls.

From Wooden Clogs (Houten schoenen, 2000).

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Building a better world

I keep thinking about that business with our Fien's grandson, because I've always liked our Anneke, our Fien's daughter. If it hadn't been for Anneke, I'd have been in even more of a fix than I am now. That's why I think it's so awful that her son's going to the dogs, and with his eyes wide open. Seemingly for some reason or other he can't be bothered to get a normal job. First he went to work at the fair like a gypsy, him with all his book learning. Only for a month or two, because the work tired him out. And for the last year he's been working as a nurse in an institution for imbeciles and lunatics. There are all sorts of ways someone can bring shame on his parents. And yet he has a diploma that would let him teach at a secondary school. At least our Fien says he has a secondary school teaching qualification. Actually I can't imagine a fellow like that who does his hair like a woman and acts like a film star qualifying as a teacher. And not forgetting that our Fien can lie through her teeth. The worst thing of all is that he maintains, and I didn't get this from our Fien or our Anneke but straight from the horse's mouth, that he went to work in that institution for imbeciles and lunatics because he wanted to become a writer. He claims that there, among those nutters who don't know what day it is, he could pick up ideas to write about. ‘If you simply wrote down the story of my life, you'd have a very nice book. And a thick one too. And then you wouldn't have to get up to any more strange antics to pick up ideas. You could just sit your backside and write.’ That's what I told him. He gave me the sort of look a cow gives a passing train. ‘Do you think you can earn a living writing your books?’ I asked him that too. ‘That doesn't interest me. There are more important things than that. Anyway, wealth should be redistributed.’ What can you do with someone like that? Redistribute wealth... ‘We have to build a better world. And a writer can contribute to that.’

From Schismatic Writing (Het schismatieke schrijven, 2005). All extracts translated by Paul Vincent

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An Icicle on a Dutchman's Beard Shakespeare and the Low Countries [Jaap Harskamp]

During the first half of the seventeenth century little was known of Shakespeare in the Low Countries. The only recorded translation of his work was made by Abraham Sybant (c.1620-c.1660), a member of a travelling group of actors from Brussels. In 1654 he translated The Taming of the Shrew, but on the title page of De dolle bruyloft only his own name appears. French Classicist theories dominated the stage during the second half of the age and Shakespeare was considered crude and not fit for civil society. Versailles-born dramatist Jean François Ducis (1733-1816) took it upon himself to re-write Shakespeare in French (in spite of his poor knowledge of English) and morally improve the contents of his plays. The Classicists were not unique in attempting to adapt Shakespeare to contemporary manners, morals or taste. In 1818, for example, Thomas Bowdler produced the work for which he is bestknown, The Family Shakespeare, an edition of the complete plays best described by its subtitle: in which nothing is added to the original text; but those words and expressions are omitted which cannot with propriety be read aloud in a family. The edition published by Longman in 1818 was not the first expurgation for which Thomas Bowdler accepted responsibility. His sister Henrietta Maria Bowdler had originated the project in 1807, with the publication of the first edition of The

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Family Shakespeare. It contained only twenty plays, avoiding such ‘dangerous’ works as Hamlet, and throughout had excised sexually explicit passages and religious references which might offend the Anglican reader. Thomas Bowdler had assumed the credit for this edition by 1809, probably in order to protect the reputations of his sister and the family. His own fuller edition of the plays operated on much the same principles as his sister's: in the preface he points out that in Shakespeare's use of language frequently ‘words and expressions occur which are of so indecent a nature as to render it highly desirable that they should be erased’. Juliet' speech of longing for Romeo is cut from 30 lines to 15 and in King Lear's speech of madness Bowdler cut the 22 lines to seven. His work has been immortalised in language. The verb ‘to bowdlerise’ (bowdlerism, bowdlerisation, bowdleriser) means to remove material that is considered offensive or objectionable (from a book) - in more general terms: the whitewashing of literature. In the eighteenth century, Dutch authors translated Ducis rather than the master himself. It was not until 1877 that L.A.J. Burgersdijk went to the trouble of translating Shakespeare into Dutch, using the original text. The dates that plays in translation (not including the Ducis versions) were performed further indicate the late appreciation of his work: The Merry Wives of Windsor in 1848, Romeo and Juliet in 1853, Macbeth and Hamlet in 1882, Julius Caesar in 1898, King Lear in 1904, The Comedy of Errors in 1923, Henry IV in 1947. In 1993 the Shakespeare Society of the Low Countries (SSLC) was founded. Its aim, as formulated in its statutes, is to ‘stimulate the appreciation of Shakespeare's works’.

William Shakespeare's grave in Stratford-upon-Avon.

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Yet - despite this delay in recognition - there have been many contacts between Shakespeare and the Low Countries. In fact, without the contribution of immigrants and visitors from the Low Countries, we might not have had the faintest idea of what Shakespeare himself looked like or of the setting in which his plays were performed. It is certain that the playwright had personal contact with actors who were familiar with the Low Countries. After the death of his father William Tooley, freeman of the Leathersellers' Company and merchant venturer based in Flanders, Antwerp-born Nicholas Tooley (1583-1623) was taken back to London by his Flemish mother Susan Lanquart, as instructed in William's will. His mother remarried at least twice, her English husbands being prominent freemen of city livery companies. Tooley, an only child, came of a family of landed gentry at Burmington, War-wickshire, a few miles from Stratford on the road to London. Shakespeare would have known the family from childhood and it is likely that he introduced Nicholas to the London stage. At some time in the 1590s, young Nicholas came under the care of theatre investor and entrepreneur Cuthbert Burbage (1565-1638) and his wife, with whom he lived until the end of his life, and through whom he became an actor. Tooley is recorded as an actor in the King's Men in May 1605; his name appears in the company's second royal patent of 1619, and is among the 26 principal actors listed in the first folio of 1623. There is no substantial evidence as to what parts he may have played. Shakespeare's plays contain a number of references to the Netherlands. December 28th 1594 is believed to be the first confirmed performance of Shakespeare's Comedy of Errors. In Act 3, scene 2, there is a playful exchange between Dromio and his master in which the former likens different parts of the body of the kitchen maid Nell, or Dowsabell, to various countries: ‘she is spherical, like a globe’.

ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE Where stood Belgia, the Netherlands? DROMIO OF SYRACUSE Oh, sir, I did not look so low.

The joke is a play on the ‘nether regions’ (private parts) of the body in relation to the Netherlands. Shakespeare regularly used the commonplaces of Tudor comedy referring to the Low Countries. Mistress Page calls Falstaff ‘this Flemish drunkard’ (II,i), and he grieves because he is ‘more then halfe stew'd in grease (like a Dutch-dish)’ (III,v); and Master Ford swears ‘I will rather trust a Fleming with my butter’ than Falstaff with his wife (II,ii), etc. The fact that in 1485, at the beginning of the Tudor dynasty, the stage in England gave only rare glimpses of communication with the Low Countries, underlines the impact that both closer relationships and immigration had made on Britain over the course of a century or so. News travelled increasingly fast as well. In 1597, the Dutch navigator Willem Barents (c.1550-1597) made a third expedition in search of a northeast passage to Asia, discovering and naming Spitsbergen (now Svalbard) in the meantime. Barents and his crew spent a miserable frozen winter in the north of Nova Zembla [Novaya Zemlya) - the word iceberg is directly derived from the Dutch ‘ijsberg’. On June 13th 1597, the men left in two open boats; Barents died shortly after. News

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 122 of the event reached Britain quickly. Shakespeare is believed to have written Twelfth Night in 1601-1602. When he introduced the following passage in an exchange between Olivia's servant Fabian and Sir Toby Belch (Act 3, scene 2), the audience were fully aware of what the former refers to in the dialogue:

... you are now sailed into the north of my lady's opinion; where you will hang like an icicle on a Dutchman's beard, unless you redeem it by some laudable attempt either of valour or policy.

The cool treatment Sir Toby received could not be expressed more vividly.

Images of the playwright

The Shakespeare monument in Holy Trinity Church. Stratford-upon-Avon (Gerard Janssen/Johnson the Younger. 1623

What did Shakespeare look like? The question continues to intrigue many researchers. There is no picture, drawing or sculpture that can be said with any certainty to be a true likeness of the playwright and poet. There are a number of images that may or may not give us an indication of likeness - and most of those are one way or another connected with the Low Countries. Some time around 1567, Amsterdam-born sculptor and mason Garet Janssen (d.1611) arrived in London as a refugee from the wars of religion. He established a large practice in Southwark, working chiefly as a tomb maker. Known as Gerard Johnson the Elder he produced the tomb for the 2nd Earl of Southampton at Titchfield,

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 Hampshire (1592). His son Gerard the Younger who established his workshop on the South Bank, close to the Globe Theatre, is remembered for his monument to Shakespeare (1623) in Holy Trinity Church, Stratford-upon-Avon. It may well be that the sculptor had encountered Shakespeare locally. The sculpture may have been commissioned by the playwright's son-in-law, John Hall, and Shakespeare's wife, Anne Hathaway, who was still alive at the time the monument was erected. The monument is made of marble, enclosing a Cotswold stone bust. For many, this is enough evidence to suggest a likeness. Gerard Janssen was not the only sculptor from the Low Countries to leave a monument to the nation. In 1740 the Antwerp-born sculptor Peter Scheemakers (1691-1781) gained widespread admiration for his Shakespeare monument in Westminster Abbey. Having settled in London around 1720, he joined the workshop of Pierre-Denis Plumier (1688-1721). In 1728 he travelled to Rome (together with William Hoare whose etching of Scheemakers is in the British Museum) in order to further their studies. He returned to London in 1730 and quickly established himself as a prolific and highly sought-after sculptor and maker of monuments. He found a generous and active patron in the figure of Dr Richard Mead; it was the latter who secured for him the contract for the Shakespeare monument. During the following decade Scheemakers directed work on nearly 40 monuments in England. He also received a major order for 14 marble library busts for Trinity College, Dublin, which was completed in 1749. A wealthy artist, he retired to his native Antwerp in 1771. We all know the image of Shakespeare. At least we think we do. With the domed forehead, clipped beard and moustache, the collar or ruff, it is - even in an age of countless icons - one of the best known pictures around. The image itself has two picture sources, the Chandos portrait (so called because it was once owned by James Brydges, 1st Duke of Chandos) and the ‘folio Shakespeare’.

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Springboarding off the Chandos image, the New York Times ran this illustration by Mirko Ilic in its Sunday book review section (c.1996), accompanying a column about the timelessness of Shakespeare's work.

The Chandos portrait, attributed to John Taylor (c.1610).

The first of these dates from around 1610 and has been attributed to John Taylor. Its claim - generally rejected by Shakespeare scholars - to authenticity rests on the suggestion that the portrait was once owned by the playwright and theatre manager Sir William Davenant (1606-1668), who claimed to be Shakespeare's illegitimate son. It was the founding picture in the National Portrait Gallery, donated by Lord Ellesmere in 1856. More interesting from our point of view is the ‘folio Shakespeare’. The First Folio of Shakespeare's works, edited by John Heminges and Henry Condel and containing an engraved portrait of the playwright, was published in 1623. The portrait was by Brussels-born artist Martin Droeshout (c.1565-c.1642) whose family had moved to London as Protestant refugees in 1569. It is the most familiar and only undisputed likeness of the playwright. It is certainly not surprising that a Flemish artist should have been responsible for this portrait. English artists learned the art of engraving almost entirely from Flemish and Walloon Protestant refugees, or by imitating illustrations and plates pirated from the Low Countries.

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 Martin Drocshout's engraving in the 1623 First Folio of Shakespeare's works

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On 16 July 1622 London-born painter Cornelius Johnson [Cornelius Jansen, Janssen or Jonson van Ceulen] (1593-1661) married Elizabeth Beck or Beke (d. after 1661) of Colchester in the Dutch church, Austin Friars. Johnson was the son of Cornelius Johnson, an exile from Antwerp whose own grandfather had originated from Cologne. Cornelius had been baptised at Austin Friars, but it is likely that he received at least part of his training in the Low Countries. By 1618 he was back in England. Throughout the 1620s Johnson produced numerous portraits of members of the gentry, the professions, and the Court (including a lost portrait of Sir Francis Bacon). In 1632 he was appointed ‘his Majesty's servant in the quality of Picture painter’. In that same year however Anthony van Dyck arrived in London and he soon monopolised all major portrait commissions. The inhibiting presence of such a creative genius forced Johnson (and others) to move elsewhere.

John Hagan's 2003 portrait of William Shakespeare, using an anatomical drawing of his skull, the Chandos portrait and Droeshout etching, and thereby forensically constructing a portrait of the man himself. © John Hagan

He settled in Kent, near Canterbury, where he found a patron in a rich merchant of Flemish descent, Sir Arnold Braems (a Royalist who had made a fortune out of developing the Dover seafront, after which he was appointed the first chairman of Dover harbour board). Nevertheless Johnson continued in the service of Charles I. In 1637 he painted a small full-length portrait of the king and in 1639 three small individual portraits of Charles's three elder children. At the time of the Civil War Johnson's wife seemed to have persuaded her husband to return to the Netherlands. In 1657 he painted William of Orange (the future King William III of England) as a boy. Since Johnson returned to England in 1618, two years after Shakespeare's death, it has been suggested that the ‘Janssen portrait’ may well be the most accurate one. It is speculated that the painter had seen and copied a cast of the playwright which he used to produce his portrait.

Gilbert Soest's memorial portrait of William Shakespeare (mid-1660s).

Portrait painter Gilbert Soest [Zoust] (c.1605-1681), probably born in the Netherlands or maybe in London of Dutch immigrant parents, is first recorded in 1657 as living in Lincoln's Inn Fields, London, and then in Tucks Court, off Cursitors Street, from 1658 to his death. He painted only in London but was never employed by the Court. There is some evidence that he was a Roman Catholic. His earliest

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 known paintings dating from about 1649 show that he was already a highly accomplished painter of faces. In the 1650s his output consisted mainly of half-length portraits, predominantly male. His approach to character was always profoundly serious and his finest portraits have a reflective and often introspective air (in contrast to the superficiality of his far more successful rival Peter Lely). Soest often painted his sitters in contemporary costume. Of the artist's total output, 107 canvases are extant of which 17 are signed ‘Soest’. He is above all remembered for his masterpiece Cecil, Second Lord Baltimore, with a Child and Negro Page. Soest was also responsible for the ‘memorial’ painting of Shakespeare in the mid-1660s. Some critics consider this particular portrait the most convincing of all. Technically accomplished, it is one of the earliest memorial portraits of the Bard, probably produced to capitalise on the reopening of the playhouses after the Puritan crackdown. According to George Vertue, the portrait was based upon the image of an actor who was thought to resemble Shakespeare closely. Some of the older generation of the time may have had personal recollections of Shakespeare. London-born engraver and antiguary George Vertue (1684-1756) was well-acquainted with Low Country artists resident in London. He himself had served a seven-year apprenticeship with Antwerp-born Michael

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Vandergucht (1660-1725), a well-connected reproductive engraver in London. When he set himself up as an independent engraver and print-seller in 1709 he maintained close contacts with immigrant artists in the capital. As a book-illustrator he was involved in a number of projects, providing the illustrations for John Chamberlayne's English translation of Gerard Brandt's Historie der Reformatie (1720-1723). He is above all remembered for his art-historical research. His Note Books (which he had started in late 1712) have been a corner-stone of British art history and an important source for research into the careers of immigrant artists in England. Finally, there is the Chesterfield portrait. Having pursued his early career in England, Zeeland-born portrait painter Pieter Borseller [Borselaer; Busler; Bustler] (d.1687) returned to the Netherlands in 1679 because of the worsening political situation in England. His British patrons had predominantly been either staunch royalists or Roman Catholics and the painter himself was probably also a Catholic. During his English period he painted the portrait (now lost) of the Dutch naval hero Cornelis Evertsen the elder, who was in England in 1664-1665, and one of the last portraits he produced in England was that of Admiral Cornelis van Tromp, commissioned by Ambrose Elton in 1675. The attribution to him of the posthumous ‘Chesterfield’ portrait of Shakespeare painted in the 1660s is probably correct (although the names of other painters have been suggested, including that of fellow Dutchman Sir Peter Lely). The painting was based on the Chandos portrait and reflects the grander style of full-length Carolean portraiture that had been made fashionable by immigrant artists from the Netherlands. The Chesterfield portrait was the source for a number of subsequent engravings.

The Globe Theatre

The first proper playhouse as we know it today was called the Theatre; it was built at Shoreditch in 1576 and was owned by James Burbage. Within a few years a number of open-air playhouses were opened in London, including the Rose Theatre (1587), the Globe Theatre (1599), the Hope Theatre (1613), and others. Before the introduction of the playhouse shows had been performed in the courtyard of inns, sometimes in the houses of noblemen, at fairs, or simply on a field in the open air. The Globe, built by carpenter Peter Smith and his workmen, was the most magnificent theatre London had ever seen. This playhouse could hold several thousand people. It did not only show plays; the Globe was also reputed to be a brothel and a gambling house. William Shakespeare was one of the six shareholders in the original Globe Theatre and it was there that many of his plays were first performed. The playhouse burned down in 1613 after two cannons fired during a performance of Henry VIII set the thatched roof of the galleries ablaze. Nearly 400 years later a replica of the theatre was constructed on its original site in London, opening in 1997. From where was the information gathered to rebuild the playhouse in its supposedly original form and shape? In 1596, Utrecht-born humanist Johannes de Witt (c.1566-1622) paid a visit to London from where he reported on four public theatres, two of which he mentions

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 by name, the Rose and the Swan. While at the Swan he made a detailed drawing of the theatre's interior. A friend of his, a fellow Catholic student at both

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The reconstructed Globe Theatre, London.

Leiden and Douai and lifelong correspondent, Arend van Buchell [Arnoldus Buchelius] (1565-1641), copied this drawing. The copy bearing the inscription ‘Ex obseruationibus Londinensibus Iohannis De Witt’ survived - it is now in Utrecht University Library (MS 842) - and is one of the most important sketches in theatrical history. It is the closest image historians possess of what the Globe Theatre may have looked like in Shakespeare's time. The drawing, in brownish ink, shows the inside of a theatre, the Swan, with a number of explanatory inscriptions. Although this is obviously a mere copy of Johannes de Witt's lost original sketch, the drawing is generally regarded as one of the best pieces of evidence we have as far as the interior of a theatre in Shakespeare's time is concerned. The following passage is a translated version of the Latin text that accompanies the drawing in ‘London Observations of Johannes de Witt’:

There are four amphitheatres in London so beautiful that they are worth a visit, which are given different names from their different signs. In these theatres, a different play is offered to the public every day. The two more excellent of these are situated on the other side of the Thames, towards the South, and they are called the Rose and the Swan from their signboards. There are two other theatres outside

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Sketch of the Swan Theatre. c.1596, by Arnoldus Buchelius after the sketch sent to him by his friend Johannes de Witt (University of Utrecht Ms. 842. f.132r).

the city towards the North, on the road that Leads through the Episcopal Gate called Bishopsgate in the vernacular. There is also a fifth, but of a different structure, intended for fights of animals, in which many bears, bulls, and dogs of stupendous size are held in different cages and behind fences, which are kept for the fight to provide a most pleasant spectacle to the people. The most outstanding of all the theatres, however, and the largest, is that whose sign is the swan (in the vernacular, the theatre of the swan), as it seats 3000 people. It is built out of flint stones stacked on top of each other (of which there is great store in Britain), supported by wooden pillars which, by their painted marble colour, can deceive even the most acute observers. As its form seems to bear the appearance of a Roman work, I have made a drawing of it above.

Shakespeare in the cockpit

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 In 1759, William Hogarth published a satirical print called ‘The Cockpit’ showing the enthusiasm of a group of gamblers during a cockfight. Cockpit as a name for the scene of such grisly matches showed up in English in the sixteenth century. At the same time the word acquired a metaphorical meaning and was

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 128 applied to mean a place of entertainment or frenzied activity. Shakespeare used the term in the prologue to Henry V to specifically mean the area around the stage of a theatre:

... Can this cockpit hold The vasty fietds of France? or may we cram Within this wooden O the very casques That did affright the air at Agincourt?

The Cockpit, after 1618 also called The Phoenix, was a private playhouse located in Drury Lane, London. Built in 1609 for cockfighting, the small, tiered building was converted into a theatre in 1616 by Christopher Beeston. After Beeston's death in 1638 his son William became manager, but he was replaced by William Davenant after presenting a play that offended Charles I. All theatres were closed in 1642 by an act of parliament, but in the late 1650s Oliver Cromwell granted Davenant special permission to present two of his musicals: The Cruelty of the Spaniards in Peru (1658) and Sir Francis Drake (1659), which were among the first English operas. In 1660, when other theatres reopened, the Cockpit found it difficult to compete in the Drury Lane area. It finally closed its doors in 1665. By the 1700s, the word cockpit was being used as a metaphor for any scene of combat, especially areas known as traditional battlefields. Even the word combat must be taken in its widest sense and include intellectual or religious combat, which is evident in an observation noted down by the historian and political writer James Howell (1594?-1666): ‘The Netherlands [= the Low Countries] have been for many years, as one may say, the very cockpit of Christendom’. Belgium has been called ‘the cockpit of Europe’ because it has so frequently been the battleground of Europe, as is evidenced by Ramillies (1706), Oudenaarde (1708), Fontenoy (1745), Fleurus (1794), Jemappes (1792). Waterloo (1815), Mons, Ypres and the fields of Flanders (1914-1918), the German invasion of 1940, the battles in the Ardennes, etc. Cockpit came to be used for any small enclosed area. On Royal Navy warships in the seventeenth and eighteenth century, the area where junior officers were stationed became known as the cockpit. Cockpit as a term for the pilot's compartment in an aircraft first appeared in 1914. Finally, it may be worth pointing out that it was Rotterdam-born Francis Twiss (1759-1827), son of an English merchant from Norwich, who in 1805 published his Complete Verbal Index to the Plays of Shakespeare, the first concordance of its kind.

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The Tale Won't Be Ended The Poetry of J.H. Leopold [Dick van Halsema]

One of the earliest publications by the poet Jan Hendrik Leopold (1865-1925), the Scherzo sequence of 1894, contains a poem that at first sight appears a model of simplicity - by Leopold's standards at least. Leopold has the reputation of being a difficult, not to say obscure poet; which is why for almost a century, despite the eminent position accorded him in the canon of Dutch literature at a time when that canon was compulsory fare in Dutch secondary schools, Leopold was mentioned only in passing or not at all. School anthologies confined themselves to a few song-like pieces that Leopold sometimes worked into the complicated larger context of his sequences: the ‘Christmas Carol’ (‘Kerstliedje’) from his debut collection Six Christ Poems (Zes Christus-Verzen, 1893), another ‘Carol’ from Poems 1897 (Verzen 1897), a few versions of Oriental poetry like ‘The Last Will of Alexander’ (‘De laatste wil van Alexander’), and the fifth poem from Scherzo, which begins like a lullaby.

Let the shutters be closed right up rocka rockaby rooster let nothing the silence interrupt rocka rockaby rain.

It is not a true lullaby: ‘the baby’ is not addressed directly and sung to sleep, but itself constitutes, in the third person, a part of a world that through a poetic game of sound repetition is presented in a kind of dream-like vibrato. When ‘the baby’ has closed its eyes, the poem says, ‘the dream woman will come’ and she will delight the child with dreams throughout the long night. Those dreams, as we can see in retrospect, are the essence of what poetry must have meant to Leopold:

The tale again she'll start to unwind fearful and splendid a thousand times she'll change her mind: the tale won't be ended.

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Jan Hendrik Leopold (1865-1925)

Then comes the last verse, a repetition of the first, ‘Let the shutters be closed right up’, thus confirming the constantly repeated, cyclical movement of the narrative. But the preceding verse on the fearful and splendid story adds additional meaning: seclusion from the world and uninterrupted silence within are the preconditions for that unending, stop-start story that helps the child through the long night. In the Scherzo sequence - which, like virtually all Leopold's poetry up to 1900, must be regarded in a general sense as love poetry - there follows the final poem ‘You, first one’ (‘Gij eersteling’) which is no longer at all ‘scherzo’ in tone, modulation or themes. It is a dialogue between a ‘you’ and an ‘I’ that hinges on the question whether the I, enclosed within itself, will be able to break out of the proud isolation in which it is ensconced. ‘A haughty striving / to be lonelier than the loneliest of men’ is here pitched against the longing to be ‘surrendered’ to the ‘one and only, not manifest, breathlessly awaited.’ Forty years later that final line was to resonate in E. du Perron's great novel Country of Origin (Het land van herkomst), in the ‘pursuit of the one and only’ by the book's hero Arthur Ducroo. These marginal notes on a few lines from Leopold's early work have already brought into focus a number of cardinal points in his poetry: the themes of loneliness and seclusion, and associated with these the theme of love (the ‘dream woman’ from

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 the lullaby is a fairy-tale variation on the mysterious female figures that haunt Leopold's poetic world), the strongly musical nature of Leopold's poetry (witness the title ‘Scherzo’), the stressing of the private secluded space of ‘the tale, fearful and splendid’, and the ‘a thousand times she'll change her mind: the tale won't be ended’ that characterises Leopold's poetry on many different levels.

Floundering in the mist

Jan Hendrik Leopold grew up in Arnhem and studied Classics in Leiden. He began writing poetry as a student but did not publish it, apart from a few pieces set to music by a fellow-townsman which soon became part of the singing repertoire of the day and from 1889 onwards went through many editions as sheet music. In 1891 he became a classics teacher at the Erasmiaans Gymnasium in Rotterdam, where he remained until 1924, a year before his death. He developed into a leading authority on the Stoics and Epicurus, highly regarded at home and abroad. He died suddenly in 1925, just after a tribute on his sixtieth birthday organised by a number of younger poets - writers like J.C. Bloem, A. Roland Holst and Martinus Nijhoff revered him as a poet of exceptional stature. Leaving the sheet music aside, Leopold's debut was in 1893 in De nieuwe gids, the magazine of the young avant-garde that has gone down in history as the Movement of 1880, by then in decline. This debut, the series of ‘Six Christ Poems’ reveals Leopold's attempt to relate to the sensitivism of Herman Gorter's Poems (Verzen) of 1890, though the emphasis is different. Following in the steps of the prose writer Lodewijk van Deyssel, Gorter was searching in his poetry for a radically new way of penetrating to the heart of reality. In this he wished to be guided by his senses, which to that end must free themselves completely from the tutelage of reason and convention with their by now totally lifeless truths. That implies the elimination of all pre-programmed notions of coherence. What remains is a teeming mass of ever more refined sensory details, unstructured

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 131 by anything except their succession and linked to strictly individual experience in a way that can easily lead to solipsism. The hypertrophy of the refined detail and the individuality detached from any context link this poetry to the international decadent movement; Heine and Mérimée, who had left a clear mark on Leopold's juvenilia, had unsurprisingly made way for Verlaine. In a number of ways Leopold's debut fits in with this movement. The world he evokes here is one where every sense of connection has given way to floundering in the mist; Leopold's Christ figure is the prototype of the modern, decadent artist who under the doom of his solipsistic self-containment undergoes reality passively and hence is the victim of his chosen status. The disintegration of the world into a multitude of details detached from their context is reflected in the use of language: the sentence and syntax lose their authority; the words, groups of words and sentence fragments are caught up in a mysterious flux of a different order from the conventional syntactic one and arrange themselves in new evocative patterns, whose wealth of possible meanings escapes direct designation. This new coherence, close to music, which with its unconventional stance can be seen as a counter-coherence, is manifested in an inexhaustible weaving of patterns based on semantic, auditory and rhythmic parallels and contrasts. In that respect Leopold's debut can be called the first Mallarmean poetry in Dutch literature, the beginning of a poetry that was to dominate the twentieth century, at least in the discourse of the literary elite. The notion that words interact in a way initiated by themselves rather than by the poet, is never far away. In the celebrated long poem ‘Cheops’ of 1914 the absolute work of art symbolised by Cheops' pyramid in the poem, is called ‘living form’. But a related concept emerges as early as 1896 in the concluding poem of the series In Sordina (In gedempten toon; again a musical term used as the title of a collection). The verse in question can be read in two ways: either the poet orders the lines of the poems or, just as plausibly, those lines with their ‘attention’ organise themselves to form ‘this little poem’:

Do I have the focus which lines have as they quietly adhere to give this little poem here a touch of joy, a painful twitch?

Seen in the context of the sequence of love poems of which they represent the near-conclusion, these lines are an indication that in the seclusion of the poem - in this case the poem in the making - one can find a modified reality. But that poetic counter-reality ultimately has no force outside poetry. In this sequence it has been able to evoke the unattainable ‘you’, but has been unable to eliminate ‘the distance between me and you’. After the verse just quoted the sequence ends as follows:

once more you were close to my heart and I found you cool and pure and sadly understood for sure the distance that keeps us apart.

Until 1900 Leopold's poetry revolves mainly around states of mind relating to unrequited and unrealisable love. In sequences like ‘Poems 1895’ (‘Verzen

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1895’). ‘Morning’ (‘Morgen’) and ‘For 5 December’ (‘Voor 5 december’) this produces, in the undulating, musical flow of language that characterises Leopold's poetry up to 1900, a number of unmatched evocations, seen in terms of their ‘psychic movements’. The biographical pendant to this spiritual eroticism converted into a stream of language is that Leopold's actual love life seems to have been limited to an engagement, broken off when he was about twenty, to a cousin who some years later married his brother. The images of love in Leopold's poetry seem to be mainly a reprise of this failed relationship. In principle every intertextual stimulus that reached him - from newspaper articles and travel guides to Tolstoy's novels: intertextuality in Leopold's work is a separate chapter - could be transformed in his poetry into yet another new image in the progress of this central drama.

‘Less emotive music’

Around 1900 Leopold breaks with the attitude to life which up to then had been the source of all his poetry. He begins a quest for a compelling vision in which the emotions with their powerful momentary eruptions might lose their force and the more serene power of a fixed coherence might make itself felt. In doing so he enlists the help of the philosopher Spinoza and subsequently many other great names from the modern and ancient philosophical canon. It is ‘time for a less personal and less emotive music’, he wrote in a 1900 essay, referring to Beethoven. Leopold shared this aspiration with many other Western artists of the time. With Leopold the result is six years' silence as a poet: not until 1906 does he start publishing again, with the long poem ‘Birthday Party’ (‘Kinderpartij’). This is followed four years later, in 1910, by the equally long poem ‘One Drop of Wine’ (‘Eén druppel wijn’), so named after the Greek motto of the Stoic philosopher Chrysippus that prefaces it. In 1911 Leopold publishes under the title Oriental (Oostersch) a collection of poems with an Eastern flavour, plus the translation of a number of quatrains by Omar Khayyam. In 1914 he produced a collected volume of Poems (Verzen) and that was followed in the same year by the publication of the long poem ‘Cheops’. This marks the beginning of Leopold's public fame; until then, without a collection, he had been considered a major poet only by a very small circle of admirers. The new striving for a firmer sense of coherence is also visible in the structure of Leopold's poetry after 1900. Verse form and syntax become tighter, the loosely-structured sequence form disappears temporarily from his poetry. Paradoxically, in at least two of the three great poems of Leopold's ‘philosophical’ period, ‘Birthday Party’ and ‘Cheops’, this new striving for coherence, also reflected in the poetic structure, is contradicted by the not explicitly formulated, but suggested realisation that such coherence does not ultimately exist at the highest level. ‘Religious’ or ‘philosophical’ coherence, which we see or would like to see in reality, is a projection of our own need and does not correspond to an external reality. In ‘Cheops’ the pyramid symbolises the divine coherence of the cosmos, but it is an outdated symbol: those who, like Pharaoh Cheops after his death, have seen everything, know that there is no lasting coherence in reality, only blind chaos and continuous change. The perfect order of the work of art thereby loses its ideological

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 basis and is reduced to the status of game and consolation, but it later makes a powerful comeback from that position, becom-

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 133 ing possibly the only thing that matters. From ‘Birthday Party’ onwards, his constant undermining of the status of canonical representations of coherence makes Leopold a thorough-going exponent of international modernism. Whatever he had gleaned from philosophers by way of great examples of coherence was qualified out of existence by poetic means in his work in and after ‘Birthday Party’. Leopold's interpretation of Omar Khayyam, whom he discovered in about 1905, and who impressed him deeply both as a man and as a poet, probably influenced that new change of direction. The ‘fleeting moment’ is ‘the only certainty given to man’, writes Leopold in a magazine article of 1906 on Omar: an insight that he seems to share with the Persian poet. That is certainly no longer a Spinozan sentiment. I shall return later to the situation in ‘Birthday Party’.

‘Oh richness of the uncompleted’

The sequence form with its looser connections returns with full force in the final phase of Leopold's poetry. In recent decades the largely unfinished work from the period after 1914, precisely because of the manner of its incompleteness, has been a majorfactor in determining our image of Leopold and has given that late work an almost post-modern colouring. Leopold's posthumous papers contain a chaos of ongoing textual and intertextual processes, which at the point of near-completion are constantly ready to expand anew and hence simultaneously seek and avoid completion. Eroticism and religion are the dominant forces, the underlying themes of these textual configurations. And to the extent that these thematic movements can be given a name, they seem constantly to approach a sense of the impossibility of stepping outside oneself and merging unconditionally with the other, whether that other be the beloved or God. The loneliness that began with a broken engagement has developed into Leopold's most deeply held truth about the human condition. In the last analysis, man is an outsider, excluded. But in his poetry non-fulfilment and incompleteness in turn gain a richness of their own. ‘Oh richness of the uncompleted’, he wrote on a scrap of paper among his drafts. Beneath it is a second note, presumably directly connected to the first: ‘The potential of imagination / the strict compulsion of reality’. It is tempting to see this group of notes as a statement on poetry and to link them with Leopold's method at this period of constantly postponing completion - synonymous with closure and compulsion. It can also be connected with the fact that in his late work he often revisits themes and notions already incorporated in long-finished poems, as Martinus Nijhoff pointed out soon after Leopold's death. I shall conclude with a footnote on ‘Birthday Party’ of 1906, the poem that seems to be the elaboration of Leopold's philosophical studies and at the same time a farewell to their claims on him. It returns, though on a different plane - Hume, Descartes and Kant have intervened - to the principles of sensitivism that had been so important to Leopold at the time of his debut. As such it is a central poem in Leopold's oeuvre. Partly on the basis of an older manuscript of the poem, I interpret the central fantasy as follows: while the young girl whose birthday it is and around whom the poem revolves may revel in the connections that make her world beautiful, the poet shows us that she herself makes those connections. Hence she is alone with her own

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 connections. The coherence we think we see is nothing more than a self-created ‘orderly phantas-

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 134 magoria’, a phrased used by Thomas Huxley of David Hume with which Leopold was familiar. There is no fixed connection; there is nothing but the order of change. But if the connections to which we imputed objective validity are actually nothing more than the products of our imagination, then - I am now quoting myself - ‘the distinction is lost between reality and the work of the imagination, and the work of art is the best that can be made of reality. And in the “imperative order” of the work of art springing from his imagination, the artist can make good that one blemish of reality: he welds what is separate into a unity’. And so a group of ten-year-old girls, all definitely products of Rotterdam, as they trip about, can be transformed in the poetic imagination into a procession of Greek goddesses, into impassioned Maenads, dancing in helpless ecstasy towards ‘the abyss of nothingness’ (the quotation is again taken from Huxley on Hume). This task assigned to imagination on the edge of Nothingness is a labour of Sisyphus, fearful and splendid, and one that can never be completed. Translated by Paul Vincent

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Birthday Party by J.H. Leopold

Birthday Party

[Engels]

Dance, dance together in a ring, hand holding hand with twining arms held high and now with feet that move to the melody of a slow song around the girl whose birthday is today, whom they with one accord encircled and then linked together in a chain their slender hands, lifted them high to form a garland, and completed their circling round; in friendship and tenderness at one to mark the tenth birthday of the child.

Dance, dance, let your bright red lips and shining eyes now seem to be like points of colour, flower-colours, like crimson and the deepest carmine within this room and in the wreath of your entwined circling dance; like loose petals, scattered petals grown secretly in flower-buds, now burst from calyces, and through whose walls could be seen the woven network of the veins and how the ribs were set, now that the light could get to them; like the innocent flower-petal the recurved and scallop-edged little bowls with copious liquor or little boats on a joyous trip, hollow, borne upon a breath along all the paths that one could take upon a fine spring day, a prize of sunlight and the gusting breeze...

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 Kinderpartij

[Nederlands]

Dunst, danst tesamen een rondedans met hand in hand en hooggedragen omrankende armen en op een trage zangwijze het voetverzetten thans, rondom het meisje, dat er jarig geworden is en zij eenparig omgaven en dan in elkaar schakelden zij de tengere handen, tilden ze op als een guirlande, waren er met hun omgang klaar; vriendelijk, teederlijk eensgezind ter tiende verjuring van het kind.

Danst, danst, laat helderroode lippen en lichtende oogen iets als stippen van kleuren, bloemenkleuren zijn, als purper en diep karmozijn in dit vertrek en in den krans van uw gestrengelden rondedans; als enkele bladen, sprenkelbladen aan kronen stil gerijpt, geglipt van kelken, door wier wanden heen het net en weefselwerk verscheen der âren en hoe het was geribd, nu dat het licht er toegang had: als het onschuldig bloesemblad de omgeslulpte, uitgeschulpte kommetjes met een welig vocht, of bootjes op een blijden tocht, de holle, op ademen gevaren langs al de hanen, die er waren bij open lentedag, een buit van zonlicht en van winderigheid...

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[Engels]

Oh, little girls with silken hair and light dresses crinkle-pleated and with your slender little feet tautly stretched and stepping neatly over the surface to the measure of the singing, which continues, as through still delicate and youthful lips out of the breathing mouth, which was held modestly half open, it is sung patiently to the end without pause or emphasis and in a gentle humming tone, so spare, so fine, so penetrating in a few long-drawn-out high notes, delivered pure and with no trace of wavering, a childlike throaty sound;

while outside there is a first stirring of spring and a different light falls from the clouds, but still the air is full of coolness and there is an edge to everything, young as yet and sharp - dance as this light shines in and makes its entry and soon now fills the space and the stillness of it.

Dance round the birthday girl, who stands there quite alone amidst you all and solitary and she lets her hands slip slowly, gently down along her sides and her dark eyes are soft and at the same time graver; she finds that she's a little moved, smiling at those who circle her and sing to her and look at her and quiet her in sweet reflection watching what they were about...

[Nederlands]

O, jonge meisjes met zijen haren en lichte jurkjes kreukgeplooid en met de smalle voetjes strak gespannen en langs het oppervlak vaardig bewegende op de maat van het gezang, dat verder gaat, zooals door dungebleven, jonge lippen, uit ademenden mond, die zedig half ontsloten stond, het lijdelijk wordt afgezongen

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 in éénen door en zonder klem en met een zachte neuriestem, zoo ijl, zoo fijn en zoo doordringend in enkel hooge halen zingend en zuiver, zonder wankelen uit- gebracht, een kinderlijk keelgeluid: terwijl dal buiten een eerst verschijnen van lente is en een ander licht valt van de wolken, maar de lucht is nog vol knellen en een schrijnen is er in alles, jong en wrang nog - danst in dit naar binnen schijnen en intrek nemen en eerlang vervullen en de stilte hiervan.

Danst om het jarig kind, dat staat in aller midden daar alleen en op zich zelve en zij laat de handen dralend langs zich heen afglijden en de donkere oogen zijn zacht en ernstiger meteen: zij voelt zich lichtelijk bewogen, glimlachend om die om haar gaan en haar toezingen en zien haar aan en maken haar stil en zoel bezonnen achtgevende op wal zij begonnen...

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 137

[Engels]

Then, as the song drones slowly on her thoughts wander and pulled back from these shores which seemed to her a little scary and then her eyes and her uncertain mouth betray she'd found something else, closer to her heart, that she was taking that path again, the path that led to contemplation, where her attention was all fixed upon herself and quite caught up in a delicious speculation, as to what would appear this time before her mind's eye, what parades were coming towards her, summoned forth from all the multiplicity, passing by in wondrous order and now related each to other: a commonplace item, a favourite spot in her own home, and people too, a Round Table, a trip to the countryside with gusts of wind and gales of laughter, a slender bird, a sparkling jewel, a garden with a summerhouse, a beach full of round shells, fine grains of pollen a mouth could blow away, a colonnade, a marble frieze, sails shining as they caught the sun, and dream-inducing a distant dale, a gentle slope, where everything melts into one, the countlessness of things; of that thousandfold the most part recognised as dear and well known, but others long forgotten and gladly welcomed back again, and some few too of which she feels quite certain they were never hers, so wonderfully new they are, strange and splendid and surprising.

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 [Nederlands]

En dan, in den langzamen zingezang dwalen haar gedachten en zij traden terug van deze oevers bang ietwat gevoelde en dan verraden haar oogen en haar onzekere mond, dat zij iets anders, iets innigers vond, dat zij den gang weerom inging, den ingang tot bespiegeling, waar al haar aandacht was gehangen over haar zelve en ingevangen in een verrukkelijk beschouwen, wat ditmaal weer opdoemen zouên voor zielsgezichten, welke gangen in aantocht waren, heengeleid uit al de menigvuldigheid, verloopende in wondere orde en aan elkaar verwant geworden: een dagelijksch voorwerp, van haar wonen een uitverkoren plek, personen, een tafelronde, een buitendag met vlagen wind en schaterlach, een ranke vogel, een juweel dat fonkelde, een tuinpriëel, een strand met ronde schelpen, fijne stuifzaadjes, die een mond wegblies, een zuilengang, een marmerfries, zeilen, waarop de zon ging schijnen, en droomverwekkend een ver dal, een zachte glooiing, waar het al versmelten gaat, het zonder tal der dingen; van het duizendvoud het meeste als lief en welvertrouwd herkend, maar andere lang vergeten en heugelijk opnieuw begroet, en enkele ook, die zij wel moet gelooven nimmer te hebben bezeten, zoo wondernieuw en ongeweten en prachtig zijn ze en onvermoed.

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[Engels]

And what was dearer yet was there, thoughts that had surfaced in herself alone and which had permeated all things else as never before, and some words so strange in meaning as to be listened to with bated breath and thoughtfully said over to herself, feelings that suddenly burst out at certain things, which from then on seemed as though they looked at her with a gaze she understood, her own views, what she thought of things, and all that inner world which after all was still the dearest to her and most loved, because in that she might find something so certain and so free of all deceit, so comprehensible, so perfectly in tune with her own ideas, so irrefutably her own it was as much a part of her as what she found last in herself, the one thing that could not be doubted, the consciousness of her own self, her inmost core, now at this moment thinking about itself, examining itself: the way in which her thoughts roam to and fro, each one absorbed in itself, and how they link together in a mysterious unity, and then her body, and its parts, the quieter oneness of all these, drowsy as it were and blind, on which her gaze now wanders round enquiringly and has slipped lower and completed its downward course in the musing child, who revels in shadows of profundity.

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 [Nederlands]

En ook het dierdere nog was daar, gedachten, opgekomen hij haar alleen en die zoo al het andere doordrongen hadden als nooit tevoren, en sommige woorden van zoo bijzondere beteekenis, ademloos aan te hooren en peinzend bij zich nagesproken, gevoelens schietend opengebroken bij enkele dingen, die voortaan voorkwamen, als zagen zij haar aan met oogopslag, die zij verstond, haar meeningen, hoe zij alles vond, en al dit innerlijke, toch het liefste en het meest beminde, omdat zij er iets in mag vinden zoo zeker en zonder elk bedrog, zoo wel begrijpelijk, zoo volkomen naar eigen bedoeling uitgekomen, zoo onweersprekelijk het hare, dat het haar even nauw bestond als wat ze als laatste in zich vond, het eenige onbetwijfelbare, het voelen van het eigen ik, het innige, dit oogenblik zich zelve overdenkend, zich beziend: den heen en wedergang van de gedachten, elk verloren in zich, en hun bijeenbehooren in een geheimen samenhang, en dan haar lijf, haar lichaamsdeelen, de stillere eenheid dezer velen, in sluimering en blind als 't ware, waarop haar blik nu rond gaat waren en zoekende en naar beneden uitvierende is afgegleden bij 't peinzend kind, dat zich vermeit in schemer van diepzinnigheid.

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 139

[Engels]

Round goes the undisturbèd choir, which sang and swelled as the voices sank lower and made the long deep notes reverberate, and did not lose its force but with a supple turn reached up to the heights again, till once more it is floating in the realm of jubilation unrestrained, where frolicsome sound upon sound followed each other; faster now went steps and dance and breathing too.

Dance round, dance round; we watch it all in quiet thought and unrecognised beguilement and then fascination- to me it seems that a new vision has risen before us, as if all this held a different, deeper meaning, as if it represented something what children here were playing together, and so it comes to look to us as though they were the Hours that circled, the Hours themselves, who've gathered here around the child and playfully waylay her and show her their nature and how they are disposed to her. With fine spectacle and charm and with high colour in their cheeks they hold the child there in their midst, a welcome is set out for her. And then, look, upon light soles, with their twinkling feet held high, the lively train of goddesses re-forms and aligns itself in due order and then the whole shining white procession bears itself away, round knee and ankle is stretched their trailing dress, that sweeps rustling behind them; it seemed there was a noise like the clash of cymbals, as though they beat upon their rounded metal beakers and as though a flight of slender arms was raised on high in a sudden wild explosion

[Nederlands]

Om gaat het onverstoorde koor, dat zong en aanzwol in het dalen der stemmen en de diepe halen

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 doorklinken liet en niet verloor den voortgang, maar met slanke bocht opnieuw omhoog te komen zocht, totdat het zweeft weer in de kringen van 't onbeperkte jubelzingen, waar klank na klank in dartelingen elkander volgde: sneller gingen voetpas en dans en ademtocht.

Danst om, danst om: wij zien het aan in stille gedachten en onbegrepen geboeid zijn en dan aangegrepen - mij dunkt, voor ons is opgegaan een nieuw gezicht, als lag er in dit alles een andere, diepere zin en was 't alsof het wat verbeeldde, wal kinderen hier met elkander speelden en zóó komt het ons voor oogen staan, als waren 't de Uren, die ommegaan, de Getijden zelve, die om het kind te gader zijn en spelenderwijze opwachten en er hun wezen wijzen en hoe zij het zijn toegezind. Met schoon vertoon en aanvalligheid en met het blozen op de wangen houden zij 't kind daar ingevangen, een welkom wordt tentoongespreid. En zie, dan gaat op lichte zolen, getild den glinsterenden voet, de luchtige godinnenstoet zich regelen en in bevolen orde zich schikken en dan draagt de glanzend blanke theorie zich heen, om enkel en om knie gestrekt het sleepend kleed, dat vaagt ruischend hen achterna; gerucht scheen er te zijn als van cymbalen, als sloegen zij de rondmetalen handbekers en als hief een vlucht van slanke armen opgestoken zich hoog in eensklaps uitgebroken

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 140

[Engels]

of ecstasy - then the parade changes and wanted to attain a greater distance and shrinks away and dwindled, till it was engulfed in the mist that had come over the seeing eye; a little dust, a wisp of cloud did still remain slowly dispersing and hung there and settled, there sounds a single clear jangle of the cymbal music and this too faded and died away.

1906

Translated by Tanis Guest

[Nederlands]

vervoering - en dan gaat de tocht veranderen en heeft opgezocht een verderwegzijn en deinst af en slinkt, tot zij werd opgenomen in de beneveling gekomen voor het geopend oog; een stof, een dunne wolk was er nog wel allengs vervluchtigend en hing en zonk, er is een enkel hel gerinkel van het cymbelspel en ook dit minderde en verging.

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Montage Means Power The Video-Essays of Johan Grimonprez [Lieven van den Abeele]

When Johan Grimonprez (1962-) visited Irian Jaya, the plateau of the former Dutch New Guinea, as a student of anthropology in the late 1980s, he was greeted in the tiny village of Pepera with the curious question: ‘Where's your helicopter?’ It appeared that in June 1959 the local population had already been visited by Dutch scientists and anthropologists, who had fallen from the skies in a helicopter. This gave Grimonprez the idea for Kobarweng, Or Where Is Your Helicopter?, a video in which he uses anthropological films from the 1950s, which he combines with fragments of text, impressions and commentaries (from both the local people and scientists) that scroll by at the bottom of the screen as subtitles. In this way he provides a picture of the confrontation between two totally different cultures. The film begins with a ghastly sound that, with a little imagination, we can take to be the cry of some exotic bird or other. What it looks like we don't know. The Papuans don't know either. They have never seen most of the birds that populate their area and know them only by the sound they make. The jungle is more of an acoustic than a visual experience. Papuans define other people not as someone ‘who looks like’, but as someone ‘who sounds like’. The sound of the helicopter in the film is as unnerving as the scream of the tropical birds. ‘All the women wet themselves with terror when the helicopter appeared in the sky.’

Still from Kobarweng Or Where Is Your Helicopter?, by Johan Grimonprez, 1992. countesy of Zapomatik.

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The eldest son of Baman Uropmalin was born during the construction of a landing strip in Atmisibil. He is named Kobarweng, from Kobar or aeroplane and Weng, meaning sound or speech. Thus he is literally ‘the sound of the aeroplane’. Johan Grimonprez creates video-essays. This new genre, in which image, text and sound merge in an attempt at personal reflection on a social subject, is considered by some to be a new form of Gesamtkunstwerk. It brings together various aspects from different art forms in a personally coloured essay. What is expected of the viewer is no mere passive experience, but active mental involvement. To achieve this Johan Grimonprez uses artistic means such as slow-motion pictures, changing perspectives - the jungle is filmed both from the air and the ground - the dissociation of image and sound, the mixing of documentary images and fiction, the combination of text and image. Kobarweng is an experimental documentary in which the perspective between the object of study and the researcher is subtly reversed. The roles of those doing the looking and those being looked at are turned round. The one doing the studying is transformed into the one being studied. The anthropologist becomes ‘the other’, ‘the exotic’, ‘an object of study and curiosity’. The documentary omnipotence of the ethnographic film is commented on ironically and called into question. Here the concept of the anthropologist as an objective scientist looking at another culture is turned upside down. He forgets that that other culture can look back at him as well. The local population observes and makes comments. ‘They build houses and knock them down again just as quickly. They come to see us and go away again. Why do they come here? Why have they come?’ The arrival of the whites causes jealousy. ‘The members of other villages protest vigorously. Sululib had two anthropologists already.’ - but also cunning and banter. ‘We never let on about everything. We always save something for the next anthropologist.’ So it is that Kobarweng becomes a metaphor for art. Works of art don't tell you everything at once either. They always keep something back for the second reading.

The construction of reality

Subsequently, the success of Kobarweng enabled Johan Grimonprez to make a 68-minute video which was produced for a large part by the Pompidou Centre. Dial H-l-S-T-O-R-Y was the revelation of the tenth Documenta in Kassel in 1997. Dial H-l-S-T-O-R-Y arose from a critical questioning of modern media. By means of a travel story liberally sprinkled with archive images Johan Grimonprez gives an overview of the history of aircraft hijackings, from the early days of mass air travel in the fifties and sixties to today. A phenomenon that only exists courtesy of the media. If it's not on television it hasn't happened. The chronological history of aircraft hijacking tells the history of television while at the same time reflecting on the precarious balance between the terrorism that uses the press for its propaganda and television that increasingly seeks for spectacular images in its quest for viewing figures. While terrorists think they are hijacking the media, those same media are exploiting them. Johan Grimonprez's interest in this is mainly in the manner in which such occurrences are depicted. He shows clearly how the camera becomes a weapon in a

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 battle being fought both on the ground and in the media. It is also a tale with umpteen plots, mythical heroes and a thrilling rhythm. The original music by

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Three hijacked jets on desert airstrip, Amman, Jordan, 12 September 1970. From Dial H-I-S-T-O-R-Y. Johan Grimonprez, 1997. Photo Johan Grimonprez and Rony Vissers / © 1997-2003 Johan Grimonprez.

Leila Khaled commandeers TWA Boeing 707 into 7-min detour over occupied homeland, August 1969. Photo Johan Grimonprez and Rony Vissers. From: INFLIGHT, Johan Grimonprez, published by Hatje Cantz, Stuttgart. 2000 / DISTRIBUTION DAP. New York. © 2000 Johan Grimonprez. the American composer David Shea underscores the dramatic tension. At the same time it is a fascinating overview of a slice of recent history with protagonists such as Mao, Nixon, Reagan, Malcolm X, Leila Khaled, Andreas Baader, Castro, Arafat and Khomeini. The montage is strengthened by the artist's own images which tell a tale of people travelling, saying goodbye and finding each other again. This too is dominated by the fear that it may be the last time. Dial H-l-S-T-O-R-Y is a reflection on the position of artists in society, their grasp of the political, social, economic and cultural reality and the relationship between fiction and reality (the images of the earliest aircraft hijacking come from a Hollywood film of the thirties) and the impact of art. Neither the artist, nor the terrorist, but the media alone can effectively influence cultural reality. With his montage of images from the news Johan Grimonprez wanted to show that images taken out of their original context can always be manipulated and misused

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 by underlying ideologies. By research into the relationship between the camera and reality he analyses how the media are involved in the

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 144 construction of reality. Whoever controls the media can bend reality. The film shows very clearly that terrorists are better at this than artists. In this way Dial H-I-S-T-O-R-Y is a statement both about the function of art and about the role of the artist in society. Dial H-I-S-T-O-R-Y ends with a series of images of aircraft exploding shown in rapid succession, thus creating a comic effect, and the famous clip of Boris Yeltsin and Bill Clinton falling about with laughter. The tension of the film which has slowly been built up is finally broken by this redemptive laughter. Yet despite this happy note the images remain disturbing, particularly the one of the two most powerful men in the world having to hold on to each other like a couple of drunks. The method in which Johan Grimonprez stands out from the field is montage. Right from the beginning, both in the photo montages of John Heartfield and the montage techniques of Sergei Eisenstein, this modern technique has had political and ideological connotations. It obliges the viewer to revise and rethink the relationship between various images. In this sense montage provokes a radical questioning of hierarchy and a redefinition of power. Montage suggests new models of influence and authority. It creates a historical precedent in the interaction between avant-garde art and mass culture, between high and low, between the poetic and the prosaic. By means of the montage documentary images can take on a fictional character, but on the other hand, of course, fiction also has a documentary nature.

The enigma just gets deeper

In his most recent work Looking for Alfred (2004-2005) Johan Grimonprez goes in search of the perfect Hitchcock doppelganger. Here not only appearance plays a part, but also voice. Clips of the cast are accompanied by an off-screen voice telling the story of Hitchcock's concept of the ‘McGuffin’. The McGuffin - a trivial object that distracts the audience's attention from the protagonists but which

Raven, still from Looking for Alfred, project Johan Grimonprez 2004, courtesy of Zapomatik / Film & Video Umbrella.

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Girl with bird, still from Looking for Alfred, project Johan Grimonprez 2004, courtesy of Zapomatik / Film & Video Umbrella. has no role in the dénouement - is a device with no special significance in its own right but which can certainly have various dramatic effects. In this Johan Grimonprez again plays with images from the collective memory, and here too reality is not always what it has come to be in our selective recall. Grimonprez calls this a game of reflections, echoes and quotations, of the kind that Hitchcock had shown him earlier. By appearing in his own films he became his own impersonator. Fascinated by these cameo roles (short appearances of a well-known person in a film) Grimonprez wonders how quickly an image loses its freshness and at what point a figure of speech becomes a cliché. In Looking for Alfred Hitchcock meets not only himself but also his near-perfect contemporary, René Magritte. Magritte's work also contains a lot of McGuffins, empty objects that, rather than explaining the enigma, merely serve to deepen it. Even though these perfect contemporaries never met, Grimonprez arranges a posthumous meeting of their common motifs, such as birds, bowler hats, tumblers of water and umbrellas. A replay of a scene from The Birds changes smoothly into a painting by Magritte. The film interpretation of Magritte's Young Girl Devouring a Bird, from 1927, has a gruesome beauty; it is a penetrating image that equals his illustrious models (Hitchcock's suspense and Magritte's enigmatic surrealism) in its pent-up tension. www.zapomatik.com Translated by Sheila M. Dale

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Clarity of Head and Heart The Enlightened Narrative Art of Arthur Japin [Frank Hellemans]

Arthur Japin (1956-). Photo courtesy of Verdieping Van Nederland.

In the course of a mere decade, Arthur Japin (1956-) has amassed a literary oeuvre of which many would be envious. He made his late literary debut in 1996 with The Magonian Tales (Magonische verhalen), which amazed connoisseurs with its fine-meshed compositions. When, one year later, he published The Two Hearts of Kwasi Boachi (De zwarte met het witte hart), it was clear that here was an important writer who also knew how to appeal to a wide audience. His historical novel about the vicissitudes of two young Ghanaian princes in nineteenth-century Holland was right on target. One probably has to go as far back

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 147 as Hella Haasse to find a Dutch-language writer capable of portraying historical characters with so much finesse and flexibility. Japin's combination of accurate documentation and a highly subtle sense of empathy became the hallmark of his storytelling. And what he had done for the nineteenth century in 1996 he did for the eighteenth in 2003. In Lucia's Eyes (Een schitterend gebrek) was once again a historical tale with universal appeal. There is no novel in Dutch literature that so eloquently brings the cosmopolitanism of the eighteenth-century Enlightenment to life and at the same time warns of the intellectual bankruptcy of rationalism when taken too far. What is the secret behind the resounding success of both Japin's novels? What might be the recipe for his epic narrative art?

On the lookout for settings

Japin only emerged as a writer when he was forty. During all the years when he was working away in secret, he was single-mindedly preoccupied with one and the same thing - art, and especially with the practising of it. Japin loves glamour and glitter, and originally wanted to become an actor. His father was a theatre critic, and as a child he was often allowed to accompany him to both sides of the footlights. He loved the beautiful scenery, the exuberant costumes and the artistic ambiance. He claims he could dream himself away into a different, better world. Being an only child, as a teenager Japin was bullied a great deal at school. Added to which, things did not go too well for his parents. His father eventually committed suicide. Japin was thirteen years old at the time. ‘Magonia’, his very first story, is a touching tribute to his father. In it, Japin tells how his father stimulated the imagination of his son by drawing his attention to the wonderful world above the clouds where everything was possible: ‘Above the clouds I sought against my better judgment for a glimpse if not of my father then of the ancient land that he told about. In Magonia, that middle-world above our heads, airships [...] would travel and King Arthur ride across the sky.’ In short, Japin had reasons enough to let himself be borne aloft on the wings of his imagination to a fantasy world where he could rub shoulders with every conceivable kind of character. As the main character confesses in this story, Japin most probably was continuously ‘on the lookout for settings’ where he could feel at home. Japin's father and his solitariness as a young man apparently sowed the seeds of Japin's burgeoning desire for historical panoramas in his literary work. Japin is a dyed-in-the-wool artist, but even so he did not just go round with his head in the clouds. He studied Dutch language and literature for two years, but dropped out because of the aridity of the academic discipline and moved to the world of the stage. He studied song and dance, and occasionally found himself on the opera stage - even on the film set of Flodder. As a thirty-year-old beau garçon, he travelled with his girlfriend Rosita Steenbeek to Rome to try and attract the attention of Federico Fellini. Exit the girlfriend, who Fellini briefly managed to win for himself, and exit the applied artist Japin, who after innumerable peregrinations in the artistic world realised that he wanted to follow his own path. In 1986, he got wind of the strange history of the two Ashanti princes Kwasi and Kwame. In their day Ashanti, a region of present-day Ghana on the west

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 148

Elmina Castle, Ghana. coast of Africa, was a kingdom on the African Gold Coast. Dutchmen landed there in the 1830s, drawn by the slave trade. Kwasi and his cousin Kwame, however, were members of the royal family, and as such they were given preferential treatment by the Dutch. As black African princes they ended up in the Biedermeier Holland of the time, with all that this entailed. Japin portrays them at a boarding school in Delft and paying a visit to the royal House of Orange. They develop friendships - including royal ones - but despite their successful integration at the school are never completely accepted. They also have completely different natures. Kwame, the older of the two, has the soul of an artist and tends to react impulsively, while Kwasi (literally ‘Sunday’ in Ghaneian) is very much a Sunday's child. He takes a more cerebral attitude to things and to his own misfortune, as for example when he is bullied at school. He ends up in the higher circle of students, studies in Weimar, where he meets Hans Christian Andersen, and finally spends his old age on a coffee plantation in Java, where he happens to meet Multatuli.

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Clarity of mind and limb

Japin's characterisation of the historical settings in which these real-life characters evolve is excellent. He even went to Ghana himself to do fieldwork, in the footsteps of the genuine princes. Many novels, however, tend to collapse under the weight of the documentation that the writer presents. Japin has a sixth sense that enables him to apply his erudition and historical knowledge in judicious doses, keeping a vigilant eye on the individual life-story of his characters. And this is where Japin's sense of empathy comes in. Apparently he only needs a few documents and stage props in order to devise an existence that feels authentic, just as it could have been back then. In other words, he possesses the magical art of conjuring up people of flesh and blood out of his paper characters - people with whom the reader can identify, just as Japin has already done in his own imagination. In this first major novel you can see how Japin portrays his own biographical obsessions - being bullied at school, the loneliness of the outsider, and deliverance from his own mind thanks to the sensuality of nature, of love or of art. One crucial theme in particular spans his whole symphonic composition: the liberation of the head by the heart. This liberation can only be called successful if the impulses from the heart coincide with those of the brain. The person who, at his wits' end, seeks solace in the sensuality of love, nature or art will achieve a life-saving result if he knows how to reconcile the whims of sensuality with the laws of the head. Kwasi, Japin's narrator, is not only literally but also metaphorically someone who combines black and white. Japin, however, knows enough about life and art not to end up with a puppet show of mechanical characters with as a happy ending the dialectical synthesis of the opposites they embody. Kwasi survives his cousin Kwame, who does allow himself to be swept away by his passionate nature. Kwasi, though, behaves as anything but a sovereign wise man. Even when, in his old age, he looks back on his adventurous path through life, Kwasi remains a tragic Sunday's child. He has survived the storms of integration, but he has always remained on the outside of ‘the full life’, even though he apparently participates in it. Although blessed with young children at a ripe old age, he realises that he has always been an outsider, despite all signs to the contrary. Clarity of mind and limb, a sensuality that will not be thrown off balance by anything or anyone: that is the lucidity that Japin is searching for with his protagonists. These moments of enlightenment are rare, but oh so precious, and they mostly occur at times of great emotional turmoil, as when a loved one dies. In Kwasi's case this is the suicide of his cousin Kwame, who is unable to face the chaos of his life any longer: ‘An intoxication arises in which everything is clear. For a brief instant, life shows its true face. It looks you straight in the eyes. Suddenly, it is no equal opponent whose moves you see through. That is not something melancholy; on the contrary, it casts light on things. Literally. It is en-lightening.’

Personal and historical enlightenment

The reactions to this first novel were almost unanimously favourable, with a few rare exceptions. Jeroen Vullings had his reservations about the sometimes overly

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 long-winded documentary detail, which according to him did not always serve any real purpose. Hans Warren was the only reviewer who was defi-

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 150 nitely negative. He denounced Japin's concept of historical docufiction, which mingled original documents with invented fragments. After the matchless success of this first novel, Japin had apparently had enough of excessive historical research and wanted to use his own adventure with Rosita Steenbeek and Fellini as the background for a filmic narrative about la dolce vita in the Rome of the 1980s. Director's Cut (De droom van de leeuw, 2002) is again the confession of a person looking back at his life from the threshold of death. In this novel, this character is the film director Snaporaz, the alter ego of Fellini. One problem with this novel, though, is that here Japin has no historical back-drop that can lift the biographical story and thereby give it a greater stamp of authenticity. The story is too thin to be more that a somewhat coquettish play of words about a piquant little incident that he happened to be involved in (unknown female friend does it with famous director). He falls into the trap of exhibitionist confessional literature, as personified by Adriaan van Dis and Connie Palmen. Too little for an author such as Japin, whose debut as a novelist showed what he had to offer. Evidently Japin himself considered this novel as a lightweight interlude, for a year later he comes out with In Lucia's Eyes, a historical novel that is in no way inferior to his debut novel. This time, Japin has delved into and unravelled the writings of the well-known seducer Giacomo Casanova. There he discovered Lucia, a fascinating woman who had an affair with Casanova at the age of fourteen.

According to Casanova, she was his first real love and one of the two women whom he ever wronged. Japin himself does not know the ins and outs of the matter. But armed with this anecdote he still wrote a convincing novel that seamlessly merges the historical period of the Enlightenment with human enlightenment as a goal in life. The individual life stories acquire universal dimensions, for the insignificant personal life of this Lucia turns out to be the whole history of an era and of a mentality that is still very much in vogue even today. You could compare his novel with The Volcano Lover by Susan Sontag who, with the aid of an Italian romance of Lord Nelson's, also manages to evoke the image of a whole age. Japin, though, writes less informally about the eighteenth century. He makes the Enlightenment re-echo right into the twenty-first century, so that his committed novel outdoes the somewhat gratuitous stylistic exercise of the American essayist.

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 History great and small

Using his well-tried recipe, Japin has his main character at an advanced age thinking back to past events. Lucia takes the reader with her to the dazzling pyrotechnics of garden parties in North Italy, the excavations of enthusiastic amateur scholars in Herculaneum near Pompeii, the anatomical sessions in a Paris lecture hall, discussions in feminist salons, the theatres of the Venice of the time and of so-called tolerant Amsterdam, where Jews and whores had a rather hard time of it. Sexual relations between Christians and Jews were still forbidden, as Lucia - a Christian now fallen on hard times - learns to her cost and disgrace: ‘Next to freedom of religion and residence, they [the Jews] are not allowed one single privilege and because they are often wealthy and can pay hefty fines, they are fanatically persecuted. I wonder if Messieurs Voltaire and Descartes, when praising Dutch freedom, are actually aware of this.’ Because of this, Lucia is

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 151 picked up by the police during a raid and ends up in a so-called ‘spinning house’, where together with other ladies of easy virtue she is exhibited as a kind of fairground attraction and for a fee people are allowed to throw things at them. The clever thing about Japin's novel is the self-evident way in which he links the personal fate of Lucia (and Casanova) with the whole historical setting. For Lucia is not merely a famous pick-up girl or a random streetwalker. At the age of fourteen, she is intensively tutored by a private teacher for the beau monde and thus comes in contact with the mentality of the Enlightenment. When her mentor dies and she too almost succumbs to smallpox, she assumes the name of her enlightened teacher. As Galathée de Pompignac she gains access to a circle of femmes savantes in Vincennes, just outside Paris. She becomes the companion of a rich widow who likes to philosophise with her about the importance of intuition compared to the far too predominant rationalism of the time. Japin stylises the life story of Lucia-Galathée into a real case-study on the strengths and weaknesses of the enlightened rationalism about which the intellectual elite of the day were so enthusiastic. Lucia experiences in her own person how futile any strict, sensible control of life is. The book concludes with her saying farewell to old Europe and crossing to new America because she can no longer stand the straitjacket of European rationality and can see no future for herself there. To deny nature makes no sense at all, let alone to put it on the rack. Casanova's rationalist contemporaries (and Casanova himself) are, according to Lucia, ‘afraid of what they are unable to understand and therefore attempt to uncover everything, down to the tiniest little secret.’

Emotional intelligence

With this abdication from the totalitarian regime of reason Japin ends the confession of his sharp-eyed Lucia. Her farewell to Casanova and to an exaggerated rationalism is thus not only a personal, amorous settling of accounts but also a life-philosophical choice. Through the informative, sharp dialogue Japin brings this tour de force of projecting the universal into the personal to a good end. As a reader, you really do feel sorry that in a moment of enlightenment the female main character takes to her heels and heads for the land of promise with a wealthy client. She supposedly died there, in New York, in 1802. The response to this fable of enlightenment was so great that Japin has recently made a selection from Casanova's works for the innumerable readers who were eager for more. The critics too sang the book's praises. ‘It's a painful story that arrives at profound insights into the nature of love, but it's spiked with bodice-ripper suspense and humor; it's an intensely private testimony to one woman's peculiar survival, but it's laced with a fascinating survey of eighteenth-century intellectual history. Brace yourself with all the skepticism you want, you'll still be seduced’: so Ron Charles of the Washington Post wrote of the novel's English translation. When Japin was awarded the Libris Prize for Literature for this novel in 2004, the jury's report spoke of ‘a high point in Dutch literature’. There was one dissenting voice; one reviewer, and one only, found the characters forced and spoke of ‘lifeless set-pieces’. Meanwhile, Japin's collected short stories were published under the title Collected Stories (Alle verhalen) and he wrote three

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 novellas. The Big World (De grote wereld) was the Book Week gift of 2006. It dealt in depth with a strange occurrence during the Second World War. Due to

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 152 the actions of the Nazis, two midgets find themselves on the road and get mixed up in a maelstrom of adventures. This untidy novella is not of the same standard as The Sound of Snow (De klank van sneeuw), two novellas where Japin draw heavily on his own past as an actor. ‘Thaw’ (Dooi), the better of the two, is a short, icy Christmas story that deals with a Christmas Eve spent by a lonely female singer in a chilly motel. Following a black-out, she has allowed herself to be persuaded to appear once more before an audience and sing excerpts from Bach's Christmas Oratorio. She is subject to hallucinations and believes she can hear a man in the adjacent room who is also singing. She tries desperately to get a grip on her feelings. ‘People believe they have to have strong emotions. Completely wrong. Through the head to the heart. Not the other way round.’ Japin leaves it open whether his protagonist finally succeeds in gaining control of herself again or, while singing in the snowy air, meets her end on the motorway. Once more, however, Japin asks himself what a life in clarity would look like. For the singer it is obvious: ‘My sensuality is not of this age, but is pure and intellectual, that's why it's not understood!’ Most probably, this is also Japin's creed. It is to be expected that by now Japin is busy planning a new major historical novel that yet again is a quest for an emotionally intelligent way of life that can serve as an anchor in turbulent times. Let us hope he allows himself enough time for this. He no longer has to worry about securing a place for himself in literary history, even though he has only been active as a writer for the past ten years. The Two Hearts of Kwasi Boachi and In Lucia's Eyes (now also made into a play), his two historical novels, are already true classics. Translated by John Irons

Translations

The Two Hearts of Kwasi Boachi (tr. Ina Rilke). London etc.: Vintage, 2001. In Lucia's Eyes (tr. David Colmer). London etc.: Vintage, 2006. Translations of Director's Cut and The Big World are in preparation (New York: Alfred A. Knopf). www.arthurjapin.nl

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An Extract from The Sound of Snow by Arthur Japin

My sensuality is not of this age

There's snow in the air. The woman hunches over the steering wheel and peers upward. No sky to be seen. Heavy clouds hang low over the road, turned a sordid yellow by the motorway lighting. ‘Is a star too much to ask for on a night like this?’ She turns the heating up a little. The road is quiet. Occasionally she is overtaken by a car. Children going to a party. A man taking his mother a few festive boughs. Most people are indoors or have gone to see their families for a few days. She feels fit. Actually she could easily do the whole drive in one go, but she's not expected till tomorrow. Anyway, she would rather sleep in a hotel than at her brother's. ‘I'm not ready for that yet,’ she had said on the telephone. They understood. She's not used to all that fuss, however well meant. A lorry carrying live poultry has passed her. There is a swirl of feathers. They stick to the windscreen. The woman sloshes them off with a couple of powerful bursts from her windscreen wiper.

The hotel is visible from a long way off. The road runs straight across country and the grey multi-storey block is right beside it. It is the only building for miles around. There is purple neon lettering on the roof. It is a branch of a large chain: you see them everywhere these days and they all look the same. That's good, that way you know what you're getting. All the hotels are built in the north, transported across the continent in sections and on reaching their destination are assembled by local labour. Hence all the rooms are identical, and consequently wherever you go, you always feel at home. Apart from that the rates are very cheap thanks to a formula that requires minimum staff levels. In fact, after ten there's no one around at all; everything is fully automatic and operated by credit cards and room cards. She cancels her indicator. It is ten-thirty. She pulls onto the concrete drive and parks outside the entrance. There are tubs of plants here and there. Apart from that there is no sign of greenery on this side of the road. That stops guests bringing mud in with them. Which makes a difference. The site is surrounded by a high wall to keep nature at bay, but all the rooms have a view of the woods and the small lake across the road. The woman puts her credit card into the machine by the door. It has Christmas balls hanging from it. She keys in her PIN number and waits in the cold while an

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 amount is transferred from her account. She receives a magnetic card giving access to the lobby, the lift and her room. Before going in she glances back.

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There are no other cars parked. Only now does she spot the small posts sticking out of the ground everywhere. Of course, that's where the loudspeakers are that are pumping out that children's choir and the sleigh bells. The lift doors close and she sees herself in the shiny metal. She is fifty and not the kind of woman to deny it. Once a year she draws up an inventory of wear and tear. ‘That's how things are, I'm no going to lose any sleep over them.’ She makes such inspections from a sense of duty, just as in autumn she checks the gutters for blockages and in early spring notes where the window frames need touching up. ‘They're not messing about with my body.’ She has freckles on a pale skin, and anyone who likes peaches and cream is in for a disappointment. She teaches singing at drama school twice a week. Everyone wears make-up there. Not her. Quite the contrary. On Wednesdays and Fridays, when she drives to the school in the capital, she looks if anything plainer than ever. To set an example. In the winter months she gives her lessons in tweeds, and the rest of the year in pure silk. Among these young people she wears her high-necked sweaters like a woman with a mission. All day long they roll across the floors in a ball discovering their bodies and uncovering their feelings. In their midst their singing teacher alone remains upright like a beacon reminding them of higher values. She always sits and walks upright, thanks to an iron will and sensible shoes. To protect her throat she always wears a scarf, whatever the season, and before going out she arranges her long hair closely over her ears to protect them from intrusive noises in the street. So it is wrong to assume, as people mostly do in passing, that she pays no attention to her appearance. At first sight the only striking thing about her is her colourlessness, but anyone spending a short time in the same room with her cannot help noticing her proud posture. She carries her head tipped slightly backwards, as if looking down on life. As a result her eyelids are already half-closed, suggesting a mystery. When she talks to someone, she looks straight at them, and in response to words she considers importance she always opens her eyes wide for a second, before narrowing them again with heightened effect. It gives her eyes an unmistakable seductiveness, which is not mischievous but on the contrary restrained, omniscient, as if she were personally intimately acquainted with the highest and the lowest the world has to offer. Probably she practised these looks in front of the mirror as a girl, and perfected them later when she sang in the chorus at the opera. It is an acquired charm. In consequence the passion in the eyes of this pallid creature generally provokes amusement. She is aware of this and people's short-sightedness makes her gird her armour even more tightly around her. In such cases she raises one eyebrow and curls one corner of her mouth sarcastically. ‘My sensuality is of a superior kind.’ she says to herself. ‘These days it's all about the body, not the mind, but I'm not going to change for anyone. My sensuality is not of this age, but is pure and intellectual, that's why it's not understood!’

From ‘Thaw’ (‘Dooi’) in The Sound of Snow (De klank van sneeuw). Amsterdam: De Arbeiderspers, 2005, pp. 9-14 Translated by Paul Vincent

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The Chief Government Architects of Flanders and the Netherlands

[Hans Ibelings]

Mels Crouwel currently holds the post of Chief Government Architect in the Netherlands. His counterpart in Flanders, the Chief Architect to the Flemish Regional Government, is Marcel Smets. The post of government advisor on architecture is unique to these Dutch-speaking regions, and has not been adopted anywhere else in the world. Officially, the posts have existed in the Netherlands and Belgium for two hundred years - in total, that is. The office of Chief Government Architect was introduced in 1806 during the reign of Louis Napoleon, with two separate departments (Landsgebouwendiensten), one in Brussels and one in The Hague. However, there has not been a continuous succession of Chief Government Architects throughout the two-hundred-year period. In the Netherlands there was an interval of almost thirty years, from 1830 to 1858, and in Belgium there was an interval of more than 150 years, from 1830 to 1999. Today, both governments again have a ‘master builder’. At the turn of this century, following the example of the Netherlands, the office of Chief Architect to the Flemish Regional Government was introduced in Flanders.

Mels Crouwel (1953-), the present Chief Government Architect in the Netherlands. Photo courtesy of Benthem Crouwel Architecten BV bna.

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The two offices not only share the same roots, but in terms of what they involve they are still broadly similar today. Contrary to what their title suggests, the Chief Government Architects in the Netherlands and Flanders are no longer master builders, but architects in the employ of the government who advise on architecture and urban development. Both jobs are basically the same, but there are differences. The Flemish Chief Architect has a small team of staff, while his Dutch counterpart heads (but is not the director of) the Government Buildings Agency (Rijksgebouwendienst or RGD) - a sizeable apparatus. A further difference is that the role has become institutionalised in the Netherlands, whereas in Flanders it is still evolving. The first Chief Architect in Flanders was bOb Van Reeth, who was appointed in 1999. He was succeeded in 2004 by Marcel Smets, who described his task as taking the first step away from ‘the unicity of the master builder as an important individual towards the institutionalisation of that office.’ In Flanders as well as the Netherlands, the Chief Architect is responsible for government buildings and for advising the Cabinet on matters relating to architecture and urban development, either on request or on his/her own initiative. In addition, the Dutch Chief Government Architect is now part of a Board of Government Advisors who exercise similar responsibilities relating to landscape, infrastructure and cultural heritage. Created in 2005, these offices are currently held by landscape architect Dirk Sijmons, architect Jan Brouwer and art historian Fons Asselbergs. Smets may be somewhat envious of this; he is not able to benefit from this type of consultative body and has to make all decisions himself. It was this ‘loneliness’ that prompted Jo Coenen, during his period of office, to set up the Board, from which his successor Mels Crouwel (one of the two founders of the firm Benthem Crouwel) now benefits.

From designer to commissioning agent

Gijsbert Friedhoff, the Dutch Government Architect from 1946 to 1958, and his assistant Mart Bolten (l)

Although Flanders does not have such a Board, there too the focus is widening. Compared with his predecessor Van Reeth, Smets is shifting the emphasis, away

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 from the architecture of public buildings towards public spaces; away from individual structures towards a harmony of urban and rural landscape. Reeth succeeded in focussing attention on architectonic quality, at local as well as national level. The open system that he introduced, whereby architects can tender for commissions to design a range of government buildings, has been successful in every respect. The system provides opportunities for talented architects, and for rising stars in particular. In the public sector, this approach leads to an increased awareness of the significance and effect of good architecture and good commissioning procedures. The difference in emphasis between Van Reeth and Smets is logical when one considers their careers and affinities. Van Reeth, the leading light of the Antwerp firm AWG, is first and foremost an architect, with a large number of clients in Flanders as well as the Netherlands. Smets works mainly on urban projects, one example being the transformation of the area around the railway station in Leuven. The intermediary, enabling and advisory role of the Flemish Chief Architect is comparable to that of his Dutch counterpart, who is also primarily a supervisor and adviser. But that has not always been the case. Until the 1950s, the Chief

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Project Team ‘Stadsontwerp’ (‘City Design’), led by Marcel Smets and M. de Salà-Morales: transformation of the railway station area in Leuven.

Government Architect in the Netherlands really was the chief architect of public sector buildings such as ministries, universities and central post offices. His subordinates had to be satisfied with the crumbs, and focus their energies on village post offices and small police stations. That situation continued until the end of the 1950s. Gijsbert Friedhoff, Chief Government Architect from 1946 to 1958, was the last architect to interpret the role in this way, taking personal responsibility for major government projects. This was not the only sense in which Friedhoff was the last of his kind. He was also one of the last protagonists of traditionalism, the movement that took hold in the inter-war years and gradually made way for a more modern approach in the fifteen years after the Second World War. But Friedhoff remained a traditionalist, as we can see from the entirely traditional designs he produced as Chief Government Architect, including the present Ministry of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality, the now-demolished extension to the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science in The Hague, and the tax offices in Amsterdam. Every picture tells a story, and one photograph of Friedhoff speaks volumes about his unassailable position as a great architect. The photograph shows Friedhoff at work, watched from a distance by Mart Bolten, who was for many years his right-hand man. We are left in no doubt as to who is the master and who the journeyman. When Friedhoff left office, the traditionalism of the RGD - and also the authoritarian approach of the Chief Government Architect - left with him. Shortly after Friedhoff's departure, Bolten designed the extension to the tax offices designed by his former superior. The new extension showed no trace of Friedhoff's robust brick-built

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 158 traditionalism. Bolten's dazzlingly modern wing is an ostentatious break with Friedhoff's traditionalism. Its symbolism is telling: the wing is positioned at right angles to Friedhoff's original building and not, as Friedhoff had wished, parallel to it. Bolten designed his extension under Friedhoff's successor Jo Vegter, who began his career in the 1930s as a traditionalist architect and moved on to a conservative form of modern architecture in the 1950s. The stylistic difference between the architecture of Friedhoff and Vegter reflects the difference in the way they interpreted the role of Chief Government Architect. Although Vegter continued to design, he allowed his team greater scope. Vegter designed the Ministry of Finance in The Hague - the most important building from his period of office (1958 to 1971) - in collaboration with a team of architects including Bolten, Frank Sevenhuijsen and Hans Franken. He also began awarding commissions to architects outside the RGD. This heralded a departure from Friedhoff's idea that government buildings should exhibit a degree of architectural coherence. The Chief Government Architects who followed Vegter continued this trend, and increasingly took on the role of an authorised commissioning agent that proposed and invited applications from architects on behalf of the government and then supervised the projects. Half the projects completed during Vegter's tenure had been contracted out. By the end of the twentieth century, more than three-quarters of government buildings were designed by non-government architects. Today, the design of even the most prominent government buildings is contracted out to commercial architects. The Ministry of Housing, Spatial Planning and the Environment (Volkshuisvesting, Ruimtelijke Ordening en Milieu, VROM), designed by Jan Hoogstad, and the Ministry of Social Affairs and Employment are two examples. Since the dropping of the idea that public buildings should be more or less uniform in design, the main criterion for selecting architects has been their personal suitability for the project in question. Vegter was the first Chief Government Architect to continue practising at his own firm, something which became the norm for his successors. He was also the longest-serving Chief Government Architect; his successors held that honourable position for four or five years on average.

Market forces and building

Vegter's tenure saw the shift of emphasis away from the Chief Government Architect as designer towards his role as commissioning party. The next major change came during the tenure of Kees Rijnboutt, who was confronted with a public sector that had become more market-oriented, leading to a new situation in which the government did not necessarily want to own the buildings it occupied; in many cases it wanted to lease them. This resulted in constructions in which the government was no longer the commissioning party, but primarily the user. In its new role as leaseholder the government can no longer commission buildings with the traditional public-sector design. It is restricted to office buildings that must be ‘marketable’, i.e. there must be a demand for them when the government department moves out. Since the 1990s this has led to a number of ‘tradable’ buildings that are currently occupied by

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 government departments, but could just as easily be leased to any firm of consultants, accountants or lawyers.

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Today, leasing is no longer the be-all and end-all, partly because it did not lead to the predicted cost savings which had been the original object of the exercise. Since the 1990s the government has increasingly looked to constructions in which it is not the commissioning party in the conventional sense. Public-private partnerships are increasingly common, as are projects in which the developer must not only produce a building, but also submit a plan for its management and maintenance over the next 25 years, one example being the alterations to the Ministry of Finance by the Amsterdam firm Meyer & Van Schooten. Only a minority of plans for public buildings are produced by the design department of the RGD itself. This is inevitable, given that, under European legislation, projects above a specified fee threshold must be put out to tender Europe-wide. The European tendering procedure is designed to afford equal opportunities to citizens of all member states, which means that any architect working within the EU must have a fair chance to bid for public contracts. In order to avoid having to initiate a tendering procedure for every new project, twice a year the RGD invites applications from architects who wish to be considered for government projects that are due to commence within a specified period. This is in contrast to Flanders, where architects are invited to apply for specific projects. For each project, a suitable architect is chosen from a pool of candidates. The Dutch and Flemish Chief Government Architects are involved not only in public building projects, but also in projects of national importance, such as large-scale infrastructure projects. One current example in the Netherlands is the transformation of the stations on high-speed rail routes. The government often has a financial interest in such projects, and the Chief Government Architect has a steering and co-ordinating role. This poses an interesting dilemma for the present incumbent, Crouwel, because his firm (Benthem Crouwel) has a significant interest in several of the new station areas. Crouwel has claimed that, in order to preserve the impartiality of the Chief Government Architect, he is no longer involved in these projects at his firm. It is characteristic of the Dutch situation that in the world of architecture a separation of interests is virtually impossible, especially since Chief Government Architects now continue their own practice (which is understandable, given that they hold office for only a few years and, in the majority of cases, do so at a time when their career and firm are reaching a peak). Potential conflicts of interest present virtually no problems for Smets. Many of his current non-governmental urban projects are located outside Flanders, which makes it easier for him to remain objective and impartial.

A Chief Architect with no front door

Even within the new system of open tenders, the RGD will retain its design department for projects involving new construction, renovation and restoration. This is another contrast to Flanders, where the Chief Architect has to manage without such a department. In the Netherlands, for example, the recent alterations to the tax offices in Apeldoorn were partly realised by RGD architect Rob Hootsman, and the

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 renovation and restoration of Het Catshuis (which is the Prime Minister's official residence in The Hague) was the work of RGD architect Moriko Kira.

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Benthem Crouwel Architecten: design for railway station area in Utrecht, to be executed in phases between 2007-2012. Photo courtesy of Benthem Crouwel Architecten BV bna.

The design department of the RGD expanded during the tenure of Jo Coenen, who shifted the focus away from the organisation-oriented approach of his predecessors Rijnboutt and Wytze Patijn, which had been dictated by government policy. He shifted the focus towards design, and one of the ways in which he did so was to set up the Office of the Chief Government Architect, known as the Atelier (workshop, studio). Although the RGD is part of and located within VROM, a conscious decision was made not to locate the Atelier in the same building, but a ten-minute walk away. The physical distance underlined the autonomy of the Chief Government Architect. Coenen's successor, Mels Crouwel, had the Atelier relocated to the VROM building, but still has his own separate entrance. The Chief Architect to the Flemish Regional Government does not have his own ‘front door’. His offices are hidden away on the seventh floor of the Graaf de Ferraris building, in the administrative centre of Brussels near the North Station. But at least the door to his offices has a nameplate that reads ‘Vlaams Bouwmeester’, rather than just a room number. bOb Van Reeth and his small staff moved in there in 1999, with the task of shaping the architecture policy of the Flemish government. As he has pointed out in an interview, it could almost be described as something that he brought upon himself. In his own words: ‘Over the years I have been very critical of the government and the lamentable buildings that are put up in Flanders. I held up the Netherlands as an example of how we could do things differently. At one point, the then Minister for Culture, Wivina Demeester, asked me to draw up a list of suitable candidates for a position similar to that of Chief Government Architect in the

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The Present Chief Government Architect in Flanders, Marcel Smets (1947-). On the left sits his predecessor bOb Van Reeth (1943-). Photo by Wim Danneels.

Netherlands. Since I was the one compiling the list, there was no need for me to include my own name. Then one day I received a call from a head-hunter who wanted to talk to me about the position. That's fine, I thought, he just wants my advice - but he asked me why I didn't want to take on the job myself.’ Marcel Smets' appointment came about in a similar way; not because it was a burning ambition, but because he became convinced that he could probably do a better job than some of the other candidates whose names were circulating during the application period for the vacancy created by Van Reeth's imminent departure. A further essential difference can be found in the open application procedure. In the Netherlands, as with the election of a new Pope, the decision-making takes place behind closed doors and no announcement is made until the Chief Government Architect has actually been appointed. In Flanders, candidates can simply apply for the vacant position by means of an open procedure. In the Netherlands, by contrast, suitable candidates are invited to take up the position. A striking similarity between the Netherlands and Flanders is that all the Chief Architects appointed to date have been men. In Flanders, where so few Chief Architects have been appointed, it would be much easier to redress the balance. In the Netherlands, after so many generations of male incumbents, this would be more difficult, but it would be a good idea to start with Crouwel's successor. There is at least one obvious candidate: Francine Houben of Mecanoo. Translated by Yvette Mead

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Innovation against Forgetting Hella Jongerius' First Steps in Industrial Furniture Design [Chris Méplon]

Hella Jongerius made her debut in 1993 at Droog Design, a more or less hap-hazardly formed group of Dutch designers who caused a furore in the 1990s with their alternative group exhibitions at the Milan furniture shows, exhibitions that were greatly admired by the design media. In 2000 she set up her own design

Hella Jongerius, Ideal House design at the 2005 IMM fair Cologne, together with Event Architecture. Photo courtesy of JongeriusLab.

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Hella Jongerius, Jonsberg vases. 2005. Earthenware, terra cotta, porcelain, stoneware. Commissioned by Ikea Sweden for the PS collection. Photo courtesy of JongeriusLab. studio in Rotterdam, the JongeriusLab, where a striking amount of experimentation was done with traditional techniques. She succeeded in establishing a strong international reputation for herself independently of the Droog Design collective, and in recent years has frequently been invited to appear as guest of honour at design events and international furniture shows. At one such event, the IMM fair Cologne held in that city in 2005, she was asked to design an ‘Ideal House’. Her groundbreaking work has been regularly displayed at prestigious exhibitions, from MOMA in New York and the Design Museum in London to leading galleries such as Moss in New York and Kreo in Paris. In 2005 Phaidon Press published a monograph on her work, a privilege for which many of her design colleagues would have tried to move heaven and earth, although it wouldn't have done them much good. Yet for a long time the Droog Design label clung to her like some kind of stigma. In certain circles, more specifically those in the ‘real’ design world - that is to say the world of industrial mass production - she was not taken a hundred percent seriously. Despite her fine list of awards (with clients such as Cappellini, Donna Karan, Maharam NY, Rosenthal, Koninklijke Tichelaar, Makkum, Swarovski, Hermès and Nymphenburg Porzellan), as a Dutch woman and like most of the former Droog Design celebrities she was always pigeon-holed as an artsy, conceptual, studio designer: incredibly mediagenic, as everyone by then knew, but not a serious design manufacturer who was prepared to risk large-scale production and flood the market with her products. Rather predictably, silly rumours began making the rounds, some of them no doubt inspired by jealousy, that Jongerius had been admitted to the male-dominated design world as the token woman. But the most recent steps in the career of the headstrong Dutch designer will leave her pettifogging critics with little choice but to come up with other arguments. With her four Jonsberg vases (2005), commissioned by the popular

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Swedish giant Ikea, she can now lay claim to work that is being sold cheaply in huge quantities and that everyone can afford. That same year, as if consciously exploring the extremes, she made her debut with the Swiss furniture design company Vitra, whose reputation among designers is just about the opposite of Ikea's. Vitra is the dream of every ‘real’ designer. The designers working for this design pioneer are in no danger of being sacrificed to the economic rules of mass production; on the contrary, they're treated with the most respectful care and professionalism by top specialists. In the international design world, being included in the Vitra collection is on a par with being selected for the Champions League.

Of soft vases and non-standard standard chairs

With Vitra, Hella Jongerius has very seriously set out on the path of the furniture industry. And this raises an entirely new question: will she be able to retain her typical signature - the characteristic position she has deliberately staked out in the grey area between industrial and hand-made products? This may be what the near future holds, since the designer has just accepted the challenge

Hella Jongerius, Soft Urn, Natural (1994. Polyurethane) and Soft Urn, Pink (1999. Silicone). Photo courtesy of JongeriusLab. to design a ‘standard chair’ for Vitra. In a recent interview she had this to say: ‘It's really driving me up the wall, that's for sure. But it's an interesting puzzle and I want to solve it. How can I design a standard chair that's not standard?’ From a distance, designing furniture would seem like a logical and obvious choice for a designer, but for the maverick Jongerius it was anything but. In

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 165 every respect hers has been the road less travelled. Even the path she took to the Eindhoven Design Academy was unusual. As a child (she was born in 1963), and true to the ‘creative’ spirit that was typical of the seventies, she had a great fondness for crocheting, knitting and doing macramé, but she decided to study occupational therapy because she thought it was ‘useful’. Later she took a course in cabinet making. At this point she realised that she wanted much more freedom, and that the purely technical, production-oriented side of the process did not bring the satisfaction she had been hoping for. So she ended up at the illustrious Eindhoven Academy. No sooner had she graduated than she was spotted by Droog Design. Her Soft Urn, a soft, pliable vase of polyurethane (from which she had already designed a bath mat as a student), fitted right in with the collective's sober, ‘dry’ (droog) approach. Jongerius, too, abandoned the modernistic adage ‘Form Follows Function’ in favour of the more experimental ‘Form Follows Concept’. Until 1999, every new design she made immediately became part of the Droog collection. Another top piece from that early period is her soft, pliable polyurethane wash basin.

Traces of imperfection

Hella Jongerius, Kasese Sheep Chair 1999. Limited edition Carbon fibre, felt handmade by Not tom dick and harry, Amsterdam. Photo courtesy of JongeriusLab.

In 1999 she was noticed for the first time by a legendary brand name from the Italian design world. Cappellini (the pioneering family company that has since been acquired by Charme, the big Italian luxury industry group) produced her Kasese chair, based on a primitive wooden folding stool that she came across in Africa. Without touching the basic form she translated this archetype into a typical Jongerius product that combines high-tech and handicrafts in an ultra-light little folding chair, made of carbon fibre and covered in hand-woven wool, felt or sheepskin. She herself admits to having been only moderately interested in designing furniture. The products she designs are always layered. Her preferred approach is to start with a historic, archetypal form (as with her Soft Urn) and to apply her own, more contemporary layers. She thinks that objects lend themselves to this better than furniture. ‘You can say so much more with an object, certainty with a vase,’ she explains. ‘A vase is

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 simple. There's no programme, no function. It has to be able to contain something: water or flowers. But it can also just stand there as an object. Without flowers. Objects can tolerate a great many layers. Chairs can't. Couches certainly can't. I mean, who wants to have an artistic couch in their home, something that's loud or complex? All you want is a nice couch that's comfortable to sit on. The area you have to work in is much narrower. As a designer you've got to listen much more.’ A typical characteristic of the work in the JongeriusLab (including a lot of free work) is the mixing of industrial and traditional production techniques. Jongerius' staff embroider on ceramic vases, for example, or on table cloths to which the dishes have been secured. The labour- and time-intensive handiwork imparts a sense of authenticity and uniqueness to the pieces. And it always leaves behind traces of imperfection, since it can never attain the flawlessness and perfection of a completely automated standard process. According to the strictly modern and functional way of thinking that comes across as a bit anachronistic and needlessly romantic: nostalgia for the traditions that technology has made superfluous. In that respect, her recent collaboration with Vitra,

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 166 a company with a distinctly modernistic profile (their standard-bearers are Eames, Jean Prouvé and the Belgian Maarten van Severen), was not an obvious move. Yet Jongerius has remained true to herself with her Polder Sofa (2005) for Vitra. Her way of bringing together different worlds, materials and traditions can be seen in the cushions of different but coordinated colours and the decorative buttons.

Hella Jongerius, Polder Sofa. 2005. Commissioned and distributed by Vitra. Photo courtesy of JongeriusLab.

Archetypal forms

Buttons for the Polder Sofa. Photo courtesy of JongeriusLab.

In her Phaidon monograph she says she is indebted to postmodernism, a concept that in the design world is almost automatically coupled with the Italian Memphis theoreticians of the eighties with their great penchant for irony, pastiche and criticism of ideology. But with Hella Jongerius it's much more about a research mentality and a tenacious desire to do battle with ossified rules, limitations and artificial categories. For her the old opposition between traditional craft and industry, one-off item and serial product, natural and artificial have lost their meaning. Her products are borderline cases between design and art, functionality and uselessness, materiality and statement. She enjoys shaking them up together: not only the production methods and materials but also the epochs and registers. In one and the same product she unites the mixed instinctual feelings attached to the avant-garde and the old-fashioned,

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 precious and banal, unique and commonplace, contrived and accidental, original and copy, art and kitsch. Sometimes the story is already inherent in the way an object is named. In 1998, for example, she produced a limited series of ceramic vases with the name 7 Pots/3 Centuries/2 Materials. Jongerius is not at all interested in new forms. She doesn't believe that form is the source of innovation in design. That's why she gladly and consciously uses the archetypal forms that are so familiar to all of us. The innovation comes from freshening up the techniques, often by combining different worlds that fertilise each other, such as aspects of textile (embroidery, weaving or knitting) in combination with ceramics or furniture.

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Her bond with the past also explains why she is often interested in a company's roots. A personal expedition through the fabric archives of the textile manufacturer Maharam New York resulted in the prize-winning new Repeat upholstery fabric. What's unusual about it is that the pattern of her Repeat repeats only every three metres. Because the fabric consists of different designs, the upholsterer can make each chair unique. At the same time, one small group of these armchairs forms a unit because they're all made using the same fabric. The effect is that of ‘individuality’ within a ‘family’. She also went rummaging through some old boxes at Nymphenburg Porzellan in Germany. The result: handmade plates decorated with little animal figures from historical style periods such as rococo or art nouveau. It's how design becomes a highly paradoxical form of innovation against forgetting. www.jongeriuslab.com Translated by Nancy Forest-Flier

Hella Jongerius, bowl with rabbit from the Nymphenburg Sketches, 2004. Porcelain bowls decorated with different animal figures and ‘unique’ plates in 3 themes, commissioned and distributed by Nymphenburg Porcelain Manufactory, Munich. Photo courtesy of JongeriusLab.

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Pierre Audi, More than a Director [Ernst Vermeulen]

‘It's often happened in my life that things are just handed to me. At a certain point I get a hint from somewhere and I react to it without blinking an eye.’ These are the words of Pierre Audi, a theatre-maker through and through who is the artistic director of both the Netherlands Opera and, since 2005, the Holland Festival, which since 1947 has been offering a wide range of impressive and spectacular artistic projects from all over the world (theatre, music, dance, opera, film and the visual arts, both Western and non-Western). Audi enjoys trusting to his intuition; he cherishes it. As he said in another typical statement, ‘You've got to have the nerve to show up at a first rehearsal completely blank. You shouldn't want to plan everything beforehand. (...) The same is true of my future. There are still lots of things I want to do. First I want to concentrate on modern musical theatre. The collaboration with Louis Andriessen and Guus Janssen will continue, and a new opera by Alexander Knaifel is coming. I'm also hoping for an opera by Györgi Kurtág, which he's been working on for a long time.’ Audi announced all this in 1998 in Entre'acte, one of the many Dutch musical magazines that have since breathed their last. This is typical of musical life in the Netherlands, where things are not going well. Let's just be glad to have a giant like Audi to serve as a stimulus to so many Dutch composers. It would be unfair to associate Audi solely with contemporary composers. Who can fail to recall his now historic Amsterdam production of Ring des Nibelungen, of which Het Parool had this to say: ‘The most beautiful orchestral moment came at the end of “Götterdämmerung”. As the world perished on the stage, there arose once more from the tonal bedrock the strains of the Erlösungsmotiv, so incredibly beautiful that it brought tears to your eyes. This was a Wagner that had never before existed in such a degree of subtlety, transparency and intelligence. And when has “Starke Scheite” ever been played as chamber music? The listener is advised to suppress any objections he may have about too much restraint and too little physicality, and simply to count his blessings.’ For Audi, opera is like deep dreaming. ‘Opera,’ says Audi, ‘is an art form that evokes meditative images, ideas and events that are based on music's natural breath.’ Audi is at his strongest in meditation and moments of silence. Audi's aim is to transport the viewer back to the essence of theatre. Theatre becomes a mystery play into which we are ineluctably drawn.

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Pierre Audi (1957-). Photo by Erwin Olaf.

I recall how remarkable it was to combine Theo Loevendie's Gassir with Monteverdi's Il Combattimento in a hangar, placing the seats right inside the action, as it were, as close as possible. It almost turned you into a participant. I have always regretted the fact that opera did not have its origins in this scenic madrigal, mimetically stylised, but chose the side of realism instead. But that's another matter.

New spirituality

So realism with plenty of bells and whistles is definitely not Audi's basic operating principle. This was also evident in his highly stylised approach to L'Amour de loin by Kaija Saariaho at the 2005 Holland Festival, which will be under Audi's artistic leadership until 2009 and was held for the first time at the new Muziekgebouw aan't IJ in Amsterdam. Audi's mise-en-espace was more mimetic than realistic, more darkness than light, with figures gliding through space in a story depicting the encounter of Europe with the Orient in an intertwining of physical and spiritual love, very Audi-like. It was as if the Finnish composer had conceived the opera especially for Audi himself.

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The Holland Festival brought together hundreds of performances from the various genres - music, opera, musical theatre, theatre and dance - with the hoped-for concentration on contemporary musical theatre, as Audi had formulated it in 1998 in Entre'acte. In 2005 the theme was Heaven & Hell, primal sources that traced to a quote from Charles Ives: ‘What does it all mean? What is behind it all? “The Voice of God,” says the artist, “the voice of the devil,” says the man in the front row...’ Heaven and hell, angels and demons, provided an opportunity for a retrospective look at the new spirituality, from which Saariaho fortunately just manages to escape (a steady diet of sweet angelic music soon becomes tedious). The unpublished Love Songs of Claude Viver, a composer whose penchant for spirituality and the Orient makes him a favourite of Audi, also steer clear of any sugar content - and that's just as well, since the festival gave strong emphasis to the demonic as well. That was evident right from the opening strains of Louis Andriessen's Racconto dall' inferno and the ruthless music of Iannis Xenakis and Helmut Lachenmann. With regard to the latter, a politician who was involved in the awarding of a prize in a large, posh city hall was moved to remark: ‘If I had

Homage to Gyorgy Ligeti at the Holland Festival, 12 June 2006: a performance of his work Poème Symphonique for too metronomes on the stairs of the Muziekgebouw aan 't IJ. heard this earlier, I would have suggested giving you the prize at a camping site outside the city.’ What I mean is that this festival was about something. Antonin Artaud once said: ‘All action is a form of cruelty, and it is here - on this idea of extreme action, action at fever pitch - that theatre must renew itself. Theatre must restore to us all that exists in love, crime, war or madness if it is to rediscover its necessity...’ And perhaps even more characteristic: ‘No theatre is possible without an element of the cruelty that lies at the basis of every performance.

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In our present degenerate state, the metaphysical must be brought back to the spirit by way of the skin.’ But Audi places the accent more on the creation of tranquillity - the kind of tranquillity that was also reached during the homage to the composer György Ligeti at the 2006 Holland Festival. Ligeti had died only five days before, on 12 June 2006. The homage consisted of a performance of his work Poème Symphonique for 100 metronomes on the monumental stairs of the Muziekgebouw aan 't IJ. And speaking of religious meditation, Schönberg's unfinished Moses und Aron unquestionably takes first place here, an absolute masterpiece of the calibre of Bach's St Matthew Passion. It's a work of unprecedented depth, in which Audi is entirely at home. This mammoth production attracted attention far beyond Amsterdam, including at the Salzburger Festspiele. Avant-garde, Schönberg, Wagner, Monteverdi, the Orient (not forgetting that his favourite, Vivier, undertook a major journey to the Middle and Far East): does this bring us full circle? No. There's still the Handel style to take into account. It wasn't for nothing that Audi was given the gold medal of honour by the town of Drottningholm for his staging of Handel's Tamerlano and Alcina in that famous, original, Swedish baroque theatre. And as for the Orient, at the Münchner Biennale the double production of Snatched by the Gods / Broken Strings by Param Vir won prizes both for best musical direction (David Porcelijn) and for best direction (that was Audi). Audi has never been short of prizes. I still remember the Theatre Prize awarded to him by the Prince Bernhard Culture Fund for his ‘daring and inventiveness’ (excellently formulated!). Let's have a closer look at the career of this inventive daredevil.

Back to the source

Pierre Audi was born in 1957 in Beirut. He spent his youth in Lebanon and Paris. As a teenager he was fascinated mainly by films. He once said, ‘What do I want to do later on? I've always been very interested in making films. That's something I should pursue. A visual and musical sensibility would come in very handy in filmmaking.’ In short, he was thinking in terms of imagery quite early in his life. After Paris came London. In the years 1975-1978 he read history at Oxford. Shortly after that he founded the Almeida Theatre, and this at the age of twenty-two. The Almeida Festival soon grew into an international centre for contemporary music and musical theatre. When he spelt out his credo in Entre'acte in 1998 it was nothing new; indeed, it was already twenty years old. While working with Almeida, Audi directed theatrical productions by playwrights such as David Rudkin, Botho Strauss and Bernard-Marie Koltès. He also commissioned work from composers such as Vivier (of course), Michael Finnissy and John Casken. But Wolfgang Rihm was included as well - and that made the newspapers. (England is thoroughly chauvinistic in its choices, and on top of that it never pampers its musical composers. When Brian Ferneyhough made his breakthrough with Gaudeamus in the Netherlands he became taboo at the BBC.)

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 But Audi managed to cut through all that. He followed his intuition, which took him far outside the country's borders. And it wasn't only avant-garde that interested him. He directed the British première of Verdi's Jérusalem in Leeds, for example, with Opera North, noting that in our post-modern era composers

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 172 do look back further than Schönberg (where modernisation began in the first place). The aforementioned Saariaho had Sibelius in mind, and Loevendie's opera Naima was a tribute to... that's right, Verdi. In October 1998, the 41-year-old Audi was able to start working with the Netherlands Opera. Even then his name triggered murmurs of recognition, even far beyond Almeida. He succeeded Jan van Vlijmen who, like Audi, served as director of both the Netherlands Opera and the Holland Festival, helping organise the latter's fiftieth anniversary. Typically, Van Vlijmen called it ‘A Festival of Intransigence’, featuring such intransigent figures as Matthijs Vermeulen, Charles Ives and Galina Oestvolskaja. Van Vlijmen also has a reputation for being intransigent - in the good sense of the word, that is. Meanwhile the red velvet of the Amsterdam Stadsschouwburg had made way for the colossal Stopera on the Amstel. Large-scale operas - such as Schönbergs Moses und Aron - had become a possibility. Magnificent, of course, although the building itself was not warmly received. The shining white marble facing on the outside wall, a symbolic reference to the stage design inside the building, was an irritation: more suitable for a row of furniture shops, a car showroom or an ordinary cinema. The BBC spoke of ‘an aesthetic crime against the city’. The sharpest criticism came from composer Peter Schat, always capable of the most merciless crack: ‘The gigantic failure of the greatest cultural building project that the Netherlands has undertaken in this century weighs heavily on the city, on the artistic conscience and on self-awareness in general. It has sown discord in the art world only to drain it dry later on, and it will continue to do so for decades to come.’ As far as the prediction is concerned, it hasn't really been so bad after all. We've grown used to it. Even more ‘criminal’, if such a thing was possible, was how people viewed Jan van Vlijmen's attempt to introduce a unique house style through the work of Jürgen Gosche and his highly controversial Tristan: no stage sets, extremely austere and sober and statically restrained. Van Vlijmen wanted to give Gosche a chance; he admitted that the man might not be able to read a score, but he had brilliant ideas that could be brought to fruition ‘with some musical help’ (according to Van Vlijmen). The result? Howls of derision from press and public. In retrospect it could be said that this cleansing rage spun the thread that Audi then picked up, in his own way. He, too, wanted to return to the source, to search for the essence.

Light and darkness

And that brings me to another striking feature of Audi's approach. To reach that essence he always starts at the end. First he takes a comprehensive look at the whole, then he works backwards to the beginning. He began the Ring by starting at the end, the Götterdämmerung, and set out from there. He placed the last act on a bare stage, à la Gosche. Set designer George Tsypin kept flying from New York to Amsterdam bearing new models. Audi remained unhappy. Finally he arrived at a solution by cutting and pasting in basic materials, black and brown cardboard: Das Rheingold and Götterdämmerung in black, Die Walküre and Siegfried in brown.

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 Why does Audi find himself in his element here, of all places? Let me put it this way, to be even more precise. Monteverdi's work refers not only to the be-

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 173 ginnings of opera but also to the continuation of Greek tragedy. Each year about a hundred operas are composed, and an incredible number of them sink into oblivion. It's those first experiments by Monteverdi that continue to engage us, however, and they are enduring. It all has to do with - oh, let me give the floor to Audi once again - ‘being totally thrown back upon the essence of the theatre, which is this: the telling of stories. This requires looking and listening, which is not a distinctly elite or intellectual exercise. The human spirit should be fed with myths, with stories in images, worked out in text and music.’ www.nederlandseopera.nl www.hollandfestival.nl.

The 2007 Holland Festival will be held from 29 May to 24 June 2007. In June 2007 the Festival will act as co-producer of the opera From the House of the Dead (Z mrtvého domu) by the Czech composer Leoš Janáček, which will open its 60th anniversary season. Translated by Nancy Forest-Flier

Holland Festival banners.

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The End of Improvisation Circus in Flanders [André de Poorter]

Philip Astley, who was the first to put together a programme that combined acrobatic acts with those involving horses in 1769.

The circus has its origin in horses. As early as the seventeenth century troops of horsemen were on the move through Europe, demonstrating their riding skills in the manèges that existed at that time. These horsemen can be considered to be the forerunners of the circus. The Englishman Philip Astley is regarded as the founder of the circus, because in 1769 he was the first to put together a programme that combined acrobatic acts with those involving horses. Since then this form of entertainment has spread throughout the world. Flanders too had a manager of exceptional calibre as early as 1810: François Erasmus from Ghent. A lot of people in Flanders followed in his footsteps, especially small family companies who mostly performed at fairs. They were particularly successful after the two world wars, when people were in need of diversion. But there were also the crisis years for circus artistes around 1930 due to the bad economic situation. There was a second and deeper crisis from 1955 on when public interest plummeted on account of the rise of television. People stayed at home and gawped at Star Trek. In addition there was the introduction of welfare legislation which obliged managers to register their employees, and that cost money. Of the fifteen circuses operating in Flanders after 1945, only Circus Jhony carried on until 1980. Some went bankrupt, others got out. For a long time now there haven't been any

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 circuses on the fairgrounds. Travel is much faster too nowadays, and takes place outside the fair period.

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Between circus and theatre

Today the circus in Flanders enjoys variable fortunes. Most enterprises take a pessimistic view of their prospects for survival. Take, for instance, Magic Circus, whose master, Leo Verswijvel, is already 78 years old. In 1954 he started as director of the Buffalo Circus, later of Circus Espagnol. From 1962 he went on tour through Turkey, Italy, Lebanon, Iran, Iraq and the Sudan. In 1975 he met his present wife, Patrizia Lotti, from Rimini, who was only 18 years old at the time. A few years later he returned to Belgium and ventured into circus management again. For the last few years the couple have been touring with an igloo tent with no ring, but with a stage. This has enabled them to bring a lot of entertainment to schools and rest homes, which has kept Verswijvel from financial difficulties. The business is clearly establishing itself as a an animal circus, aimed at a juvenile audience. There are no guest artistes at all on the payroll. Next we come to the circuses of the Matter family, originally from Germany. Gottfried Matter came to Belgium in 1954 and started the Tiroler Circus there a few years later. At a time when the Flemish circuses were in deep trouble, this family managed to survive. Later four of the eight Matter children would establish their own companies, of which two are still in existence.

Wiener Circus Ricky Cannone and his sister Natacha

First of the four was Ulrich Malter who set out in 1965 with the modest Wiener Circus. He was supported in this by his young wife, Irene Aspeslag, who was not from a circus family. They chose Ghentbrugge as their home base, and that is where they can be found during the winter months. Formerly the Wiener travelled with a lot of animals, including two elephants, lions, a camel and a hippopotamus. Now there are only ponies, two monkeys and some goats. Their only son, Lucky, who was a much-loved clown, would have taken over the business, but he died prematurely in 1999. His place has been taken by Ricky Cannone, who is regarded as a member of the family. The Wiener Circus, which can no longer make the impression it used to, still has a two-person orchestra.

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 Wiener Circus, September 2006

Apart from that there are no guest artistes any more, only family members. In recent years the circus has struggled to survive, and it is evident that it has run out of steam. On top of which it is in urgent need of a new big top. The Rose-Marie Malter Circus is led by Jean Gebruers and his wife Rose-Marie Malter. They began in 1971 and as the years have gone by they have been

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Rose-Marie Malter Circus in Ghent. November 2003.

A trapeze artist of the Rose-Marie Malter Junior Circus. supported by their children Pierre, Patrick, Tamara and Jasmine. It hasn't all been plain sailing for them, but when their son Pierre married the Frenchwoman Sandrine Beautour the company gained a true artiste. Among other things this charming lady can be admired in a classy display of dressage. When they visit cities such as Ghent, Hasselt or Antwerp a huge tent is set up and the public are still given high-quality spectacle. Sometimes this ‘largest circus in Belgium’ is split in two and tours separately, with two tents. But there are also periods when the company is idle for a while. The reception is variable, but the family can manage to survive by hiring out tents. Things are going extremely well for Circus Ronaldo, although it struggled badly in its early years. The brothers Jan and Herman van den Broeck, from Muizen (Mechelen) started this enterprise in 1971. From 1975 on, Jan, better known as Johnny Ronaldo, carried on on his own with just a simple show for children, in which his sons, David and Danny, also gradually came to have a role. Co-operation with the Miniature Theatre in Mechelen and the Antwerp Youth Theatre brought the Ronaldo family into contact with the theatre world and so their circus slowly evolved into a show with its own individual style. More and more elements of theatre crept into the programme. Yet interest remained below what it might have been until their considerable talent was discovered by the theatrical agency Frans Brood Productions.

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 In 1996 the company was invited to Iceland, and two years later Circus Ronaldo was proclaimed as Cultural

Circus Ronaldo in Ghent. July 2004

Circus Ronaldo in Olsene. June 1986.

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Ambassador for Flanders. Since then it has been performing more frequently abroad than in Belgium. They took their production, Fili, begun in 2000, under canvas to ten or so European countries. They are getting a fantastic reception. Ronaldo's is keeping circus as art form alive, but the artistes also happily call themselves ‘comedians’ with a nod at the Italian commedia dell'arte. The production is managed by Danny, with the help of his brother and a few of the artistes. Ronaldo's is going its own way, without animals, a cross between theatre and circus - entertainment for adults in a time when the other circuses are being visited mainly by children. For the past three years Danny and David have been touring alone with La Cucina dell'arte, with equal success. Meanwhile they are working on another production due to open in 2008.

Circus Ronaldo with La Cucina dell'arte.

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The Hartmann family of Circus Picolini

Circus Monelly 2002

From school performance to pirate circus

Every day for years, except during the winter months, the Olmense Zoo has offered visitors a modest circus programme. This Olmense Zoo Circus, with its tent set up in a building, is to be found in Balen, in Limburg. In 1996 the Picolini Circus began in Flanders. This family business is run by the Hartmann family, from Germany, made up of Andy, his wife Geli and their children, Denny, Nico, Tamara, Kimi and Isabella. Geli, who is from a middle-class background, looks after the business side of things, and that pays off. This was not the case when they were travelling from village to village. But since they started the educational project Circus at School things have gone well for them. What sort of project is it? Any school that signs up for it receives an educational package in which

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 for one or two months the circus is the theme for all subjects. There is also a practical element in which the children can prepare circus turns. In the final week Picolini himself comes to help the children rehearse the tricks they have been working on. Then on Friday the Picolinis put on a show for the children and on Saturday the public can come and watch a performance by the children themselves, supplemented by a few acts by the circus people. The formula is evidently catching on because Picolini is always fully booked up two years ahead. Meanwhile they are working on a new production to be performed in cultural centres in a couple of years' time. Their enthusiasm is clearly paying off.

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Circus Barones, 2004.

Austrian Rafaël Korittnig came to Belgium with his circus in 1998. He stayed here for a little over a year with his two sons. After that the company moved to Spain for a short time before returning again in 2000. His son Richard, who has found a place for himself here, now travels throughout Flanders as Circus Barones. He himself works with tigers and plays the clown. The modest programme is complemented by four artistes. The Pauwels family, French with Flemish roots, came to settle in Belgium some ten years ago. First Marquis, who found a permanent home with his circus in Ukkel, near Brussels, where he puts on circus performances or presents ‘dinner spectacles’ in a nostalgic big top. His brother tours with his sons and daughters with a small family show under the name of Charles Pauwels Kids Circus. In recent years the Flemish circuses have been getting some competition from the Italian Yarz family, who travel round Flanders as Circus van Moskou (Moscow Circus) in which Russian artistes barely feature. Robert De Pessemier's Circus Monelly now tours throughout the country, whereas in recent years it was to be seen primarily in the Flemish area. French circuses also sometimes tour in Flanders, the so-called tombola or pirate circuses, with trivial short performances. They are responsible for giving the circus a bad name, although it must be said that the indigenous companies sometimes also leave much to be desired.

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A new era

The problems with the animal rights organisation Gaia, which has managed to persuade some sixty municipal councils not to allow any circuses with wild animals in their area, are also not doing the circus any good. Moreover Gaia succeeded in persuading Health Minister Rudy Demotte to issue a decree forbidding the use of certain kinds of animals. This decree has been rescinded and replaced by new, more flexible, regulations, which permit a number of animals under certain conditions, subject to a limited number of movements per year. The tricks they perform must not be achieved by means of physical violence, their living quarters must be spacious enough, and the animals must always have access to clean drinking water. We are still waiting for a European regulation. It is expected that wild animals will still be permitted, but under strict rules. One might presume from the success of the circus workshops that things are going well for the circus, but that is only true for Ronaldo and Picolini. They have no tour problems. For the others it is more difficult. They travel from place to place, at their own risk, and audiences are often disappointing. The so-called ‘new circuses’ from abroad such as Cirque du Soleil attract the big crowds. The sites are often too far away from the town centre, the fees are too high and frequently a hefty deposit has to be paid in advance. In 2001 the Flemish Minister for Culture, Bert Anciaux, made available an annual subsidy of 175,000 euros to support traditional circuses, to be divided among the seven recognised circuses then existing. His intention was that this would improve quality. A committee judged the circuses, and they then received support according to the spectacle on offer. Ronaldo and Picolini invested the subsidies in equipment. Most of the others did not, and in their case it was hard to claim any improvement in quality. The result is that the subsidy was scrapped in 2005. In 2006 Anciaux announced an ambitious plan. He even went so far as to describe circus as ‘hip’ in his circus policy for 2006-2009, and introduced a whole package of measures which will enable Flanders to do a great deal of catching up and erase its image as a circus-unfriendly region. Anciaux wants to turn Flanders into a progressive circus country by creating a centre for circus in Ghent, to be operational in 2008. This is to provide the basis for his circus policy, and Johan Mast has been appointed project leader to that end. The circus centre is to be a pioneer and establish a more favourable climate for circus arts in Flanders, among other things by acting as headquarters for an international Flemish circus, with a performance area, workshops, a training centre and space for a circus museum. The 13 Flemish circus workshops, with 2000 participants, will be increased to 20. CircusVlo, the national organisation for circus arts, will get more teachers. The traditional circuses will be supported and guided, but on condition that they do not work with wild animals, which will certainly be a problem for Circus Barones. There are also subsidies for specific projects that can be applied for, but some circuses lack the imagination for this. Every year five promising individuals can undertake a period of study abroad. In 2007 the theme for the year will be ‘Flanders, Land of the Circus’, and a festival will be organised in every province. From Autumn 2008 the Circus Centre will set up its own touring circus.

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 Until 2006 only traditional travelling circuses received government support. From 2007 the subsidy will be opened up to the various forms of circus arts. To

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 181 implement circus policy a budget of 820,000 euros has been allocated - a massive increase of 82% compared with 2006. By 2009, the end of the government's term in office, that sum is intended to rise to as much as 1.6 million euros, an increase of about 166% compared with the beginning of this government. Not bad for a discipline which until recently was regarded as low culture, mere tricks, not as a genuine art-form. All this is encouraging news, but are all Flemish circuses ready to play a part in what is proposed? Some are too firmly stuck in the past. But if they wish to survive they will have to adapt to the needs of the present time. Barones, Charles Pauwels Kids, Monelly, Wiener, Rose-Marie Malter and Circus van Moskou are all finding it difficult to make ends meet. They must be alert to new ideas and turn their attention to sound, lighting, setting and costume. Most companies have no proper management and their performances lack good stage-management. People from outside the circus will have to be brought in to deal with this, because the era of improvisation is over. www.circusvlo.be Translated by Sheila M. Dale

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Islam in the Netherlands Dick Douwes

The Netherlands has almost one million Muslims; a statistic that terrifies quite a lot of people. In addition to practising believers, this group also includes hundreds of thousands who are non-practising or occasional Muslims. With the arrival of economic immigrants from the mid-1960s onwards, followed by the reuniting of families in the 1980s and 1990s, Muslims have rapidly become more noticeable. This visibility involves not only their influence on the appearance of Dutch cities, but also the fact that they have started to take advantage of their rights as citizens, for example in the areas of education and religious amenities, such as the construction of mosques. The ‘discovery of the Muslim’ in the Netherlands as a social and cultural issue is, however, primarily the product of a ‘white’ debate and policy. This has made it difficult for Muslims in the Netherlands to define their position.

Criticism of Islam

The increasing visibility of Islam led in the 1990s to the so-called ‘islamdebat’, or debate on Islam, a variation on the already established integration debate, but now focused on one particular religion. The Rushdie affair in 1989 was a significant catalyst; in February of that year the Iranian leader Ayatollah Khomeini called on Muslims to kill the author Salman Rushdie in response to the publication of his book The Satanic Verses. As Rushdie lived and worked in Great Britain and there were a number of violent anti-Rushdie demonstrations in that country, this matter brought the issue close to home. In 1991, Frits Bolkestein - then leader of the liberal VVD party, later a member of the European Commission - was the first respected politician in the Netherlands to argue that Islam was not compatible with European values and that this made it an obstacle to integration.1 He also stated that not all cultures are equal. In the mid-1990s, Pim Fortuyn went even further in his long pamphlet Against the Islamisation of our Culture (Tegen de islamisering van onze cultuur).2 Fortuyn maintained that Islam was a ‘backward’ culture because he felt that there was a great deal of intolerance amongst Muslims, particularly regarding rights for women and gays. His spectacular

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 183 political rise in 2001 and 2002 demonstrated that criticism of Islam struck a chord with a large section of the electorate. Fortuyn also demonstrated that populism can be an effective political instrument, just as his various imitators have demonstrated that populism does not work without charisma. By that time, the essayist and PvdA (Labour Party) politician Paul Scheffer had also introduced the idea of cultural criticism (of Islam) into left-leaning political circles with his article The Multicultural Drama [Het multiculturele drama) in NRC Handelsblad.3 The attacks in New York and Washington and the murder of Fortuyn (by an animal rights activist) created a climate in which criticism of Islam could be further developed and gain more widespread support, sometimes even becoming policy at local and national level. Politicians had become obsessed with Islam. The brutal murder of filmmaker Theo van Gogh in November 2004 by a young radical Muslim added to the fierceness of the debate. During the general election in November 2006, the PVV, the new openly anti-Islam party, whose peroxide-blonde party leader compared the arrival of Muslim immigrants with the tsunami, won nine seats (out of 150). Public debate about ‘Islam’ in the Nethertands has for years been dominated by non-Muslims and a few ex-Muslims, such as Ayaan Hirsi Ali, who has continued to play an active role in the Dutch debate even after her departure for the United States. The idea that Islam should be understood as an environment that determines the actions of the faithful is common currency among many of these critics. Their concern is that Islam has failed to modernise adequately and has therefore not absorbed modern values such as equality and freedom of the individual. In saying this, the critics are arguing, often implicitly, that Muslims are not only incomplete as individuals, but also that they fall short as citizens in a modern society like the Netherlands. Consequently, (religious) Muslims are not taken seriously or seen as equal participants in the debate. The frequent call for the voice of the ‘Muslim intellectual’ to be heard implies that people would rather not listen to existing voices like those of younger, assertive leaders from the Muslim community, such as Mohammed Cheppih, the chairman of Muslim World League-the Netherlands; Ahmed Marcouch, PvdA councillor for the Slotervaart district of Amsterdam; and Mohammed Benzakour, writer and journalist.

The discovery ol the imam

This increasing criticism of culture and religion has meant that other aspects of the integration process, and particularly the socio-economic factors, have received tess attention. People lost sight of the fact that social processes of such magnitude as economic migration and the reuniting of families take time; indeed, the general feeling was that a tot of time had been wasted. As the focus shifted to religion in the attempt to understand barriers to integration, new spokespeople were sought. Religious leaders were approached rather than the representatives from secular immigrant organisations who had until then been given precedence, the increasingly criticised ‘multiculti’ types. There was also a handful of converts to Islam who, because they could speak Dutch, acted as mediators. These converts were particularly prominent in the context of the religious dialogue between Christians, Muslims and Jews. This

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 dialogue between representatives of the three Abrahamic faiths was - and still is - limited

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 184 in scope. Some converts were also active within the community, often working with religious, local authority and multicultural organisations. The question is, to what extent this small group of ‘leaders’ represented immigrants from Islamic backgrounds; they often had a lot of connections and may have expressed a number of general sentiments, but they had a limited number of followers and often spoke as individuals. The best-known representative of the converts is perhaps the ‘imam’ Abdullah Haselhoef, who became something of a television celebrity in 2001 and 2002, but failed to establish himself as a spokesman, partly because of his lack of actual supporters. After 2003, he made the news a few more times as an ‘ex-imam’. One of the better-known imams in the Netherlands is the Moroccan Khalil al-Moumni, who became the subject of much debate in May 2001 when, on television, he described homosexuality as a (contagious) disease. He made this statement in Arabic, which possibly contributed to his opinion being seen as un-Dutch (in spite of the fact that similar opinions exist within various Christian denominations in the Netherlands). When the imams were addressed as the representatives of the immigrants, particularly of the Moroccans and Turks, this small occupational group was taken by surprise. As is still the case, most imams did not speak Dutch, or at least not well enough to be able to function as spokesmen. Many of them have a following consisting mainly of men from the first generation of immigrants and have much less contact with women and younger people. The generation gap in these communities is typified by the rather uneasy relationship between the imams and the second generation of Muslims, who were born and/or grew up in the Netherlands; the older people and their imams have great difficulty finding their way in the Netherlands and in understanding and keeping up with their children; the younger generation often face difficulties both at home and elsewhere, but they know more or less how things work in the Netherlands. With a few exceptions they continue to feel Muslim and to describe themselves as such, even if they rarely or never visit the mosque. Unlike the (mainly) ex-Protestant experience of the generation conflict in the 1960s and 1970s, young people from countries such as Morocco, Turkey and Somalia are less inclined to react against their parents' faith, except for the small circle of young radicals. Young people often look for and find their own way and their own interpretation of religion without expressly distancing themselves from the traditions of their parents.

Post-Christian Incomprehension

Unlike ‘Muslim’, the term ‘Christian’ is mainly used in the Netherlands for those who attend a place of worship. This is a minority of the population, but it includes a conspicuous group of evangelists, members of the Dutch Reformed Church, Protestants and Catholics who refuse to believe that God is dead. Their numbers can be estimated at a few million. The majority of the population, however, is post-Christian, which means that they or their parents have been brought up as Christians to varying degrees, but no longer consider themselves connected, or feel committed, to the Christian faith, rituals or organisations. Being post-Christian also

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 means that a number of Christian beliefs still live on even without God and continue to play a part in determining the outlook of the

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Dutch, such as views on compassion and mourning. Indeed, the pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela attracts an increasing number of post-Christians who follow the route without saying any prayers. The move away from the church as an institution in the Netherlands does not mean that there is no need for spirituality. This need still exists, but is expressed in different, constantly changing ways.

Muslim woman in Amsterdam. Photo by Raphaël Drent.

Might the same be true of this large new group of Dutch Muslims? Is there an increasing number of ‘post-Muslims’ amongst their ranks? Maybe there is, maybe there isn't. It is difficult for Islam to divorce itself from the ‘church’, because it does not have a church-based organisation; this is a contrast with the move away from the Christian church, which is seen as the most important achievement of secularisation and individualisation in Europe. The mosgue is often thought of as the Islamic church, with the imam increasingly being viewed as its vicar or priest, but these comparisons are inadeguate and contribute to the post-Christian lack of comprehension. The debate and policy on this issue in the Netherlands are characterised by a striking paradox. On the one hand there is a desire to promote integration, and therefore secularisation, and it is argued that religious (i.e. Islamic) values represent a potential obstacle to this process. On the other hand, in an attempt to reshape those values policy makers are turning to the bearers of religious authority, and thus running the risk that this will encourage the creation of an Islamic church. This, however, conflicts with the Islamic tradition of diffuse religious organisation and authority. Many people do not have a clear picture of how and to what extent Muslims practise their religious beliefs, especially not

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 186 when it comes to the generation that has grown up in the Netherlands. An important reason for this is the fact that Muslims are often viewed and understood from a Christian or post-Christian point of view. A degree of organisation with a hierarchical system is also often assumed. The problem is, however, that the mosque cannot be equated with the church, just as the imam cannot be equated with the vicar or the priest. Dutch Islam has all kinds of connections, but not in the sense of diaconates or synods. Muslims in the Netherlands are organised mainly along ethnic lines, and as regards the first generation the extent and nature of this organisation often reflects the situation in the country of origin. The picture becomes even more complex when the dynamic within the Islamic communities is considered, particularly the rise of the generations born and/or brought up in the Netherlands (the second and third generations). They are often much more ‘Dutch’ than people think: organised loosely or not at all, assertive, fashionable, focused on family and romantic relationships, on education and work. And in amongst all of this, there is a section that goes to the mosque with some regularity.

Mosque attendance

Attending the mosque is often seen as the most important indicator of religious adherence, at least for men. Estimates vary greatly as to the number of Muslims in the Netherlands who visit the mosque regularly. The most optimistic estimates (from a religious perspective) are as high as around forty per cent: not a very plausible figure, given that few women visit the mosque. It is also unlikely that half of the men visit the mosque with any regularity. Demonstrations organised by mosques in protest against the murder of filmmaker Theo van Gogh consisted for the most part of older men, sometimes accompanied by their grandsons. This seems typical of the reach of the average small mosque in the Netherlands: the first generation and the very young third generation, who are sent to lessons in the Koran. There are, of course, young second-generation Muslims who frequent the mosque. But because most imams either belong to the first generation or have recently flown in from Turkey or Morocco, they have difficulty developing a lasting relationship with the generations that have grown up in the Netherlands. Remarkably, a number of mosques with more outspoken imams of Egyptian or Syrian background, attract more youngsters, albeit that only a handful of such ‘radical mosques’ exists, all of which are under strict surveillance of the national security apparatus. Increasingly often, mosques are organising social and cultural activities, sometimes for non-Muslims as well, and this extends their reach. But the modern-day infrastructure of Islam in the Netherlands is characterised mainly by small prayer houses that are attended only by men from, for example, Morocco, Turkey or Surinam. Mosque attendance does not provide any definite answers about the degree of religiosity. There are many women who, apart from wearing a headscarf, express their faith within the closed circle of family and female friends. Mosque attendance is not generally obligatory; it is permissible to pray elsewhere, as women are often advised to do (which is not to say that they do not visit the mosque for other activities).

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 A small number of Muslims go to the mosque every day, sometimes more than once. But the day of observance for Islam is

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Friday, when the most important visit to the mosque takes place in the early afternoon, a time of day that is difficult to reconcile with Dutch working hours. There is also a great deal of variation within the different ethnic groups. In addition to this, some Islamic organisations in the Netherlands are still at an experimental stage and therefore not always stable - and the same can be said of the environment within which they operate - with the result that particular incidents often appear to define their identity. For example, until Spring 2006 the Turkish movement Milli Görüs Nederland was seen as strongly focused on its Dutch surroundings, with an emphasis on social participation. Other Turkish organisations place more emphasis on Turkish identity or on the religious way of life. The planned Westermoskee, or Western Mosque, in Amsterdam has come to symbolise the Milli Görüs approach: a mosque to be built in Dutch brick, modelled on classic Ottoman mosque architecture by a French-Jewish architect, and equipped with meeting rooms and sheltered accommodation. In keeping with good old Dutch tradition, there were years of in-depth consultation with all interested parties in the neighbourhood, especially with the participating local housing association. However, after a changing of the guard at Milli Görüs, this model plan is hanging in the balance. The housing association is demanding that the new board should agree to propagate a liberal interpretation of Islam. As the Cologne-based leadership of Milli Görüs, which has the reputation of being conservative, even Islamist, has a deciding role in changes to the board, the concerns of the housing association are perhaps not unfounded. But that a non-Islamic housing association should make emphatic statements about the religious direction of a mosque that has not yet been built is remarkable in a country that is perceived as secular. Could it be that too much attention is being paid to the practising Muslim?

Degrees of faith

Many Muslims in the Netherlands rarely or never go to the mosque, but will still, when asked, describe themselves as ‘Muslim’. Not only is mosque attendance as such not obligatory, there are branches of Islam in the Netherlands in which the mosque plays no part.4 For many non-Muslims, who often see Islam as a religion of prohibitions and commandments, it may seem strange that even people who hardly, if at all, adhere to those dos and don'ts still continue to see themselves as Muslims. Even within their own ranks, the way of life of many Turks, Moroccans or groups from other countries can often be met with incomprehension. The generation gap between the first and second generations is often significant. Consequently, the younger generation has to conquer and defend a place not only ‘outside’, but also at home. This can be a tall order, particularly for girls. There are also fellow believers who are disturbed by ‘irreligious’ behaviour amongst Muslims, including traditional imams whose sermons frequently warn of the temptations of non-religious society. Some younger Muslims also criticise what they perceive as shortcomings in the religious practice of their peers and sometimes even of their parents. Then there is also that small group of ‘born-again’ Muslims and converts who criticise the way

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 older and younger generations practise their religion and also call for what they see as ‘pure’ Islam to be embraced, an Islam independent of the traditions of the

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 188 countries of origin. Members of this last group are sometimes referred to as salafi. This is a branch of Islam in which young converts can feel at home; they too are in search of an experience of religion that stands apart from their own background. Radicalisation in the sense of expressly distancing oneself from one's own community and from Dutch society also occurs. Occasionally this leads to attempted or actual violent protest, such as Mohammed B.'s murder of Theo van Gogh and Samir A.'s planned attacks on targets including the headquarters of the AIVD, the Dutch security and intelligence service. On the basis of new anti-terrorism legislation, Samir A. was sentenced to eight years imprisonment in December 2006. But just as in other religious traditions, devoutness more often leads to an experience of religion that is strongly focused on piety, which may sometimes appear strange to others, but for precisely this reason seems to offer purification to the believer. Some critics of Islam believe that the ‘average’ Muslim in the Netherlands continues to refer to himself or herself as Muslim for fear of retaliation from the Islamic community. However, this is questionable. Ties with parents and family in the country of origin and links with Islamic culture are probably more important factors in the Muslim identity. There are even people who refer to themselves as ‘culturally Muslim’, thereby indicating that they do not pay much attention to the Koran, let alone the imam, but that they certainly are attached to their own background, of which the Islamic culture is a part. Polarisation within the debate on integration in recent years has led to many new Dutch citizens being confronted with ‘fundamental’ - in fact often crude - criticism of Islam (‘a backward culture’). So far, the persistently negative and corrective approach to Dutch people of Islamic background has only served to reinforce Islamic identity. Translated by Laura Watkinsons

Eindnoten:

1 In de Volkskrant, 12 September 1991. 2 Pim Fortuyn, Tegen de islamisering van onze cultuur. Nederlandse identiteit als fundament. Utrecht, 1997. 3 In NRC Handelsblad, 29 January 2000. 4 This applies particularly to the Alevis, who form a significant minority amongst Turks and Kurds.

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From Poppentje to Jan Turpijn Puppet Theatre in the Low Countries [Jos Nijhof]

It should come as no surprise that the famous story of Pinocchio the marionette by the Italian author Carlo Collodi (1826-1890) has become the standard that is constantly used to demonstrate the nature of puppet theatre. A piece of wood that becomes human, lifeless material that gains a soul - through the agency of a creator and the imagination of the viewer - this is the essence of an age-old form of theatre that is still able to enthral children and adults to this very day. It is not only the effect of this mythical power, but also the universal nature of the Pinocchio story, informed after all by the classic struggle between good and evil, that enables one to recognise the riches that puppet theatre (past and present) offers.

Breathing life into matter

While Pinocchio is the product of the mind of a single thinker, the origin of such archetypal puppets as Jan Klaassen and Katrijn in the Low Countries, and Punch and Judy in Britain, is veiled in anonymity, though it must in part be sought in the fourteenth-century Italian commedia dell'arte. As is well known, these primarily involve glove puppets acting within the limited bounds of a miniature theatre and - although in caricature - they clearly have the character and physiognomy of people. In the puppet theatre now popular in the Netherlands and Flanders, the essence of the Pinocchio myth has retained its power, but the limitations of the traditional glove puppet and the marionette dangling from its strings have been completely abandoned. Shapeless pieces of wood, rubber, plastic, scraps of fabric, velvet, canvas - there are few materials that have not in one way or another been brought to life. It is a long time since the miniature theatre was a necessary aid to hiding the puppeteer from the spectators' view. In fact, he actually tries to demonstrate his virtuosity by transferring his living presence to the lifeless matter or, as a human being, entering into dialogue with these materials. One fine example is Fred Delgaauw, a Dutch puppeteer who has been showered with prizes and honours and who in recent years has been the only one repeatedly able to outdo the large theatre companies in the competition to win

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Fred Delfgauuw, Less is More (Minder is meer, 2005-2006). Photo by Maarten Brinkgreve the public's favour. The title of the piece with which Delfgaauw celebrated his twenty-fifth anniversary as a puppeteer in the 2005-2006 season - Less is More (Minder is meer) - is very much to the point. The two shopping baskets he brings onto the stage contain everything he needs to entertain the audience for at least an hour and a half: fabrics, masks, feathers, gloves and various other things of that sort. But he can even manage it without any of these props: virtuoso vocal inflections and a pair of bare hands turn out to be sufficient to create two fullyfledged ‘actors’. Earlier, in the highly acclaimed Mozart, Delfgaauw tried to dispose of the myth of good and evil that had hung like a cloud over the lives of the great composer and his contemporary Antonio Salieri even as recently as in Peter Shaffer's film Amadeus. Mozart was a spirited call for the rehabilitation of the persecuted composer Salieri, which showed Delfgaauw to be a passionate artist of exceptional eloquence not only in terms of form, but also of content.

The influence of the media

In the same way as the puppet Pinocchio is probably more famous than his inventor Collodi, puppet theatre in the Netherlands and Flanders also has its examples of creations whose fame exceeds that of their creators. Few people in the Netherlands will know that the small stick puppet Poppentje, hardly bigger than a sturdy male hand, was made by Roberta Amador, a performer with Speeltheater Holland in Edam who originates from Brazil. Poppentje's career

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Roberta Amador's Poppentje came to an end in April 2004, after this small creature had toured theatres for two seasons with its four players, a singer and a pianist. Poppentje on Tour, a musical show for children of four years and over, owed its success (which even led to the setting up of its own website: www.poppentje.nl) mainly to the fact that Poppentje had for several years previously appeared in a series as part of the popular children's programme Villa Achterwerk. After all, what applies to people also applies to puppets: nowadays they can only become famous when the media, and especially television, focus attention on them. That the Poppentje series actually did have something worthwhile to offer was clearly shown when in 2002 it won the prestigious Prix Jeunesse International in Munich, for television for children up to the age of six. Television has of course created other heroes and heroines besides Poppentje, in programmes both for children and adults. The Muppet Show, produced in England, was also an overwhelming success in the Netherlands and Flanders, and the same applies to the American Sesame Street. The Dutch and Flemish public broadcasters have now been jointly showing this programme, about 60% of which has in the meantime been adapted for the Dutch language area, for more than 30 years. Every child, every adult and every pensioner knows such figures as Bert and Ernie, and also figures that do not appear in the American version, such as Tommie the dog and leniemienie the mouse. At the same time, both Dutch and Flemish television have their own icons, Samson being one that definitely merits a mention: a mischievous woolly dog who enjoys a variety of adventures with the human characters in the Flemish series Samson and Gert.

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The digital age has also made it possible to create ‘virtual’ three-dimensional puppets. These new techniques are used to the full in television and film. There are as yet few influential Dutch or Flemish examples of this type of film, whose popularity began in about 1995 with such productions as Disney's Toy Story. To name just one example, Dutch television has Café the World (Café de Wereld), a satirical animated series for adults. This virtual café is the meeting place for caricatures of well-known Dutch people, ranging from old soccer god Johan Cruijff to Queen Beatrix, in the form of 3-D computer animations. They are the contemporary equivalent of the latex puppets through which politics and society were once ridiculed in the BBC series Spitting Image.

A palette of many colours

With Café the World we have wandered a long way from living puppet theatre. Nevertheless, if we are talking about developments in the performing arts, the significance of electronic media can hardly be exaggerated. What about a Disney animated film like The Lion King, whose huge success enabled it to live a second, no less successful life as a musical? A musical, moreover, whose tone was largely defined by the most fantastic puppets. In August 2006, after at least a thousand performances, the curtain fell for the last time on the Dutch version of The Lion King, while the question remains whether it was primarily a musical or a puppet-theatre show. What is clear, at least to its creators, is that a strict division between genres is entirely irrelevant. Producers and companies prefer to go for the largest possible target group. For example, in its mission statement the Froe Froe company from Antwerp, which is acclaimed both in Belgium and abroad, put it like this: ‘Froe Froe makes theatre for children, adolescents and adults. Theatre that is a disciplinary crossover involving puppets, figures, objects, video, actors and live music.’ This is an indication not only of the breadth of the target group, but also of the links between the puppet theatre and countless other art forms. It is often not even possible to categorise a particular company under ‘puppet theatre’. The presence of one or more puppets (or objects that look like them), the movement of living actors as if they were marionettes, and the use of shadow play, plus many other methods and techniques from puppet theatre, have in recent years frequently been integrated not only into children's theatre but also adult productions. In 1998, the Hotel Modern company from Rotterdam was awarded the Puppet Theatre Incentive Prize by the Amsterdam Art Fund for its play City Now (Heden stad), though its creators themselves admit they had not even realised they were making puppet theatre. Hotel Modern is thus a typical example of a company that cannot easily be categorised. It does not avoid disturbing and adult topics, but at the same time opts for design of childlike simplicity. KAMP, a recent production, confronts the spectator with a day and a night in life - and more especially death - in Auschwitz. In a concentration camp that is true to life but scaled to fit the stage, the three actors bring to life thousands of 8 cm-tall puppets - primitively made using wire, clay and black & white striped fabric. Finger-mounted cameras are used to film

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 and project the movements of these little human figures onto the large backcloth. What links this company to classical ‘puppeteers’ is not so much the presence of the figures, but the extent to

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Hotel Modern. KAMP (2005-2006) Photo courtesy of Tamara Keasberry/Hotel Modern which they invoke the power of the imagination: the audience is not shown how Auschwitz was, but fantasises about how it might have been. The type of theatre Hotel Modern makes can be compared to what Rieks Swarte does in Haarlem. The characteristics of this artist's work are the small format, the evocative material and the childishly logical acting style - which is why his productions are sometimes labelled ‘toy performances’. If such a categorisation evokes associations with puerility and immaturity, the shows themselves immediately prove the opposite. For example, a piece based on the Nigerian writer Ben Okri's novel The Famished Road was an extraordinarily compelling play that was received with rapturous applause by both audience and press. After the first night on 23 September 2003 the newspaper De Telegraaf wrote: ‘Theatre as it was once intended to be’.

Rooted in tradition

When one goes in search of places that are deeply rooted in the history of puppet theatre, Flanders offers richer pickings than the Netherlands. To give an example, a few small theatres in Antwerp, often housed in cellars (where rents have always been lowest), still occasionally put on shows in much the same way as in the nineteenth century, when puppet theatre was the ultimate entertainment for the lower classes in working-class neighbourhoods. Such labels as ‘de Poesje’ and ‘poesjenellenkelder’, meaning the performance and the venue respectively, are a direct reference to the villain Pulcinella in commedia dell'arte. Performances are still given using the classic rod puppet in rough wood, and of course in the city's own dialect. Popular puppet theatre in other cities, towns and villages, both in Flanders and the Netherlands, can also rejoice in its continued existence, even if on a limited scale and outside the circuit of government-subsidised theatre. Over the last two or three decades the genre has been so thoroughly rejuvenated that the classic rod puppets and marionettes, in their naturalistic cabinet setting, are by now considered historical curios, even though in 2007 the professionalism of their operators deserves much admiration. What is more, there are actually a small number of well-known subsidised companies that have built up substantial international

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 reputations and at the same time have been able, very ingeniously, to integrate the tradition into their innovative approach.

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Figurentheater De Maan Snow white (Sneeuw white 2005) Photo by Rudy Gadeyne

Theater Taptoe, Don G. (2006-2007) Photo courtesy of Theater Taptoe

This applies to De Maan in Mechelen and certainly Taptoe in Ghent too: this is a company that has mastered the technical refinement of the commedia dell'arte but still has unmistakably popular leanings, while successfully combining puppet theatre, music and mime in a ‘modern’ manner. The nostalgia for classic puppetry even led Luk de Bruyker, the artistic head of Taptoe, to take up ‘Pierke’ once again, the marionette which in Ghent has been the symbol of ‘the man in the street’ since the beginning of the last century, making down-to-earth but razor-sharp comments on topical issues while avoiding the trap of self-importance. With his Ghent dialect and mocking gaze focused firmly on Ghent affairs, the area in which he can work, and thus also his significance, remains limited. As De Bruyker himself put it in an interview, ‘Pierke's importance is very local and is an agreeable way of venting one's feelings, but Taptoe has a much dearer significance on the broader Flemish and international scenes’ (Het Volk, 13 July 2001). As already mentioned, we find this combination of artistic ambitions and popular simplicity much more in Flanders than the Netherlands, where classic puppetry is much less rooted in the past and what does remain from the past

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 195 has in addition been more and more marginalised. It's true that Jan Klaassen and Katrijn are part of the Netherlands' collective memory, but apart from the occasional performance at a children's party they rarely appear in public. So the folklore of traditional puppet theatre has not survived to the same extent as in Flanders, and the majority of the countless puppets who were once responsible for entertaining the man in the street now have to make do with a silent existence, for example at the celebrated museum in the small town of Vorchten in Gelderland, which houses an impressive collection of puppets of every sort. The traditional puppet does nevertheless continue to have a certain attraction. To provide somewhat curious proof of this, we might mention a special savings campaign organised by the Albert Heijn supermarket chain in 2004. Customers could save up for a puppet theatre and a series of glove puppets of fairytale figures, but the campaign had to be stopped halfway: the company's stock of 1.3 million puppets was exhausted with unexpected rapidity.

Broad recognition

For a long time puppet theatre had no general policy, due not only to its lack of recognition as a fulty-fledged genre in the performing arts, but also to the individualism of the performers who found it difficult to approach each other and work together. In the meantime, both in the Netherlands and Flanders a number of companies and individuals working professionally in puppet theatre are now subsidised by the government. When one also includes hybrid forms of the genre - such as object theatre and visual theatre - the numbers are actually quite considerable. When it comes to recognition, there have been many changes for the better in the last two decades. This is of course entirely due to the quality offered, which is already apparent from the huge success Dutch and Flemish puppeteers enjoy at major international festivals. However, there exists no training course for puppeteers, for example as a specialisation within a theatre course, despite several attempts in the past to remedy this. In 1993 the College of Arts in Utrecht did for some time offer a course in ‘puppet and mask performance’, but this initiative has since been absorbed into a module in which traditional puppet animation is combined with 3-D computer animation. In the Netherlands, the interests of non- and semi-professional practitioners of the genre are promoted by the Dutch Association for Puppetry (NVP; Nederlandse Vereniging voor het Poppenspel), which is the most important centre for information on and the promotion of Dutch puppet theatre in the broadest sense of the term. Its objectives include the promotion of expertise and the exchange of information. Puppeteers are given the opportunity to maintain and increase their professional skills by means of workshops and master classes given by renowned Dutch and foreign colleagues. In Flanders there is a similar umbrella organisation called Het Firmament, an institution one of whose aims is: ‘to protect and administer the past and future heritage of Flemish puppet theatre and to make it accessible to present and future generations.’

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 To give one more indication of the breadth of puppet theatre and what it means to the culture of the Low Countries, it is sufficient to refer to a type of puppet that we have not so far mentioned: the ‘town giant’. Flanders has hun-

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 196 dreds of these giants, several metres tall, that are carried in traditional parades and processions. One finds one or more giants in almost every town in Flanders and to a lesser extent in the southern part of the Netherlands. Sometimes they will have been honoured and cherished for centuries as leading representatives of the town. The largest known giant is called Jan Turpijn and comes from the town of Nieuwpoort; he has his own website (www. jan-turpijn.tk) where one can discover that he is 10.4 m tall, weighs 750 kg and needs 24 people to carry him. In November 2005 UNESCO inscribed the ‘giant’ processions of Brussels, Mechelen, Dendermonde, Aat and Mons on its World Heritage list. The average puppet in modern puppet theatre does not enjoy this degree of honour. For most of them a lifespan of one or at most two seasons on the stage is all that is feasible. But any spectator who is struck by their appearance - as a puppet, a mask, a piece of fabric, or a bare hand - will remember that image for a long time afterwards. There is after all no other form of theatre that is able to suggest so much with so few means and to stimulate the mind with so much subtlety. It is precisely in this respect that the ‘traditional’ puppet theatre has so much more to offer the audience than modern computer animation. So it does not seem too daring to suppose that the spell puppet theatre has cast over children and adults for centuries will not fail of its effect in generations to come. Translated by Gregory Ball

Further information

Fred Delfgaauw: www.delfgaauw.nl Poppentje: www.poppentje.nl Speeltheater Holland: www.speeltheater.nl Froe Froe: www.froefroe.be Hotel Modern: www.hotelmodem.nl Rieks Swarte: www.firmarieksswarte.nl De Maan: www.demaan.be Taptoe: www.theatertaptoe.be Puppetry Museum (Vorchten): www.poppenspelmuseum.nl Dutch Association for Puppetry (NVP): www.poppenspelers.nl Het Firmament: www.hetfirmament.be Jan Turpijn: www.jan-turpijn.tk

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Belgium and the Domestication of its Islamic Diaspora [Meryem Kanmaz & Sami Zemni]

The Muslim community in Belgium consists mainly of foreign workers who were recruited from the Mediterranean area from the mid-1960s onwards to work in the metal and mining industries.1. These Islamic ‘guest workers’ began settling in Belgium from that time on on the basis of agreements between the Belgian government and, in particular, the Moroccan and Turkish governments.2. In addition to this ‘regulated’ and organised immigration, there was also a second, less structured wave of migration from the Maghreb and Turkey. This was partly the result of the immigration freeze imposed in 1974 in response to the economic crisis in the early 1970s. However, this freeze did not lead to a reduction in immigration, since family unification and tourist visas provided alternative means of entry. These second-wave migrants settled mainly in Flanders, and particularly in and around the port city of Antwerp and the industrial city of Ghent. Whereas in 1960 there were around 1,200 migrants from Islamic countries residing in Belgium, by 1970 their number had risen to around 65,000, and had swelled further to some 200,000 by 1985. A third of these were of Turkish origin, with the remaining two-thirds coming from the Maghreb, especially Morocco. It is difficult to discover the precise number of Muslims because people's religions are not registered in Belgium. During the run-up to the elections for the Muslim Executive in 1998, the total number of Muslims was estimated at 350,000, including converts. Figures from the early 1990s show that the majority came from the Maghreb: 164,900 Moroccans, 8,300 Tunisians and 12,400 Algerians, plus 99,000 from Turkey. Other groups of Muslims made up the other 4,800. According to this estimate, Muslims accounted for around 2.9% of the total population of Belgium. Today, the estimates have increased to 416,000 persons of Islamic origin, or 4% of the Belgian population.3. When looking at these figures one needs to consider the distribution of these groups throughout Belgium. Roughly 40% of the Muslims in Belgium live in the Brussels agglomeration, 16.5% of the population of the national capital. The remaining 60% are distributed throughout Wallonia and Flanders. The 162,000 Muslims in Flanders represent 3% of the Flemish population, the same percentage as the 94,000 Muslims living in Wallonia. The Maghreb community tends to live in French-speaking Belgium (Brussels and Wallonia), with almost

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 198 half of them (47%) living in the Brussels agglomeration. 50% of Turkish immigrants living in Belgium have opted to live in Flanders (mainly in the province of Limburg and the cities of Antwerp and Ghent), while the other half are evenly distributed between Wallonia and Brussels. Despite the growing number of converts, Islam in Belgium is still predominantly an ‘immigrant religion’, from the first waves of labour migration in the 1960s to the present influx of asylum-seekers, economic and political refugees. This picture of the Muslim presence not only reflects social reality but also points to a certain construct of what is ‘other’. As in other European countries, the social debate today is no longer focused so much on the economic, social and political integration and incorporation of immigrants, but is much more concerned with the place and role of Islam in Belgian and/or Flemish society. Partly due to the influence of the international context, marked by the scars of the terrorist attacks of 9/11 and the ensuing wars and terror attacks worldwide, the debate on Islam is increasingly characterised by the desire to assert more control over Muslims. Despite the sometimes doom-laden messages of extremist or populist political parties feeding on Islamophobic prejudice, the realisation simultaneously grew in Belgium - as elsewhere in Europe - that the Muslims were here to stay and that there was a need to formalise the relations with Islam. Three approaches appear to be favoured in seeking to embed Islam in the Belgian political, policy and social landscape: first, attempts are being made to recognise Islam as an official Belgian faith alongside other religions; secondly, Islam is being given an explicit place within the (Flemish) minorities policy; and finally, Islam (with the entrance of Muslims to the public arena) is being used more and more as a central marker in a collective identity which is then used to distinguish its members from a European/Flemish identity.

Institutionalisation

Within the perceived need for ‘normalisation’ of relations between Belgium and Islam, the primary aim was to give Islam an institutional place in Belgian society. This means that Islam, as a constitutionally recognised religion, would be entitled to government support. However, this recognition was soon qualified by the condition that Muslims had to unite in an organised body which would represent their interests. In other words, this development is about nothing less than the creation of an ‘Islamic church’. The Belgian model of the separation of Church and State has a specific tradition that each constitutionally recognised religion can apply for subsidies for the organisation of the ‘secular aspects of the faith’. Since Islam was recognised as early as 1974 by the Belgian legislator, in addition to five other faiths (the Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox and Anglican churches plus Judaism) and the humanist tradition, the Islamic religion was henceforth also eligible for government subsidy. However, a problem arose here in that Islam, unlike the other religions, did not have an established clergy or hierarchical body which could represent Muslims and distribute the subsidies. Until 1998, the year in which elections to a Muslim representative body were held for the first time, the issue of the organisation of Islam thus became stranded in debates about the form and content of this representative body.

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The spires of Beringen: church and mosque. Photo by Gert Jochems.

The requirement that this body should be representative therefore not surprisingly crops up as regularly as clockwork in the negotiations for recognition of the Islamic religion. Since 1974 the Belgian government has held fast to the idea that the body should represent ‘all Muslims in Belgium’. The biggest group of Muslims (roughly 200,000 people) are of Moroccan origin, followed by around 100,000 Muslims of Turkish origin. The remaining 100,000 Muslims originate from countries such as Egypt, Nigeria, Algeria, Tunisia, the Balkans, etc, but also include converts. In addition to this ‘ethnic’ division, there is of course a degree of religious diversity which depends on the Islamic systems of law (Madhabs), Sufi brotherhoods and sects. On top of this there are also any number of ‘Muslims’ who practise their religion very little if at all and who define themselves much more as ‘cultural Muslims’. The question of how to organise this diversity is accordingly the central element in the series of negotiations and debates which have spanned recent decades. Even though the idea of free elections was raised at an early stage by both Muslims and the government, it still took until the end of the 1990s before the first election was actually organised. The wait-and-see attitude of the government was prompted by several factors. First and foremost, banal political considerations played a role; several

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 200 politicians simply lacked the political will to tackle the issue of institutionalisation. The steady growth of the extreme right-wing political movement in Flanders (Vlaams Belang, which superseded the earlier Vlaams Blok) meant that some politicians did not regard it as opportune to ‘say anything’ or ‘do anything’ about Islam. In addition, it had become clear that the government had long continued to regard Islam as something ‘foreign’, and therefore as part of its foreign policy. The influence of the embassies of Rabat and Ankara continually hampered the creation of a ‘Belgian’ Muslim dynamic. The Muslims themselves, in all their diversity, agreed that elections were possibly the best way of achieving representation, but (rightly) posed the question of how they should be organised. For the first elections on 13 December 1998, the government opted for an ‘ethnic representation’, in which Muslims were divided into ‘national categories of origin’. Regardless of whether or not someone held Belgian nationality, he or she had to be a candidate (or voter) in one of the four established electoral categories (‘Turks’, ‘Moroccans’, ‘Other nationalities’, ‘Converts’). This classification was accepted by the majority of Muslims, although in recent years several organisations and individuals have challenged this arrangement in the courts. Objections were raised: why not allow Muslims to vote on the basis of their religious school (Malikites, Hanafites,...), or why not have lists of Muslim candidates (regardless of their nationality of origin) grouped around a common programme? 68% of the 70,000 registered voters ultimately actually cast their votes during these first elections in 1998. Right from the beginning, however, it became clear that there were all manner of problems. Some politicians felt that the Muslim Council and the proposed Executive were ‘hotbeds of fundamentalists and radicals’. Amidst total chaos and lack of transparency the elected members of the Council and the proposed candidates for the Executive were ‘screened’ without any clear legislative framework (and without any real possibility of checks and balances exercised by Parliament and/or the courts) and individuals were barred or discouraged from sitting on the EMB (Belgian Muslims Executive). Rumours went around that the ‘Muslim brothers’ had taken command of ‘Belgian Islam’ or ‘were hiding in the shadow of the unsuspecting elected members’. Even within the EMB it turned out that there was hardly any consensus between the different religious communities, and this led to complete inertia and stagnation in all the areas which the Executive was intended to address. These internal divisions quickly rose to the surface, revealing a number of fault lines. The institutionalisation of Islam, it turned out, related primarily to Moroccan French-speaking Muslims from Brussels. The Muslims in Flanders, especially those of Maghreb and, more specifically, Moroccan origin, organised from the mosques in the Unions of Mosques and Islamic Associations, increasingly began to press for the organisation of new elections in which they would be better represented. On the other hand, it would be just too easy to ascribe the failures of the Executive solely to the elected members. The political authorities, through the atmosphere of suspicion they helped to create, forced the Executive into an impasse. Moreover, yet another round of ‘regionalisation à la belge’ had fragmented the political powers regarding religion and dispersed them between the Belgian, Flemish, provincial and municipal levels, so that no one knew any longer how to bring the issue of ‘recognising a mosque’ to a satisfactory conclusion.

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 201

Following the installation of a temporary transitional Executive in July 2003, new elections were organised in March 2005 in a bid to resolve all these problems and meet the wishes of the Muslims. Ultimately around 69,500 Muslims registered to vote in these elections, of whom 63% (43,765 persons) actually did so. The results, which were announced two days later, once again caused some commotion. It turned out that it was primarily Muslims of Turkish origin who had voted, with the result that 40 of the 68 seats on the Council went to the ‘Turkish community’. The champion of the elections was a woman: Hacer Düzgün, who polled almost 4,000 votes, the largest number of any candidate. While the Turkish communities succeeded in mobilising a large section of the Muslim population, some Muslims of Moroccan origin began to call for... new elections. In any event, the outcome of the elections was not an unqualified success for the government. The fact that a fair number of the Moroccan community stayed away from the ballot box again rekindled the issue of representativeness. Why does the Belgian government impose a requirement on Muslims that they must designate representative leaders for the organisation of their religion? No one has ever asked themselves whether the Catholic Church is representative of all Belgian Catholics or whether the Hebrew Synod represents all Jews in Belgium. In the context of the separation of Church and State, there is also a question to be answered about the limits of government intervention in the organisation of a religion. After all, government and policymakers have no power to intervene in the internal organisation of the Church, nor in the appointment of its representatives, nor in its theology. So why is this requirement of representativeness imposed on Muslims? Even if we assume that some policymakers sincerely believe in the utility of a representative body - in the sense that a non-representative head of a religion is not an ideal discussion partner - this still raises questions about the function of this body. Constitutionally, what is involved is the founding of a body which receives money from the government in order to organise the secular aspects of Islam. Since the 1990s the idea has grown, particularly in Dutch-speaking Belgium, that this body will solve all the problems in relation to the ‘integration’ policy and social issues. This is not said in so many words, but closer analysis of the debates within the different Flemish political parties reveals that the hypotheses that are put forward are concerned not only with the composition of a body for the organisation of the religion, but also and primarily with finding a privileged discussion partner with power that goes beyond the purely religious level. Even if this discourse does not exist officially and is not written down in laws or policy guidelines, for various reasons some political parties and intellectual circles harbour fears about the installation of an Islamic head of religion. Extreme right-wing groups rejected this idea and called for the abolition of the recognition of Islam as such because such a body could lead to the creation of a separatist Islamic pillar within Belgian society. This goes against their view of integration, which actually boils down to assimilation. In these circles Islam is also seen as a threat to the ‘Judaeo-Christian’ tradition of Flanders and Belgium. A similar uneasiness can be observed in some progressive circles. Their fears are not so much concerned with a perceived threat to the ‘Judaeo-Christian’ identity, but derive mainly from their views on secularisation and the separation Of Church and State, with the (historical) conflict between humanists and Catholics being translated into the question of the recognition of Islam. Such

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 202 recognition, they argue, would increase the power of religious circles, and this would nullify the battle of the humanists against the all-embracing power of the Catholic Church. Their standpoint can be summarised with the adage ‘what is a right for humanists should be a duty for Muslims.’4.

Muslims or immigrants?

Management of the ‘Islamic issue’ in Belgium was moreover characterised right from the beginning by concerns regarding the integration of immigrants/minorities. This gave rise to a debate on the ‘intrinsic’ contribution of Islam to the integration of Muslim immigrants. It was in 1989, with the foundation of the Royal Commission for Migrants (Koninklijk Commissariaat voor Migranten, KCM), headed by Paula D'Hondt (a Christian Democrat), that the first coherent ‘integration’ and minorities policy came into being. From the start there were differences in the way in which a future policy was perceived and interpreted by French-speakers and Dutch-speakers. The integration concept was consequently defined in terms of different logics on the two sides of the language border. In Wallonia, the historical predominance of the Socialist Party (PS) meant that greater emphasis was placed on the integration of ‘the disadvantaged’, ‘des jeunes/quartiers défavorisés’. Virtually no attention was paid to the culture of these groups, let alone their religion. In Flanders, by contrast, this cultural and religious individuality and identity was seen as more important. It is not the case, however, that in French-speaking Belgium Islam was not an issue. There alignment was sought with the (French) discourse of secularity which focused on the ‘incompatibility of Islam and democracy’ on the one hand and on ‘fundamentalism’ on the other. These ideas were then extrapolated to the Belgian immigration context. Despite these differences, the first report of the KCM (1989) revealed a consensus that Islam should not be treated as a separate issue but should be given a place within the integration policy. It was in this report that Islam and Muslims, and thus the religious aspect of immigrants, first explicitly came into the discussion. The integration concept applied in the report was couched primarily in negative terms. The emphasis it placed on equality between men and women and its focus on democratic principles were used not as levers for the emancipation of minorities, but rather as norms which had to be achieved. It was as if immigrants, and in particular Muslims, were required to accept these specific conditions before being able to claim their constitutional rights.5. A central element in these debates in the 1990s was the desire to create a representative body for all Muslims in Belgium. There were two recurrent and allied elements here: (a) the different treatment of Islam from the other recognised religions, and (b) the functioning, role and objectives of this body. Muslims, but also and above all indigenous politicians, not only saw the elections and the founding of the Muslim Executive as a vehicle for the organisation of the religion, they also assigned it a role in the integration process. Even though this desire was not always expressed, it was clear that the institutionalisation of Islam was seen in part as a potential remedy for the so-called ‘failure of integration’. Resistance to

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 this came mainly from non-practising Muslims; they felt that the problems of integration demanded a strong political policy far more than an ‘ethnic-religious’ remedy. Secular, non-Muslim politicians from

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 203 several parties concurred with this, but still hoped that non-practising Muslims would also stand as candidates in the elections. This desire was accordingly translated into the ‘demand’ by the government that the Executive should include a sufficient number of young people and women. Muslims responded that, given the separation of Church and State, the government should not meddle in that body's internal organisation. Moreover, as a number of Muslims pointed out, there was another pertinent question: ‘Are there women or young people in the Catholic Church who are represented by the Council of Bishops and Cardinals?’. The management of the Islamic religion, including the recognition of mosques, is today still characterised by this focus on integration. For example, the present Flemish Minister for Integration announced that in the context of the recognition and subsidising of mosques, those mosques would henceforth be required to communicate in the Dutch language. Some of the other conditions imposed were that hostile imams should be barred and that Muslims should systematically condemn acts of terrorism and must display tolerance of homosexuals, lesbians and bisexuals and people with different religious beliefs.

Citizenship and identity

All these different debates, inspired by divergent visions of people and society, are important because they say something not only about the degree and way in which Muslims define themselves and are defined by others, but also about the definition of what Belgium and/or Flanders is in the context of a secularised democracy in a globalising world. This shows that behind the ‘issue of Islam’ lurk social issues which are in essence about society and social cohesion, but also about the definition of what ‘identity’ is or should be. In the context of the European diaspora, globalisation processes are bringing the issue of identity more and more to the fore. Because although globalisation leads to homogenisation, at the same time it creates a need to define and delineate. During these processes, in which identities are reshaped, the minority position of Muslims and other minorities is a decisive element. Identities are relational, situational and flexible, not a finished product but something that is constantly undergoing development. The Belgian context in which Muslims function - how they are perceived and the opportunities they are given - ultimately determines the direction and form of the construction of identities. It is the confrontation with what is ‘other’ that makes the construction of the ‘self’ possible. Although identities today are construed in a transnational context, it is thus apparent that the local and national context of the countries of residence, with their specific laws, political traditions and sensitivities, also play a decisive role. All this helps to influence the position and condition of Muslims in Europe. At a structural level, this raises questions about the space allowed for Muslims in the Belgian setting. Among other things these questions focus on the place of religion in a secularised Western world. Muslims who demand their place in the public arena give rise to questions about principles which are perceived as inalienable European

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 characteristics or as part of the ‘national identity/culture’. Questions also arise regarding the incorporation or exclusion of religious

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 204 minorities within the nation state and the tolerated ‘hybridisation’ of the public arena: how much mixing and how many differences can it cope with? At an ideological level, the fact that Islam is (still) perceived as the religion of ‘the other’, as a ‘foreign religion’, influences the space given to Muslims. The question arises here of how the perceived ‘other’ should be given (or acquire) a place in today's multicultural society (regardless of what identities they put forward in terms of religion, language, culture,....). Ultimately this is a debate about citizenship. The way in which the various nation states deal with the diversity of their societies differs widely. The scale stretches from the British multiculturalist model to French assimilationism. Within these different national settings, Muslims accordingly organise themselves in different ways. Although Muslims fall back on their own resources embedded in things such as supranational networks, it is clear that the national politics and context play a decisive or at least an important role in the space offered for community-building and action. Nonetheless, it is not simply a case of adding up the possibilities and impossibilities, the opportunities and limitations. Identity-building and collective action also have to be seen in the context of the battle/negotiation for symbolic representation and meaning. This battle for representation or cultural difference encounters resistance from the established groups in the majority community. Racism and Islamophobia stem from this. In this sense, identity construction, self-determination and collective action by Muslims in the diaspora also constitute an answer to the homogenising dominant discourse of a developing European identity. We believe that the building of new identities by (Muslim) minorities in the European setting is taking place within the context of the construction of a supranational European identity, or in other words in the light of an ever-advancing ‘Europeanisation’ on the one hand, and on the other of a redefinition within this context of national and regional identities. This is accompanied by the construction of a new ‘other’, and more specifically, of ‘the other within’, which is no longer interpreted in ethnic but in religious terms. From this perspective, identity constructions by Muslim minorities should be seen as a response to stigmatisation and labels which are applied/ascribed to them by the majority society, but also as a reaction to the denial of recognition of the identity that they put forward. The way in which minorities use these elements to mobilise and thus as a means of making their voice heard in the public arena differs from the definition that they create of their situation. The institutionalisation of Islam is not simply a ‘technical’ question, but also refers to new forms of citizenship and, accompanying this, (potential) new interpretations of identities. On the one hand, in recent years there has been a great deal of talk in Belgium (as in other European countries) about the emergence (or creation) of a ‘European’ or even a ‘Belgian’ Islam; on the other hand, people continue to opt for ethnic and national representation based on the country of origin. These two logics are however diametrically opposed to each other. While the centralisation of religious identity apparently pushes ethnicity into the background, given that this promotion of ‘Islam’ as a basis for an all-inclusive and universal identity is intended (for both Muslims and non-Muslims) to transcend ties with ‘the country of origin’, in reality it generates new social problems. ‘Islam’ is in turn ‘ethnicised’, as it were, and henceforth becomes a new ethnic identity in which

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 the figure of ‘the Muslim’ ushers in a new category of citizenship. On the other hand, ‘the Muslim’, as well as the practising

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 205 and religious Muslim, is also still a term that refers to someone originating from a country where Muslims constitute the majority (regardless of whether or not that person is religious or a practising Muslim). This creates an amalgam of different categories such as ‘Maghrebi’, ‘Arab’ and ‘Muslim’. Within this ‘ethnicised’ Islam, the figure of ‘the Muslim’ is not a counterpart to ‘the Christian’, but to ‘the person of Belgian origin’ The French researcher Olivier Roy has accordingly described this tendency as a process of ‘neo-ethnic communitisation’. The reconstruction of collective identity, both of the Muslim minorities and the surrounding Belgian society, is thus a process of constant interaction between the two. Translated by Julian Ross

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Bibliography

A. Bastenier, ‘Islam in Belgium. Contradictions and perspectives’. In: T. Gerholm & Y.G. Lithman (eds.), The New Islamic Presence in Western Europe. London, 1988, pp. 133-143. J. Blommaert & J. Verschueren, Debating Diversity, Analysing the Discourse of Tolerance. London, 1998. F. Dassetto, ‘L'islam en Belgique et en Europe: Facettes et Questions’. In: F. Dassetto (ed.). Facettes de l'islam Belge. Louvain-la-Neuve, 1997, pp. 18-34. J.S. Fetzer & J.C. Soper, Muslims and the State in Britain, France and Germany. Cambridge, 2005. M. Kanmaz & S. Zemni, ‘Moslims als inzet in religieuze, maatschappelijke en veiligheidsdiscours’: de erkenning en institutionalisering van de islamitische eredienst in België’. In: Timmerman & Vanderwaere (eds.), UFSIA, Antwerp, forthcoming. O. Roy, L'islam mondialisé. Paris, 2002. Meryem Kanmaz, ‘The Recognition and Institutionalization of Islam in Belgium’. In: Muslim World Journal (special issue on Islam in the West, edited by Yvonne Haddad & Jane I. Smith), Volume 92, Numbers 1 & 2, Spring 2002, p. 99-114. U. Manço & M. Kanmaz, ‘Belgique. Intégration des musulmans et reconnaissance du culte islamique: un essai de bilan’. In: U. Manço, Reconnaissance et discrimination. Présence de l'islam en Europe occidentale et en Amérique du Nord, IRFAM, L'Harmattan, pp. 85-115. Birgit Meyer & Peter Geschiere, ‘Introduction’. In: Meyer & Geschiere (eds.), Globalization and Identity: Dialectics of Flow and Closure. Oxford, 1999. A. Rea, ‘La politique des immigrés en Belgique’. In: M. Martiniello & M. Poncelet, Migrations et minorités ethniques dans l'espace européen. Brussels, 1993, pp. 143-166. G. Schmidt, ‘Islamic Identity Formation among Young Muslims: The Case of Denmark, Sweden and the United States’. In: Journal of Muslim Affairs, Vol. 24, No. 1, April 2004, pp. 31-45. T. Sunier, ‘Constructing Islam: Places of Worship and the Politics of Space in The Netherlands’. In: Journal of Contemporary European Studies, Dec. 2005, Vol. 13 Issue 3, pp. 317-334, 18 p. S. Zemni & N. Fadil, ‘Religieuze zingeving in een seculiere maatschappij’. In: C. Timmerman, I. Lodewijckx, D. Vanheule & J. Wets (eds.), Wanneer wordt vreemd, vreemd? De vreemde in beeldvorming, registratie en beleid. Leuven, 2004, pp. 203-221.

Eindnoten:

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 1. By the Muslim community, we mean those people who originate from Islamic countries. This is not a quantification based on religious practice, even assuming that instruments are available to measure that. Rather, we use the term ‘Islamic’ merely as an indication that Islam is the majority religion. 2. Earlier post-war immigration waves came from Italy, Spain and Greece. Following the mining disaster in Marcinelles in 1956, in which 136 Italians lost their lives (out of a total of 262 victims), the Italian government decided to subject this collaborative arrangement to much stricter guarantees on safety. Agreements subsequently followed with Spain (1956), Greece (1957), Morocco and Turkey (1964), Tunisia (1969), Algeria and Yugoslavia (1970). 3. The estimates are based on figures from the Belgian National Institute for Statistics (foreign population originating from countries with a Muslim majority) and the Centre for Equal Opportunities and Opposition to Racism (naturalisations according to country of origin). 4. This attitude is highly visible in actual issues relating to the institutionalisation of Islam in Belgium, such as the issue of Muslim cemeteries or Muslim plots in municipal cemeteries (Kanmaz & Zemni, 2005). 5. It is not so much a case of denying that Muslims could distance themselves from these basic values of democracy. It is just a pity that instead of finding a social pedagogy which is open to the emancipation of Muslims, they were immediately made subject to ‘conditions’.

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The Pumping and Penetrating Needle Berend Strik's Embroidery Techniques and his Art [David Stroband]

Berend Strik (1960-) took his first steps as a visual artist at the end of the 1980s. This was a time when great ideologies such as communism were dying off and capitalism appeared to be becoming an inevitable way of life in an increasingly large part of the world. Visual culture was on the advance, with the image becoming ever more important as the bearer of information. The internet was introduced in 1991 as an instrument that would bring the whole world into our homes. All things considered, the media seemed to be encroaching ever more deeply upon our intimate social environment in an attempt to satisfy our desires. The links between supply and demand became ever closer. Intimate things were expressed more explicitly, with the private gradually becoming more public. In art this period saw the start of the battle between ‘High Art’ and ‘Low Art’. The American artist Jeff Koons magnified our consumer culture with replicas of everyday objects constructed according to traditional methods and using expensive materials. He also created a gleaming piglet that was being pushed forward by a small male figure (his self-portrait). The title of this work: Ushering in Banality. Bret Easton Ellis wrote the book Less than Zero, in which the high-points of everyday existence are snorting coke, watching snuff movies and masturbating together in the absence of any real desire. Daily life started to play a larger role in the visual arts, with life and art sometimes blending seamlessly. With increasing frequency, particularly in the 1990s, the artist stepped outside the familiar disciplines (painting, sculpture, drawing) and started to make films, give advice, do performances (once again), work as a VJ and collaborate with architects or fashion designers. This meant that cultural disciplines were borrowing from one another more and more, thus creating interesting fusions.

The domesticity of pornography

Over the past eighteen years Berend Strik has worked in a variety of disciplines. He has become well-known mainly for his embroidered ‘pictures’, but has created sculptures as well. He also works regularly with the architectural studio One Architecture, and has made a film, albeit as part of a collaborative project.

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Berend Strik, La Cicciolina 1989 Embroidered on cotton, 130 × 140 cm © SABAM Belgium 2007

Strik made his first important move as an artist in an exhibition at Kunstruimte De Zaak in Groningen. In 1988 Paul Perry, a Canadian artist resident in the Netherlands, invited a number of young Dutch artists who he felt were striking a new note within the visual arts to participate in this exhibition, which was entitled Capital Gains. As well as Berend Strik, artists including Aernout Mik and Hans van Houwelingen showed works that, in terms of intention, broke free from the modernist idea that art must by definition be self-referential in order to create access-points into a higher, metaphysical reality. These artists exchanged the hermetic character of many works of art in the late 1970s and the 1980s for a visual language that seemed to refer in an intense and direct manner to our everyday surroundings. They created depictions of objects, references to other works and quasi-narrative scenes in a way that seemed to stem from an inner compulsion. Berend Strik, for example, placed nine smoothly polished and perfect-looking vase shapes in a space, upon which the names of nine famous women could be read, as though they were muses. Strik also exhibited a number of steel containers with strips of glass in front that undeniably prompted associations with wood-burning stoves. Roses were carved in relief on the rear walls of these containers. As there is rather a strong scent of domesticity clinging to aspects of Strik's work, it is not surprising that he also took to embroidery during this period. Photos that he found here and there supply the visual motif, which he then subsequently magnifies and translates with needle and thread onto bases of cotton, silk or plastic.

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The work La Cicciolina (1989) depicts the lower part of the body of this Italian porn-star (and later member of parliament) in a very honest and open way. Against a pink background you can see La Cicciolina's hand, embroidered in white thread, touching her genitals. Her fishnet-clad legs, ending in high heels, perkily thrust themselves forward. The embroidered picture is far removed from the photographic directness that usually characterises this kind of picture. Here the material and the intense colour scheme give the picture a rather abstract quality, and so it seems to be a gentle commentary on the pornographic image. Strik investigates the motif of the picture by copying it, but he also researches visual means of expression in the way he transforms it with a technique that is traditional and domestic, but which in the visual arts of the late 1980s was also perceived as fresh and new. La Cicciolina has a paradoxical character in several respects. A two-dimensional (flat) depiction is given a three-dimensional component by the threads that overlie the image. As well as this formal aspect, it is, of course, striking that such a candidly pornographic image is displayed via a technique that, with all its traditional domesticity, should actually generate completely different images, related more to hearth and home. Strik gives the following description of working with this technique: ‘The pumping and penetrating needle glides razor-sharp through the material. In an incredibly refined manner, a white thread is translated into a crouching position. Never before have I been able to get the representation to coincide so precisely with the implications of the technique.’1. The energy of the technique and of the image combine seamlessly in this work. It is worth noting that Strik featured La Cicciolina in his work even before the American artist Jeff Koons married her and used her in his work to increase his cult status. In the early 1990s Koons exhibited sculptures and greatly enlarged photographs in which he and his sweetheart made love in public in a variety of idyllic spots.

Fixed patterns and vicious circles

Berend Strik, Unto the Sweet Bird's Throat 1994. Mixed media, 250 × 250 × 80 cm. © SABAM Belgium 2007

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 During a solo exhibition at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam (1994), Strik displayed a large number of sculptures alongside his embroidered work. This exhibition, which had the enigmatic title Sadness, Sluices, Mermaids, Delay, showed recent sculptures as well as a lump of snot (Strik maintained that within a museum this actually became aesthetic), stuffed rats and a great many embroidery pieces. The work Unto the Sweet Bird's Throat (1993) depicts a plaster figure of a woman lying on a wooden coffee-table, with most of her body contained within an oval resin box. Only her feet in their high-heeled shoes and her left arm stick out of this box, and the arm moves and uses a drumstick to beat in a fixed rhythm on a large drum underneath the table. These beats can be heard over a wide area via a large amplifier. Sadness, Sluices, Mermaids, Delay (1993), the work that gave the exhibition its name, consists of two plaster female figures lying entwined with each other. A plaster bust of a man is placed at some distance from them. Between the women and the man is a white bathtub with a white basin in front of it from which a jet of water spouts into the tub. In discussions of Strik's work this

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 210 spouting jet of water is eroticised and so, naturally, linked to the bust of the man. The jet actually spouts back into its source. Both works depict circular, repetitive processes and appear to lay bare the essence of the human condition. People are caught within fixed patterns and within vicious circles. In texts about Berend Strik, the work just described is often linked to Marcel Duchamp's famous work La Mariée mise à nu par ses célibataires, même (1912-1923), a complex installation in which love is exposed as a mechanical and almost frustrating act. Titles of other works by Strik in this period also refer to this piece by Duchamp.

A feast of illusions

Strik uses pornography as one of the points of departure for his work. Writing about Strik, Camiel van Winkel once described pornography as ‘a sort of autonomous figurative modelling art, in which - so to speak - a quantity of liquid is continually poured back and forth from one pail into another.’2. In his discussion of the sculptures described above, Sven Lütticken characterises them as ‘a sort of sterilised corporeality and sexuality’.3. Strik says of his sculptures, which are generally white in colour: ‘Since 1987 the colour white has played a role in my work. For me white stands for absolute hygiene. It symbolises the purity of hygiene’.4. And while we're on the subject of hygiene: from 1999, Strik lived for a number of years in a residential area of Brooklyn. A local shop sold ‘Old Dutch Cleaner’ powder in boxes with the slogan ‘Chases dirt’ on them. Against the yellow background of the label, a lady dressed in traditional Dutch costume with red clogs and a stick in her hand leans forward and strides purposefully on beneath the red strip of text. Her posture and body language actively broadcast the message that dust and dirt must disappear from her surroundings. Cleanliness all around is the goal. And so Strik, as a Dutchman amongst completely different cultures and nationalities, was confronted with his own Dutch identity. The artist's need to give expression to this resulted in a number of works of art, including Double Dutch and Going Dutch. The latter work, in embroidery on linen, depicts a rather different setting. The ladies in traditional costume are running through an African landscape. But back to the sculptures. In their figuration and their ‘narrative’ setting, they create a rather classical impression. This, once again, distinguishes them from the extremely hermetic appearance of three-dimensional works by artists of the 1980s. You really need a sound knowledge of the context of these works in order to see them, not only in their formal aspect, but also in their essence, as intense observations on the notion of ‘self-alienation’ that is so peculiar to the human condition. In his work, Strik has always been obsessed by the way we deal with and perceive sexuality. In a 1988 photo-collage he placed part of a reproduction of the Van Eyck brothers' Lamb of God, which depicts angels singing praises, alongside cut-out pictures of porn models with bulging penises in their mouths. The strings of sperm are practically dripping from the picture. In this image giving blowjobs and singing hallelujahs are bound up with each other. It is a depiction that leaves little to the imagination.

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 Explicit pornographic motifs also feature in his embroidery pieces. There's

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Going Dutch. 2000, Embroidered photos on textile, 40 × 50 cm. © SABAM Belgium 2007. a lot of enthusiastic licking, fondling and sucking. As I have previously mentioned, the technique of needle and thread lends an extra layer of reflection to these works. A space is created for the highly explicit motifs by the artist's peculiar signature style with its multiplicity of stitched coloured threads. In 1992, Strik created a series of embroidery pieces based on ‘She-males’. These are transsexuals, people who are on their way to a new sexual identity and who find themselves in a rather shadowy transitional area. Strik uses challenging sexual poses to portray them in an intimate way. The indefinable space that is negotiated within these works, not only through the technique of embroidery, but also in the uncertainty of sexual identity, is a typical feature of Strik's work. Percussion Studio (1991) is an embroidered piece (on cardboard) that is packed with motifs. Lots of leaf and flower motifs, butterflies, a strange telephone, a water pipe and countless stylised portraits of women appear to push one another aside and to tumble over one another. The style in which the motifs are rendered seems to be derived from Jugendstil. Whilst Jugendstil works, however, seem fairly concentrated in structure, in this work by Strik any sense of order appears to be completely lacking. Its basis was a drawing done by Strik in his youth. In this piece, he arrives at a visual language that seems to be based upon an ecstatic experience. Images from a state of rapture, from a dream, appear to loom up and push one another aside. The picture itself is so full of motifs that there is a total absence of space. It does, however, generate a quantity of space that cannot be precisely defined. Perhaps this could be labelled as ‘rapture’. Your imagination is stimulated and appears to run riot. Pictures by Strik seem to celebrate the illusion of the senses. His images have an intoxicating effect with their profusion of seductive, sometimes provocative, forms and colours - his pumping, penetrating embroidery technique certainly contributes to this effect as well. To a certain extent, their reproduction in embroidery distances us from what are, at first sight, very explicit images. These bizarre motifs, in a visual language that is, again at first sight, accessible (see the ‘She-Males’, Percussion Studio or Sadness, Sluices, Mermaids, Delay), spur us on to a more intense reception of the work and make our perceptions whirl.

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Berend Strik, Percussion Studio (detail). 1991. Embroidered on cotton, 132 × 183 cm. © SABAM Belgium 2007.

You could also describe sexuality as a form of celebration. It puts you into a state of rapture. The same applies to the idea of carnival. The motif of ‘Prince Carnival’ appears in several of Strik's works. In Marche des Débutants (1991), we see an embroidered portrait of a carnival society. The portrait may be described as detached, documentary in style. In the work Prince Willem I (2002), Prince Carnival stands in the centre with his hands raised, surrounded by the applauding members of his carnival society. The prince seems to be depicted here as a kind of Messiah, surrounded by his apostles. Strik frequently employs references to art history in his work, placing them within a contemporary visual language. What is remarkable is the fact that the basis for this work is a photograph. Strik kept on embroidering away over the top of this photograph. And so the prince is wearing an embroidered carnival hat; a functional addition. There are also, however, embroidered cartoon-like figures here and there in the picture, some of whom are masturbating. In addition to this, there are abstract (embroidered) motifs dancing around in the picture. Photo and embroidery technique converge in this piece, making the reading of the image even more intense. You are confronted with two realities: the direct photographic repro-

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Berend Strik, Prince Willem I (detail). 2002. Embroidered photo on linen, 94.5 × 132 cm. © SABAM Belgium 2007. duction of the celebrations of the carnival society and the embroidered fantasy world with all manner of small motifs and strange characters. Two layers of reality, each in their own way singing the praises of rapture and subsequent ecstasy, ultimately merge together. Strik is able to make the combination of realities work in a variety of ways. For example, he has designed an alcove in the Vredenburg concert hall in Utrecht. In this design architecture and image enter into a relationship with each other. The building by Herman Hertzberger (built in the 1960s/70s), a testimony to his belief in building on a small, human scale, has a number of these alcoves. An alcove is a small, intimate space and historically was often intended as a room for celebration. This alcove is dedicated to the legendary 1960s guitar god Jimmy Hendrix and has been transformed by Strik into an ‘Electric Church’. In the alcove, which could actually be described as a chapel, there are lots of flower motifs (on the seats, and also sewn onto the wall hangings), perhaps as a reference to the flower-power mentality of the time. There is also a carpet with the international anarchist symbol on it and in the centre of the alcove are portraits of Hendrix and his fellow-musicians Mitch Mitchell and Noel Redding.

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On the side walls are portraits depicting astronaut Neil Armstrong and a Vietnam soldier. This ‘Electric Church’ (a name that Hendrix himself gave to his musical philosophy) celebrates a period of recent cultural history in which barriers to pleasure were lifted for many people and the sense of rapture was intensified through mind-expanding drugs and free love.

Beer, urine and a heart-shaped house

Berend Strik started working with the Dutch architectural studio One Architecture in the 1990s. This research-oriented studio is open to collaboration with other, visual disciplines. Strik and One Architecture created a design for a beer pavilion (Die Sterne, 1998) in Salzburg, Austria. Beneath a peaked roof there was to be a large glass façade, in which yellow liquid would circulate. The pavilion, built in the so-called ‘improved regional style’, resembled a large machine for the circulation of liquids. Within the glass facade, there circulated not only beer but also urine, which flowed directly from the toilets into the glass

Berend Strik (with One Architecture). Model for Die Sterne beer pavilion. 1998. © SABAM Belgium 2007.

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Berend Strik, House of Hearts, Claudia and Carla Huntley no. 1/15. 2003. Embroidered on textile, 50.5 × 50.5 cm. © SABAM Belgium 2007. wall. The urine was filtered and the resulting water formed the basis of the beer. The process demonstrated here appears to take us back to the sculpture Sadness, Sluices, Mermaids, Delay, an interpretation of the cyclical and self-alienating nature of humankind. However, whilst the 1993 sculpture prompted a number of questions and interpretations, this work had a purely anecdotal and, of course, a functional (and ecological) effect. This design, incidentally, never became reality. Another collaborative project was The House of Hearts (started in 1999). This was a flexible house designed for identical twins (in their late thirties) and their mother. Both the sisters suffer from Tourette's Syndrome, a condition in which those affected regularly lose control of themselves and destroy everything around them. The sisters and their mother were constantly being evicted from their rented homes and they longed for a peaceful, permanent living environment. Strik spent some time with the sisters and observed their behaviour. Together with One Architecture, he created a design for a heart-shaped house. Everything in this house is aimed at gently controlling the tics and compulsive behaviour of the two women. The design endeavours to bring ‘potential “therapeutic” qualities’ to the fore. The house is made up of accommodation in which the sisters can live either apart or together. Two separate units share a guest area where the mother can come to stay and the sisters can meet each other. The house had to be constructed from durable materials that were also soft and flexible. It was designed in such a way that it appears to form a complement to a medical programme. In the ‘Tourette's embroideries’, based on digital printouts of the design, Strik demonstrates his visual interpretations of the sisters’ living environment. It is a world full of soft and colourful shapes, in which, yet again, the motif of the flower plays a large role. The shape of the heart, upon which the house is based, represents the essential regulation needed to steer the movements of the sisters in the right direction and, ultimately, for their ‘survival’. The routes through the house, both the one-way traffic and the circulation system,

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 are gently imposed by the design. The challenge for One Architecture in their collaboration with Berend Strik consisted of creating a living environment that incorporated both medical and psychological approaches to Tourette's Syndrome.

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Strik has an obvious fascination with people who appear to have little or no control over their behaviour. In 1998, together with film-maker Janica Draisma, he was commissioned by Huize Ursula, a residential and working community for mentally and physically handicapped people in Nieuwveen, to make a ten-minute ‘portrait in motion’ of a group of residents. Under the title The Wondrous, we see people who are attempting to communicate with each other, the patterns they have developed for this purpose forming a language that exposes us to very surprising and refreshing perspectives on interaction and contact.

Aesthetics versus immediacy

Strik has built up a varied oeuvre. In recent years he has continued to concentrate on embroidery pieces. Photos from family albums, by Strik himself or dug up from elsewhere, literally form the basis for these works. He embroiders away on the photos, with all manner of abstract motifs lending the potentially familiar pictures displayed in family albums a rather peculiar life of their own. In the late 1980s and the 1990s, Berend Strik's work touched upon the growing accessibility and mass consumption of images that might induce a state of rapture. Particularly in his embroidered work, he alluded to the ever-increasing need for instant gratification and fleeting pleasure and to the way the expanding image industry exploits this need. In this age of the advance of the media and its never-ending exploitation of human intimacy, his work played an investigative, contemplative role. Strik also referred to the cyclical and mechanical processes within the human condition that are needed to keep it going. In recent years, however, his work appears to have become a more uncritical element within the huge expansion of the visual culture and its exploitation of intimate images. In his later embroidery pieces and his collaboration with One Architecture, Strik has, in my opinion, no longer been able to convey his outlook on the human condition or on the culture of the image in a convincing manner. Strik does not make many statements about his own work; consequently, there is a great deal of scope for interpretation. It seems likely that he is fascinated by human behaviour and, to formulate it more precisely, by the behaviour of people who find themselves on the other side of generally created norms, or who are heading that way. I have already written about the rapture and the ecstatic experience that Strik appears to celebrate in his work. In the late 1980s, art (once more) allowed space for the depiction of experiences that were human and, therefore, often of a very direct nature. Strik not only created works that were contemplative in character, but ones which radiated a simple feeling of pleasure, freedom and beauty. In my opinion, since the late 1990s his works have lacked the contemplative aspect and appear to be more turned in upon themselves. They sing the praises only of their own beauty and seem less related to prevailing portrayals of humankind and concepts of culture. The film The Wondrous and the designs for the House of Hearts and the beer pavilion have interesting applications, but they do not convey how Strik's outlook has progressed. It seems as though the diversity of Strik's activities (embroidery, film, architecture) and, first and foremost, the way they are given equal status when presented in exhibitions is

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 starting to work against him a little.5. Strik continues to make aesthetically beautiful works, but recently they have been lacking in that sense of immediacy that, for me, is what makes art so interesting. Translated by Laura Watkinson

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Bibliography

Berend Strik. Body Electric (with an essay by Sven Lütticken). Valiz, Amsterdam, 2004. Berend Strik. Sadness, Sluices, Mermaids, Delay (texts by: Rudi Fuchs, Marja Bloem, Mark Kremer, Camiel van Winkel and Sylvia Kowalski). Catalogue, Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, 1994. Boomkens, Rene, ‘Engagement na de vooruitgang’. In: Nieuw Engagement in architectuur, kunst en vormgeving, Reflect # 01, Rotterdam, NAi publishers, 2003. Kremer, Mark, ‘Een studie voor de grote trom’ (about an art project by Berend Strik and Hans van Houwelingen II). In: Metropolis M, 1992, no. 2. Leeuw, Riet de, ‘Capital Gains’. In: Metropolis M, 1987, no. 4. www.berendstrik.nl

Eindnoten:

1. Sven Lütticken, ‘Berend Strik: mutaties’. In: Berend Strik. Body Electric. Amsterdam, 2004, p. 45. 2. Camiel van Winkel, ‘Strange Fruit’. In: Berend Strik. Sadness, Sluices, Mermaids, Delay. Catalogue, Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, 1994, p. 38. 3. Sven Lütticken, ‘Berend Strik: mutaties’. In: Berend Strik. Body Electric. Amsterdam, 2004, p. 52. 4. idem. p. 52. 5. During the solo exhibition Body Electric (2004) at the Fries Museum in Leeuwarden, in addition to a large number of embroidery works, Berend Strik exhibited a large model of the House of Hearts and a model of the Die Sterne beer pavilion designed for Salzburg.

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Not a Cheerful Science The Unrelenting World-Picture of Willem Frederik Hermans [Henk Pröpper]

I must have been fourteen or fifteen when I informed my mother that I had now read all of juvenile literature. The school library I had exhausted; the bookshelves at home I had already utterly devoured. I had even read my father's books, admittedly numerous but with only a single theme: the Second World War. Some of them romanticised stories, but mainly books with hard facts and analyses. I had seen the photos of mass graves and executions, the man looking into the camera lens, on his knees on the edge of a pit full of bodies; beside it a German soldier in uniform with his collar undone, holding a pistol to the man's neck. It was time, I must have thought, for me to be initiated into a different world, one that would be able to tell me where these facts came from. One that could put me on the track of what I must then have called the incomprehensible and what later would be called the absurd. That open gaze, that open collar. Reading had always been my greatest joy, because in it I found the impulses of an immense, positive imaginative power, depictions of worlds where superhuman courage and exertions brought salvation. If something nibbled away at that round world where everything would be all right in the end, that would admittedly lead to a certain amount of distress, but a distress that provided insight. Pain in small doses, like the small doses of aspirin children are given to ‘make them well’. I expected a lot from literature without knowing precisely why. Without knowing the words, without the vocabulary to name characteristics of literature, I must even have thought that literature would be able to describe a world with many layers - no longer one-dimensional, no longer rose-tinted, no longer exclusively factual. I must also have associated with literature something wild, some fumbling understanding - a residue of my childhood reading here, certainly - and also a link to the dream that can throw light on incomprehensible things. Interpretation, attaching significance, insight - my mother must have sensed my longing for all this. She said to me: ‘If you want to read literature, you must read this book.’ And she handed me The Dark Room of Damocles (De donkere kamer van Damokles) by Willem Frederik Hermans. She gave me no further instructions. Teacher of Dutch literature though she was, she did not introduce the book. She evidently relied on my being able to digest it. Even so, it must have

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Willem Frederik Hermans (1921-1995). Collection Letterkundig Museum. The Hague. been something of a solemn moment for her, given that I had so clearly asked for literature and literature was her one great passion. While the Bible was daily subjected to exegesis, my initiation into the universe of Hermans and of literature was left to the gods. She was wise to do so, and I am eternally grateful to her for that. From that day on, literature for me has been bound up with my baptism in the dark waters of Hermans. And that was precisely the insight I gained - that immersion in murkiness and darkness can be a kind of blessing. Hermans gave me the black enigma, the strange beauty of the absurd. I recall that not long afterwards it was my turn to give a talk at school. I talked about Hermans and The Dark Room of Damocles, and I felt I had spoken long and passionately. The words flowed as if I were some St Paul with a revelation to make. I wanted, I think, to make comprehensible that there are things that are incomprehensible and that you can write them down, present them, in such a way that this vagueness can nevertheless be a kind of insight. A complicated story, in short, that was presumably fairly incomprehensible and at most gripping because of my passion. But what interests me here is that very enthusiasm, not so much the apostolic nature of it, the desire to bring others to a higher level of understanding, or to describe the unknowable, but more the pure pas-

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 220 sion that can arise out of a text, a story. Several of Hermans' novels have had the same effect on me that my chemistry set briefly had. A successful experiment led to the highest degree of satisfaction, a heady brew of overweening confidence and humility. To the realisation that a tiny step had indeed been taken towards fathoming the nature of matter, but also that matter was infinite, infinite like the world of literature, of stories.

A perfectly executed gymnastic exercise

Until recently works by Willem Frederik Hermans were not, or hardly ever, translated. A whole host of minor, specific reasons lie behind this. Recently, however - to my great satisfaction - translations have appeared in Germany, France, England, Italy and other countries, so we may assume that all sorts of other translations will soon follow. Because of the nature of my work, in the last few years I have spoken often and a great deal about Hermans, but I did so on the basis of reading done long ago, by the young man with the chemistry set. It has constantly struck me with what passion - and how effectively because of that - I have spoken. At the same time, I have felt more and more strongly that my stories were a representation in themselves, reflections of dreamed books, so to speak. And I have asked myself whether that representation and perception would survive re-reading, whether they were at all in accordance with the novels as I would read them now after so many years. Or whether I would be reading completely new books that had little in common with the reading done by a young man. While reading, re-reading, over these past months, I was constantly reminded of the definition of ‘classic’ given by Jorge Luis Borges. What, in his view, is a classic work? ‘A classic is a book which is read in a country or group of countries over a fairly long period of time as if everything in it is well-considered, fatal and profound as the universe and lends itself to endless interpretations. (...) A book is not a classic (I repeat) that in itself possesses these or those particular merits; it is a book that generations of people, impelled by a variety of reasons to do so, read with determined enthusiasm and with a mysterious loyalty.’ This definition fits in every respect the small exercise I have just completed. I have re-read The Tears of the Acacias (De tranen der acacia's, 1949), I Am Always Right (Ik heb altijd gelijk, 1951) and The Dark Room of Damocles (De donkere kamer van Damokles, 1958). Strangely enough, after so many years I recognised practically everything, especially in The Dark Room of Damocles, the first one I read when young. Whole sentences and passages seemed engraved in my memory - it was as if I was mumbling them as I read. However impenetrable the plot, that very impenetrability constitutes the core of the book, which again seemed to me perfectly well-considered and fatal, qualities that are Borges' criteria for a classic work. At the same time the novels were totally new, totally fresh to me, especially because of the ideas, the intense political consciousness and the razor-sharp analyses of human behaviour, most of which had escaped me before. It was as if I was two generations at one and the same time, looking over my own shoulder with fatherly approval. The earlier reader (myself as a young man) read with constant enthusiasm deeply experienced texts, almost as if they were poetry, quivering with tension and

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 significance; the later reader (me at a more advanced age) read stories that far transcended their historical

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 221 context and specific subject and were extremely topical and gripping. Many of the analyses of social, political and geopolitical developments now seemed to possess an almost prophetic force, the strange inevitability that can only manifest itself so strongly in novels, so that they seem to anticipate real historical developments. In Dutch literature that can be said of such works as Max Havelaar (1860) by Multatuli, The Body Mystic (Mystiek lichaam, 1986) by Frans Kellendonk - and certainly to this trio of novels by Willem Frederik Hermans as well. What remained on re-reading was my amazement at the incredibly high-voltage charge of these stories. They are uncommonly thrilling, and the thrill lies not only in the action but also - and especially - in the sentences and ideas. Even in the casual way in which - no matter how enigmatic they sometimes are - they have been committed to paper. They are like a perfectly executed gymnastic exercise. Control, however, has to be maintained until the very end. And the series of movements that the body and the world show in constantly changing (and dangerous) relationships has to be followed by a faultless jump off and landing. And what if there is an abyss where the jump off should be? That question is always there under the surface. In those days, I was mainly obsessed by the idea that the world is a slippery place where you can never be certain of your life, where your name and identity are interchangeable and offer no certainty that you will be recognised. Where a young man, and many others, seek recognition throughout their lives, Hermans - like Roland Topor in his drawings - presents situations where the self-evident nature of the recognition is undermined. Who are you really when you are not recognised and are taken for someone else? How long can you go on believing that you are who you think you are when no-one else recognises you as such? What if others insist on considering you a bad person - how straight is the path you are following? In other words, do you determine your own course in life, or are you driven by all sorts of unconscious (dark) longings or, even worse, by outside mechanisms over which you have no control? In my recent reading, that personal and psychological dimension turned much more into a general and philosophical one. I could now see much more strongly how black Hermans' world-picture and vision of society are. Should you happen to believe in the good in life, reading these works is a sobering experience. One character blandly remarks to another: ‘You think that people will be good to you if you are good to them.’ A sentence like that pulls the rug from under somebody's feet - and uncommonly effectively too. A remark like that gives food for serious thought, but it also concentrates the mind, induces a kind of strange level-headedness that is always the residue of such literature. Reading these works offers you the possibility of starting again, from scratch, with a clean slate which in turn also gives you space. Credulity leads to nothing - you have to keep starting afresh if you are to get anywhere. Little in Dutch literature so openly - and with so little support for our egalitarian way of thinking - defines stupidity and sentimentality as disastrous qualities. How do you stay upright in a cold world where everything heats up for only a short while, like passion in the company of a whore? - to use an image that fits Hermans' writing well. Many of his characters choose to lie, but only extremely intelligent liars master that art. Most liars do not even know why they lie. They allow themselves to be led by circumstances, but choose the easy way out, which often

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 leads to their ultimate downfall. Nothing is more characteristic of a weakling in Hermans' work than the incapacity to lie convincingly.

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The yearning for a critical sense

Unlike the comparable author Houellebecq, Hermans' black is in high relief, surprising the reader time and again with the nakedness and naturalness of his language. By the headstrong, ruthless humour, too, the immense enjoyment with which even deeper shades are found in the black. When characters talk to each other, it is often, as with Arnon Grunberg (writer of a.o. Blue Mondays - Blauwe maandagen, 1994), to provoke or mislead each other, rarely to communicate or share anything. In Hermans, words can almost literally kill. His characters speak the words that certainly come into people's minds, but seldom pass their lips - that is an almost theatrical convention in his work. Our amazement at the deadly precision of one utterance has not yet passed when another faultlessly expressed formula follows it, and yet - and that is the remarkable thing - the sentences appear to be completely realistic. Hermans' work never gives the impression of being artificial or devised - it is like some natural phenomenon. A storm against which you can pit yourself and from which you emerge as if reborn, honed, ready to do battle and hopefully achieve something. Hermans is not a belletrist, a striving for beauty is confined to his slimier characters. He appears to have a highly developed sense of ugliness. No one describes a person's physical appearance so mercilessly as he does (or as his characters do), and seldom have sexual acts been so inept and human relationships so grubby as in his stories. With the patina of ugliness that he lays over the world, Hermans is able to make the atmosphere of the German Occupation (1940-1945) palpable - the corruption, the fear, the self-interest, the often unclear relations and actions of people. He faultlessly describes the twilight zone in which heroes and collaborators are to some extent interchangeable. That is not a cheerful science. The inadequacy of human thought and action in crisis situations is immense, the rare good impulses are scarcely noticed if at all. Many of his visions and analyses only have a cheerful feel to them because of their aptness. ‘In the present age good manners are only a form of clumsiness. Modesty now means an inferiority complex,’ the main character muses in I Am Always Right - nineteenth-century attributes, then, which in the present age (the late 1940s) get you absolutely nowhere. They are even dangerous, as attributes that stamp you as not being of the present age and as a weakling. In The Dark Room of Damocles an SS man speaks to the main character in the selfsame way: ‘Take Dostoevsky. In Dostoevsky you'll find people who are gentle, kind, high-minded, generous, saintly - but they're all mad, every one of them. That's what it boils down to! Man is only good out of calculation, insanity, or cowardice.’ He then expounds a whole theory about the developments humanity can expect after the Second World War. ‘Persecution of Jews? You mark my words! In twenty years' time the British, the Americans and the Russians will have the Jews exterminated by the Arabs, if it happens to suit them. (...) Or they'll have the Arabs exterminated by the Jews, if that makes you feel any better!’ From whom is any form of salvation to be expected in such an amoral world? From intellectuals? The SS man just quoted calls himself an intellectual, an amoral theorist. From politics? The novel I Am Always Right contains hilarious scenes about the setting up of a political party:

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 223

‘My aim is this: I want to set up a political party, a new party. You are to be its intellect.’ ‘There are a hundred and twenty-eight political parties in the Netherlands.’

‘That's because the intellectuals do not believe in good ideas either. Which means that only morons set up political parties. That's why only moronic things are done in Dutch politics. But that must stop. I want to set up a party that puts on end to it. And you've got to help. You can stir up the masses.’

This passage faultlessly exposes the almost natural division between politics and the intelligentsia. For why is our main character's intellect so vital to this new party? Not for his good ideas, but to stir up the masses (an exceptionally acute analysis of modern politics). Does this excuse intellectuals from their duty to participate and implement their good ideas and insights? No, certainly not. More powerfully than romantic, idealistic stories, the cold, meaningless world of Hermans implants in us the yearning for a critical sense, for nineteenth-century courtesy and insane goodness, for razor-sharp analyses that do not bend to comply with the general mood. Books like this you can certainly give to a child.

The excerpts from ‘The Dark Room of Damocles’ have been translated by Ina Rilke. ‘The Dark Room of Damocles’ will be published by Harvill Secker in July 2007. ‘Beyond Sleep’, Rilke's translation of Hermans' novel ‘Nooit meer slapen’, appeared in 2006 (London: Harvill Secker). www.wfhermans.net Translated by Johns Irons

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An Extract from the ‘Preamble’ to Paranoia By Willem Frederik Hermans

VI

Mankind thinks in accordance with a non-existent order and is blind to the primeval chaos. The only real word is chaos. Some African tribes use a different term for a man who climbs a mountain and a man who is sent packing by his wife, another word for a man who kills a lion and another for one who weaves baskets. But human memory has a limited capacity. It is only because primitive peoples scarcely travel or require many generations to make a single journey that they can afford to use lots of words. They have no need to resort to our abstractions, which are quite unrelated to reality. Because our words are limited in number (indeed, are bound to be so) there is repetition but no reality. We live in a fake world. There is nothing but the same words repeated, but meaningless. In our languages the only real word is chaos. Like ‘god’ it means everything and nothing. Yet ‘horse’ means very little more. For a horse in a stable is different from another ‘horse’ pulling a cart. And a stable without horses is different from a stable with horses in it and a cart without a horse is no longer the same cart. When one takes a horse out of the stable and hitches it to the cart, horse and cart are transformed. They change every minute: when the horse starts moving, the wheels start turning, etc, etc. They change position, they wear out. They change from second to second. But no one on earth says a thing! In fact there is only one language: a language with an infinite number of words that may change their meanings an infinite number of times in a split second.

VII

I write, although I know one can only write one word by ignoring ten thousand others. But those ten thousand stay floating like mud in a glass of dirty water. Looked at from above, they obscure the precipitation on the bottom. I see what I have written but only through the murky mist of what is unformed. Is it now clear why the paper I have written on appears so polluted to me? And can anyone imagine how deprived I feel compared with paper covered with a computer printout or photographic paper? My greatest sorrow is that I was not born a machine and I can't write with light like a camera.

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Sometimes I imagine a truly happy existence: locking myself away and reading day in day out. But even then I shan't be able to escape from writing, since there won't be enough light. It is just possible to write in the dark, but you can't read.

VIII

For science language ceases to exist. It thinks in new symbols, which do not, though, replace language, but constitute a separate form of thinking, the only form that provides any certainty, since uncertainty is excluded from it by agreement, as far as is possible. The old uncertainties produced by language thinking, continue undiminished. Under these circumstances it is possible to meet yet not recognise oneself or to meet someone else and think it is oneself. Anything fixed unanimously (science) loses all value for the soul, which shuns it, no longer able to imagine its own indispensability. That is the only way of explaining why man devotes most of his life to the uncertain and the chaotic. Performing certain calculations is just a pastime for eccentrics. Even self-styled positivists have not succeeded in passing their time purely with positive activities.

IX

I have called this collection PARANOIA, without implying that the characters that appear in it suffer from that mental illness. I'm not a psychiatrist, I don't make diagnoses. But I was thinking of everyone who lives the same way that I write: with a wheel of fortune in the back of their mind, an albatross on their shoulder and a not entirely shock-proof compass suspended in their chest. If the characters I describe make a predominantly untrustworthy and unreliable impression, it is not because I wanted to point a moralist's finger at these vices, but because in my view nothing can be calculated with certainty. When in daily life someone is not constantly out to know everything about other people, when someone acts as if they are loyal and trusting, they do so only in order to show that they know how life should be lived. The few (in private very many)

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 226 people who lack this attitude, who are a prey to suspicion and delusions, are simply in the position of not being able to see why one thing should happen and something else not, why one fact exists and the other is a hallucination. All that separates these patients from others, is their inability to resign themselves to one of the traditional delusional systems on demand. They do not believe that any of the usual proofs have been provided, just as I do not believe it has been proven that one thing should be written down and another omitted. They are outside the framework that for century after century has indicated the truth, like a clock made of rusty nails; outside the world that continues to do what ‘must’ be done and refrains from doing what is ‘forbidden’, without anyone being able to prove why. Those outside this world have their backs to the wall, like the paper I'm writing on. They are standing against the wall of the prison or the madhouse, most with their backs, a few with their noses facing outward. The last point wasn't mysterious enough; it has been reincorporated into the world where everything happens as it should, it is in the card-index system under m. for mad, the same index system I shall always leave blank.

X

Some people may be wondering why I have used these confidences to preface a collection of stories totally unconnected with the events of my own life. It is because I myself am unable to prove why they are unconnected with the events of my own life; it is because it sometimes strikes me that I should seriously doubt whether that is the case, whether I have the right not to call these events my own.

And for those who find all this too complicated, then this preamble is justified for them in any case, since in their eyes it will have something of that ‘touch of insanity’ a critic once wrote about,

Groningen, October 1953

From Paranoia, Amsterdam: Uitgeverij G.A. Van Oorschot, 1953/1999, pp. 12-15. Translated by Paul Vincent

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New Directions for Public Broadcasting in Flanders and the Netherlands [Huub Wijfjes]

Still from Dial H-I-S-T-O-R-Y, Johan Grimonprez, 1997. Photo Johan Grimonprez and Rony Vissers / © 1997-2003 Johan Grimonprez.

Is public broadcasting an outdated concept? Looking at the discussions which have been taking place on this theme in the Netherlands and Belgium over the past fifteen years one would not immediately give an affirmative answer. In general one could say that there is still strong support for public broadcasting in both countries. Taking into consideration the enormous commercial pressures on the media market, the market shares of public broadcasting are still relatively high in both countries. And in the Netherlands still more than three million people belong to a broadcasting association. But if you look at the discussions in politics, newspapers and periodicals on the renewal of finance for public broadcasting (which has been put into effect in Flanders in 2006 and is due in the Netherlands in 2008) then at times the end seems near. One even hears arguments for public broadcasting to be abolished, on the grounds that such an institution cannot hold its own or maintain its distinctive character in the constantly shifting media landscape.

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Such debates nowadays are principally about commerce and technology. The traditional concern over the quality of media content appears to have worn off. There is less and less concern about financial considerations taking priority over cultural and programming matters, because it is clear as daylight that commercial broadcasting supplies a huge demand. Moreover, with the developments in computer, broadcasting and telephonic techniques the power to decide the time at which, and the form in which, media content is consumed no longer lies with the producers of broadcasts but with the consumers. In addition, technology of all kinds determines the convergence of composition, selection, design and presentation of media content. The classic differences between, for instance, newspapers and broadcasting are being blurred or indeed will probably disappear altogether. Under the influence of these two factors public broadcasting may well get the short end of the stick. A glance at the development of the discussion on broadcasting in the longer term in both countries will show to what extent this may be true.

From monopoly to competition

Ever since broadcasting was introduced in the 1920s there has been constant tension between the advocates of commercial and public broadcasting. It is salutary to remember that all over the world broadcasting began as a result of commercial attempts to use and develop a new technology. But whereas confidence in the market as the regulating mechanism for broadcasting remained strong in the United States, in Europe that confidence quickly evaporated. All kinds of regulation came into existence, resulting in public broadcasting systems which differed very considerably from country to country. An important factor in this process was the scarcity of broadcasting frequencies. The consequence was that radio could reach virtually the whole population through just a few channels. For instance, following international agreements in 1929 the Netherlands and Belgium were each allowed two radio frequencies. This technological limitation stimulated the idea that broadcasting could have such a powerful influence on the whole nation that some measure of control by the community was needed. In the years between the wars the idea was widely held that the influence of commerce on national culture could only have dire consequences. For commerce was clearly not interested in fostering culture or in forming pluriform opinions; it was only interested in making money. Commerce would therefore only try to reach groups most favourable for this purpose; minority groups or those with less financial resources would be left out in the cold. Consequently broadcasting of real, public, distinction would have to be provided by people driven by the desire to provide high-quality programmes for the whole population. In Britain a broadcasting organisation for ‘public service’ was established in 1922, which would have the sole right to produce programmes subject to the provisions of a Royal Charter. The BBC would eventually develop into the ideal type of organisation for public service broadcasting, and would be widely imitated. For example, in Belgium the Belgian National Institute for Radiobroadcasting (NIR) was given the monopoly on transmissions in 1930. In the Netherlands transmission time was granted

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 to broadcasting associations that, according to broadcasting regulation, were considered ‘to meet the cultural and

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 229 religious needs of the population, and therefore could automatically be considered to be of general benefit’. The political idea was that the sum total of these broadcasting associations would reflect the whole of Dutch culture. Public service broadcasting organisations of this nature (the term ‘public broadcasting’ only came into general use outside Britain in the 1990s) always had to deal with attempts to break their monopoly. To achieve this principle arguments were advanced, emphasising the importance of freedom of expression in a pluriform media system. But there were also practical arguments, such as the stimulus to economic growth that would result from airtime advertising and the rigidity of programming of public broadcasting. Following this criticism in Britain a second, commercial broadcasting cluster was introduced alongside the BBC in 1954. In the Netherlands something similar threatened to happen when powerful commercial lobbies appeared in the sixties. Fierce political support for the public organisations prohibited the introduction of commercial competition. Instead the broadcasting system was opened to new broadcast associations in 1967. The Broadcasting Act that came into force in that year also required more co-operation among the broadcasting associations and made advertising possible through a new public organisation: the Radio and Television Advertising Foundation (STER). In Belgium the emphasis in discussion on broadcasting was still on the influence of the various regions and cultural communities on the ‘national’ broadcasting organisation, renamed in 1960 as BRT/RTBF. From the 1980s onwards the argument of technological scarcity became ever weaker with the development of cable systems, satellite distribution and digital techniques for production and storage. The pressure from the commercial sector to be able to exploit these new opportunities became too strong to resist. In addition, European legislation began to stimulate competition in economic life and the free expression of opinion throughout Europe at large. This clashed more and more with national protectionist mechanisms that weren't able to keep pace with the enormous developments in technology. After an opening had once been made for so-called ‘free radio’ in the 1970s, commercial competition in television was eventually permitted in Belgium in 1987 (the commercial channel VTM started broadcasting in 1989). In the Netherlands this occurred in the early nineties, after commercial transmissions aimed at the Netherlands from abroad (using the so-called U-turn mechanism) had started in 1989. Since then both countries can formally be said to have a so-called dual system, in which publicly financed broadcasting functions operate alongside a number of commercial companies.

Adaptation and re-orientation in Belgium

At first it seemed that public broadcasting was being wiped out in the dual system. In Belgium in particular BRT and RTBF lost an unprecedentedly large proportion of their listeners and viewers to commercial broadcasters such as VTM in Flanders and RTL in Wallonia. Just as in the other European countries, this led to a reconsideration of the position and significance of public broadcasting. Should the public broadcaster be satisfied with providing a supplement to the programmes of

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 commercial broadcasting? This would mean that public broadcasters should only provide prohibitively expensive, but culturally worth-while,

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 230 productions such as serious drama and art and culture. Or should public broadcasting continue to strive for an all-inclusive place in the media landscape, addressing a broad public by means of a broad programme, as it had in the past? It is noteworthy that Belgium quite quickly opted for the most radical solution. That is probably due to the unprecedented depth of the crisis that BRT found itself in during the late 1990s. The ‘market share’ (the proportion of the public that tuned in to a programme) of the two BRT television channels had fallen in 1993 to a European all-time low of around 20%. Public radio had experienced a similar fall in public appreciation earlier. Belgian broadcasting was regarded all over Europe as the most decrepit vehicle of an outdated concept. If that tide was to be turned there needed to be drastic change. The Flemish Community decided to

Photo by B. van Meerendonk/Internationaal Instituut voor Sociale Geschiedenis, The Netherlands. set firm goals in so-called ‘control agreements’ as a condition for making public money available. Under strict conditions public broadcasting, which became Flemish Radio and Television Broadcasting Company (Vlaamse Radio- en Televisie Omroep - VRT) in 1997, could even acquire extra resources by means of advertising. VRT decided on a fundamental restructuring based on market research by the Censydiam agency. That was a revolutionary move, because programming according to public preference had traditionally been seen as capitulating to commerce. Until then those who made programmes had done so only because they themselves considered them interesting, relevant and good. However, the market research showed that, as greater freedom of choice became available, listeners and viewers were increasingly tuning in to those channels that most closely matched their own taste and life-style. If you wanted to reach a particular group it made sense to know exactly what the public expected from broadcasting and what it did with it. For many programme-makers that was anathema, since in future they would be forced to subordinate their ideals to the format

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 231 of a channel. For instance, the format dictated that the same programme would be put out every day at the same time (so-called horizontal programming) in a specific broadcast profile that appealed to a specific group and that put the rest of the public off. That process had started much earlier in radio. On 28 March 1992 BRTN started Radio Donna, which combined light news with a lot of middle-of-the-road music, selected on the basis of market research. With strong horizontal programming the new channel reached a market share of around 10% by the end of 1992. As a result of this success changes were made to other channels. In 2004 the five Flemish public radio channels Radio 1, Radio 2, Radio 3 (Klara, since 2000), Studio Brussel and Radio Donna reached a hitherto unheard-of high with a market share of around 73%. Television followed the example of radio. Research in 1995 showed that the television-viewing public could be divided into six life-style groups: TV addicts, zappers, family viewers, active explorers, spontaneous epicureans and those seeking ‘added value’. VRT took the unusual decision to cease to include the first two groups among their priorities. In their overriding need for simple amusement these groups were exceptionally well provided for by commercial broadcasting. This meant that around 25% of the Flemish population would no longer be served by public broadcasting. That appeared to be a fundamental breach of the idea that public services ought to be for everyone. But on the other hand: why should public broadcasting continue with the unwinnable battle of competition? A clear choice in programming meant that VRT would now be able to devote itself much better to satisfying the requirements of the remaining 75%. To this end the two channels were once more radically reprogrammed. From then on TV-1 aimed at the active explorers, the spontaneous epicureans and the family viewers in a schedule intended to provide ‘warmth and relaxation’. The second network (Canvas) was to concern itself with information and depth. Because people did not want to abandon youth as a target group Canvas' daytime programming would be aimed exclusively at young people. The separate name ‘Ketnet’ was developed for this purpose. This strategy, which resulted in sometimes drastic alterations in form and content at programme level, proved successful. In 2005 public broadcasting's market share was back up to 36%, 27% of which was attributable to TV-1. The additional advantage was that certain programmes, such as VRT-News, seemed to be much better regarded and understood than before. In an open letter of 15 May 2006 to the Flemish Government the then top man at VRT, Tony Mary, could announce with pride that ‘today VRT is one of the most efficient, most innovative and highest quality broadcasters in Europe.’ It is true that the new VRT strategy caused repeated discussions to flare up with the commercial media concerns, who complained of tampering with competition. For wasn't advertising and making programmes according to format the preserve of commercial broadcasting? The commercial SBS applied great political pressure to be allowed to take over the popular Radio Donna and to restrict VRT's scope for advertising. The VMMa Group which among other things runs VTM even threatened to sell this crown jewel to a foreign partner on the grounds that, as a Flemish enterprise, its commercial potential was unduly restricted by the public regulations. The question now - writing this at the end of 2006 - is, how long the politicians will tolerate these seriously strained relations in the media market. In any

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 232 case Minister Geert Bourgeois publicly declared that the Flemish Community opts resolutely for ‘a strong, high-quality public broadcasting system’ as a guarantee of ‘an open, respectful and tolerant Flanders’. This reformulation of public broadcasting is a bit ironic because precisely public broadcasting is the subject of a rather disrespectful and intolerant debate. Maybe Minister Bourgeois himself is partly responsible for this, because the Flemish government has drawn the financial reins unpleasantly tight for VRT. According to the Control Agreement 2008-2011 the public funding of VRT will be no more than 63% of the VRT budget in 2011, as opposed to 67% in 2006. But the solution Minister Bourgeois proposed for these hidden budget cuts (VRT must extract resources from the market ‘to carry out its Public Duty’), is at the same time coupled with all kinds of political interference. As an example, in September 2006 the politically composed VRT Governing Body barred the directors from selling previews of the popular police series Flikken to the commercial digital channel Belgacom-TV. According to director Tony Mary, who was dismissed at the end of 2006, this was at the instigation of minister Bourgeois, who did indeed openly encourage marketing activities on the part of VRT but was allegedly concerned with ‘a new politicising of public broadcasting’.

Adaptation and re-orientation in the Netherlands

In the Netherlands the re-orientation differed in intensity and form. The reason for this was that the Broadcasting Act of 1967 had already given rise to a good deal of internal commercialisation of public broadcasting, which was known in the seventies and eighties as ‘dumbing down’. That was further encouraged by the increasing funds advertising made available to public broadcasting. For instance, this extra income enabled public broadcasting to keep the broadcasting rights for the most popular football matches and major sporting events. In Belgium these had almost immediately fallen prey to commercial broadcasting. Even before the start of commercial television in 1988 their considerable financial resources had persuaded public broadcasting to take the strategic decision of setting up a third television network, to give greater potential for flexible programming. None the less, public broadcasting experienced a fall in its audience figures. In 1990 its market share was still 75%, five years later 45%, and ten years later again 36%. The competition also grew strongly. In 2005 alongside the three public television channels there were seven commercial channels available, grouped in three companies: RTL, SBS and Talpa. In addition they were joined by innumerable channels aimed at sub-groups via cable and satellite, some free, some paid for by viewers by means of a decoder. The fact that public broadcasting still scored a market share of 36.1% in 2005 might actually be called a substantial achievement, not least because there was not really any unanimous public broadcasting system in the Netherlands. Indeed the very term ‘public broadcasting’ had to be dreamed up in the early nineties to demonstrate the necessary unity. But that failed to hide the fact public broadcasting was built around autonomous broadcasting associations and a general organisation (the NOS)

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 that operated within strictly neutral rules and regulations. The internal pillarisation of broadcasting made co-operation and the development of a joint strategy considerably more difficult - but not

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 233 impossible. Already in the early nineties the profiles of the five radio channels were streamlined and the influence of so-called network co-ordinators gradually increased in television also. They monitored and encouraged a clear profile on the part of their channel, a process that brought them into daily conflict with the programme-making broadcasting associations since the latter were primarily interested in their own recognisability. The public discussions on the broadcasting system turned into a fundamental discussion of the position of the associations in relation to more centrally driven collegiate bodies, like the NOS, the Board of Governors and the directors of the separate channels. The government considered central control to be of great strategic importance but the broadcasting associations represented a very large part of the Dutch population and the preservation of this public participation could not simply be denied. On the other hand, membership of the broadcasting associations, which had been growing constantly since 1965, was gradually falling off (see table). In that respect the defection of public association Veronica to commercial broadcasting in September 1995 was a blood-letting, because more than a million subscribers to Veronica Magazine could still be counted within the public system as members of a broadcasting association. But quite apart from that there was absolutely no doubt that the membership of all broadcasting companies was falling significantly.

Table: Membership figures for public broadcasting and the Dutch population 1965-2005

Year Membership figuresDutch population Percentage of for all public members of broadcasting broadcasting companies in relation to population 1965 2,103,081 12,212,000 17.2 1970 2,712,916 12,958,000 20.9 1975 3,294,128 13,599,000 24.2 1980 3,890,028 14,091,000 27.6 1985 4,446,352 14,454,000 30.8 1990 4,900,871 14,893,000 32.9 1995 5,043,533 15,424,000 32.7 2000 3,893,000 15,760,000 24.7 2005 3,257,015 16,306,000 20.0 Source: Jaarverslagen omroepverenigingen, NOS Documentatie en Bibliotheek, Commissariaat voor de Media; Cebuco, HOI/Instituut voor Media Auditing

Nonetheless, it cannot be said that public broadcasting companies are totally marginal. Therefore the government used indirect means to achieve greater unity in

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 public broadcasting. It granted greater powers to a central Board of Governors that was appointed by the government itself. In 2000 a ‘concession grants system’ was also established, following the Belgian example. The concession grant was given for ten years to public broadcasting as such and not to the private associations (who nevertheless received a certain broadcasting guarantee). With the scrapping of the broadcasting licence fee in 2000 public grants to the broadcasting budget became a matter for political deliberation, as

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 234 was particularly apparent when the Balkenende cabinets imposed new cuts on public broadcasting nearly every year from 2002 on. The general aims laid down by government could be adjusted by means of a regular visitation. The first visitation, completed in 2004 by the Rinnooy Kan Committee, concluded that with better co-operation public broadcasting had been reasonably successful in retaining a dominant position in the market. But they also concluded that the sum was less than the separate parts. Apparently the co-operation was not visible enough for a public that primarily wanted to identify with a particular channel's profile. The tug of war in Hilversum had led to network profiles being created from combining broadcasting association programmes. Thus on Nederland-1 AVRO, KRO and NCRV co-operated with a few small, specifically religious and philosophical broadcasting companies to attract a primarily older audience. On Nederland-2 TROS, BNN, the NOS and the EO aimed to provide a broad range of programmes with a lot of sport and entertainment. On Nederland-3 VARA, VPRO and NPS served a generally better-educated public with a high need for information and so-called quality programmes. But the continuing drop in market shares and the ever-increasing competition could only lead to fundamental choices being made. In 2005 the authoritative Academic Council for Government Policy (Wetenschappelijke Raad voor het Regeringsbeleid - WWR) published a preparatory policy study in which it spoke of ‘a congealed, if not frozen, system that to a considerable extent has lost touch with a changing society’. Younger viewers in particular were ignoring public broadcast programmes in vast numbers. The Council's central recommendation was to aim public broadcasting more at certain functions that the market apparently could not cater for, or not adequately, but that were cherished by society as a whole for their contribution to democracy, pluriformity of opinion forming and cultural quality. That meant going down a route that Flemish public broadcasting had long since embarked on: public broadcasting has no broad mission to reach every conceivable group, but only missions not adequately guaranteed by the free market. The ideas proposed by the WWR were almost immediately translated by the State Secretary for Media Issues into practical policy. That had become more urgent because of the rapidly falling income from advertising. At the end of 2004 the new television channel, Talpa, had acquired the rights to the national football competition and the opening of this channel in August 2005 resulted in a further loss in market share for public broadcasting. The government, which was in no mind to compensate for the fall in income through extra public funding, then proposed a radical change in strategy. From 2008, under the guidance of a much more powerful Board of Governors, public broadcasting should concentrate on news (to be provided by the NOS), opinion, the arts, culture and education (to be provided by broadcasting associations and other social organisations). Cuts would inevitably lead to the loss of programme titles and even of an entire broadcasting association. The NPS, a broadcaster without members that had split from the NOS in 1996 to specialise in art, culture and information, was to disappear after 2008. Such drastic plans even led to a broadcasting strike by programme-makers in November 2005, but much of the tension was defused by the approaching elections in which a win for the broadcasting-friendly PvdA (Labour Party) was predicted. The fall of the Balkenende cabinet in May 2006 made it difficult to see whether, or in what

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 235

Photo Collection Kadoc, Leuven/Archief Boerenbond. form, the plans for broadcasting could be moved forward. Now much more depended on what the Board of Governors for public broadcasting could bring into practice. The Board had in fact already changed tactics in favour of a compulsory programming strategy that would subordinate the interests of broadcasting companies to central programme management. They had sought advice on this from their colleagues of the Flemish VRT with their successful marketing strategy. The dotty old lady of European broadcasting had thus become an exporter of the most innovative ideas on programming. The programming model for Dutch public broadcasting that was introduced in September 2006 closely resembled that of Flanders. The broadcasting organisations would lose forever their permanent right to a ‘home’ television network. From then on channels were programmed according to the same life-styles as Flemish television channels were founded on, although the Netherlands would have to retain three public channels. The first network became a family channel aimed at ‘social cohesion, social experiences, respect and cordiality’. The second network was to be primarily ‘participatory, socially engaged, meaningful, providing depth and stimulus’. Finally, the third network would need to be ‘young, innovative, surprising, wayward, dynamic and full of curiosity’. And all that on substantially less money, because in the next few years income from advertising is expected to drop by around 100 million euros.

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 236

The future

The recent broadcasting history of Flanders and the Netherlands confirms the trends that are to be seen everywhere in Western democracies. In almost all countries a liberal media system dominates, in which ever-increasing freedom of choice on the part of consumers (viewers, listeners, internet users) is forcing providers to make enormous changes. Old political considerations which protected certain content (for instance the preservation of cultural identity or continuing representation of minority groups) seem to play an ever-diminishing role, and some would even go so far as to say this role is played out. Three important developments are responsible for this. The first is that technology has made possible a strongly increasing commercial interest in media. A second development is closely related to this. Due to heightened competition there is talk of a move from broadcasting to narrowcasting, that is to say that broadcasting companies will have to serve the needs of ever smaller groups of the public, some of them with very specific requirements, instead of the entire population. The third development is that through internet technology and the digitalising of television these same small subsections of the public can consume their own media at times that suit them. ‘Media on demand’ requires not only a re-orientation in programming practice but also massive investment in technology. The public broadcasting companies have each reacted in their own way to these three developments. Where VRT focused almost entirely on a new marketing strategy, the Dutch broadcasters invested more in adapting to new technology. Partly due to extra money for innovation the free repeat-on-request-site uitzendinggemist.nl was able to make huge developments. The first digital web channels in Dutch public broadcasting also came into being, on which for 24 hrs a day viewers could watch whole programmes devoted to specific themes such as History, News, Consumers, Documentary, Animals and Nature, Museums and Experimental Music. In that respect Flanders lags behind once more. In November 2006 the start of a Belgian digital channel for culture for example was postponed indefinitely because the VRT found itself in financial difficulties through years of drawing on reserves. In all cases commercial broadcasting companies have gained considerable ground, because they seem to react more adequately to the need for narrowcasting and media-on-demand. But experience also shows that there really is still an important role for broadcasting companies who don't regard earning money for their share-holders as their principal objective. That view is also wholeheartedly recognised by the most diehard liberal and even by the owners of commercial broadcasting companies. Obviously, there are significant differences in the exact undertakings that can qualify for public finance. There are two main schools of thought on this. On the one side are the minimalists who will allow public broadcasting only where the market cannot supply the need. These are not only the liberals who see the free market as the solution to all problems and who are supported by commercial media companies who invoke the free trade of goods and services. The breaking up of public broadcasting companies who inhibit competition is also called for by people who for years have been shouting that public broadcasting is a cover for a leftist plot that conceals unpalatable opinions or pushes

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 these opinions into the background. What all these groups are aiming for is public broadcasting that has

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 237 only marginal, and therefore inexpensive, responsibilities in the area of news, debate, art and culture. Because public broadcasting in general is not allowed to provide entertainment, in this model it should be transformed into a small broadcasting company, making programmes for a relatively small, well-educated elite with above-average earnings. In the United States PBS occupies such a position, though this broadcasting company is kept going not by government funding but by individual donations from interested viewers. On the other side stand the advocates of a public service model. They think that publicly-funded broadcasting should be a major player in the media field. This kind of broadcasting provides a worthwhile and comprehensive programme based on broad public interest (therefore including entertainment and sport). After all, marginalised public broadcasting can certainly not compete with the commercial companies and will therefore be pushed even further to the side where small, mostly rich and well-educated target groups exercise their preferences. The question is whether public broadcasting of this kind can still be considered as ‘public’. It will be evident that the discussions in both the Netherlands and Flanders have shown a clear preference for the public service model, but ideas on how such a thing should be designed are somewhat divergent. People in both countries are in agreement as to the core values public broadcasting should aim for: quality, trustworthiness, social engagement and independence. But opinions differ on the question of who should translate these values into actual programmes, on what scale, in what form and with what resources. That has a good deal to do with how the broadcasting systems have grown up and developed historically. In the Netherlands there was talk of adapting to a changing market much earlier, through the introduction of an open system including public exploitation of advertisements in 1967. So the blow from commercial competition could be absorbed much more gradually than in Belgium, which had a rather rigid, bureaucratic and politicised broadcasting structure. In Belgium, however, quicker and more fundamental choices have been made in the modernisation process in the 1990s. According to many, the Netherlands is failing in this because the strength of the fragmented broadcasting organisation is a hindrance to efficient and radical policy. The question is whether that is really the case. There is no denying for example that Dutch public broadcasting in comparison to other European public broadcasters is forging ahead in the field of multi-media, digitalisation and interactivity. But that doesn't appear to be helping to reverse the negative spiral of market share however. So confidence in a healthy future among public broadcasting organisations is at the moment greater in Flanders than in the Netherlands. In the Netherlands almost all the public broadcasting associations are looking towards 2008 with great trepidation, for in that year the initial concession grant is due to be renewed. The outlines of the structure for public broadcasting that State Secretary Medy van der Laan has set out for that new period predict a much less pronounced role for the broadcasting associations, with much less money. Her departure in May 2006 and the formation of a new cabinet after the November 2006 elections will probably change little of this, because the Board of Governors will spread the associations' programmes across various channels, thus further damaging their individuality. Whether such a thing should also be seen as a threat to public broadcasting is, of course, the big question, because the Flemish example clearly shows that

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 238 the success of this kind of broadcasting in the present age is determined more by recognisable programmes and channels than by recognisable producers. Seen in that light, all the spluttering about organisational structure in Hilversum is really a rearguard action. That is something they have understood for a long while in Belgium. Translated by Sheila M. Dale

Bibliography

Beheersovereenkomst van de VRT en de Vlaamse Gemeenschap 2002-2006 (www.vrt.be/vrt_master/vragen/vrt_vragen_documentatie/index.shtml) Beheersovereenkomst van de VRT en de Vlaamse Gemeenschap 2007-2011 (www.vrt.be/vrt_master/vragen/vrt_vragen_documentatie/index.shtml) Geert Bourgeois, Beleidsnota Media 2004-2009 (Vlaams Ministerie van Bestuurszaken, Buitenlands Beleid, Media en Toerisme, 2004; www2.vlaanderen.be/ned/sites/media/Beleidsnotamedia.pdf) Gregory Ferrell Lowe and Per Jauert (eds.), Cultural Dilemmas in Public Service Broadcasting. Göteborg, 2005. Focus op Functies. Uitdagingen voor een toekomstbestendig mediabeleid (Wetenschappelijke Raad voor het Regeringsbeleid, 2005) Cas Goossens, Radio en televisie in Vlaanderen - Een geschiedenis. Leuven, 1999. D.C. Hallin and P. Mancini, Comparing Media Systems. Three models of Media and Politics. Cambridge, 2004. Met het oog op morgen. Kabinetsvisie op de toekomst van de publieke omroep, 24 juni 2005 (www.minocw.nl/documenten/brief2k-2005-doc-28298a.pdf) Omzien naar de omroep. Rapport van de visitatiecommissie landelijke publieke omroep (Rapport Commissie Rinnooy Kan 2004) Paddy Scannell, ‘Public Service Broadcasting: History of a Concept’. In: Edward Buscombe (ed.), British Television. A Reader. Oxford, 2000.

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 239

Stepping Up to the Light The Poetry of Jan Eijkelboom [Kees Snoek]

In 2005 Jan Eijkelboom (1926-) published his tenth volume of poetry, An Elephant with Amnesia (Een olifant met geheugenverlies), only 26 years after his debut What Remains is Never to Return (Wat blijft komt nooit terug, 1979). Eijkelboom's first poem, written at the age of fifty, was inspired by the shaded ancient garden of the art museum in Dordrecht, the place where he grew up and lived the greater part of his life. Eijkelboom made a late debut, but in a way his poetry had been waiting to come out all along. In 1950, on the boat which took him back to Holland after several years of military service in Indonesia, Eijkelboom felt the literary spark when reading some poems by John Donne. He turned them into Dutch, and in 1957 a little book came out with his translation of ten love poems and three sermons by Donne. In 1953 Eijkelboom published a short story, ‘De terugtocht’ (meaning ‘The Retreat’ as well as the ‘The Voyage Home’) about his dramatic experiences as a soldier in the Dutch colonial army. In the fifties and sixties he edited and collaborated on several literary journals. He married in 1956 and made a career in journalism while living in Amsterdam. In 1967 he returned to Dordrecht, taking up a position as the city's public relations officer. He held this job until 1971, when he returned to journalism. He wrote for Het Vrije Volk and finally became editor-in-chief of De Dordtenaar. It was in this last post that literature took over, and from 1979 on he dedicated himself solely to writing and translating. Over the years he has published an impressive number of translations of English-language poets, including John Clare, John Donne, Emily Dickinson, W.B. Yeats, Philip Larkin, Robert Lowell, Weldon Kees, Seamus Heaney, Derek Walcott (Omeros) and Craig Raine. Eijkelboom's choice of poets shows his affinity with English literary tradition, which has left its traces in his own poetry. Some rather free translations of particularly congenial poems were even incorporated in his own original volumes.

Nostalgia as a tool for survival

‘Mixing memory and desire’ is a quote from T.S. Eliot which Eijkelboom used as a device for one of his poems. It points to important themes. Desire is the driving force in Eijkelboom's poetical world, either directed at the regenerating vi-

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 240 tality of love, of yet another spring, of youth - or harking back to a past whose image the poet tries to eternalise as if it were still pure and intact. The poet's memory is often stirred when he is walking the streets of the city where he passed his childhood, where he had his first sublime experiences which imbued him with a true poetical sensation. In some of Eijkelboom's poems such divine moments are relived, and this brings to mind one of his Dutch literary forebears: the poet J.C. Bloem (1887-1966). Bloem's famous sonnet ‘De Dapperstraat’ tells about a moment of happiness which came over him unexpectedly in an undistinguished Amsterdam neighbourhood, ‘walking through the sleet,/ The city grime, one grey and drizzly morning,/ Blissfully happy, drenched in Dapper Street.’ (tr. James Brockway). Eijkelboom evokes similar intensified moments of sudden bliss occurring in everyday life. When projected onto the past, desire can fix an emotion and preserve it as a relic: ‘And outside blooms the perfect rose of the past,/ never gnawed at by lice.// Yes, above all give us verandahs,/ melancholy's long-cherished poison.’ (The Arsenal - Het arsenaal, 2000). The poet is well aware that his nostalgia, however true it may be, is but a makeshift sentiment, a tool for survival: ‘Desire remains the escape season/ for who - wherefore? - wants to survive.’ (Hora incerta, 1993). Time and again, the poet attempts to retrieve the past, against his own better judgment that it is irrevocably gone. Taking a peek inside a house where he spent part of his youth, he stipulates that this house has remained ‘a stronghold sure (...)/ full of knowledge never forgotten/ of niche, corner, spiral stairs/ and time, which is reversible after all.’ (Chicken Wings - Kippevleugels, 1991). A sense of security is attached to such objects as a whistling kettle, a hotplate for tea and a radio which evoke bygone times when the political commentator with his ‘bakelite voice’ broadcast his self-confident explanation of the world. (Chicken Wings). This is a world seen through a child's eyes, but also a seemingly less complicated pre-war world, in which religion still plays an overwhelming role. Yet, in another poem, the change wrought by time - and above all by human intervention! - has changed a house and its surroundings so utterly beyond recognition, that the poet curses the day ‘that I began to look/ for what now even in memory/ has altogether ceased to exist.’ (The Arsenal). The title of this bitter and angry poem is ‘Oh, and for good and all’ (‘O, en voorgoed’), hinting at Bloem's poem ‘Recollection’ (‘Herinnering’) with its famous last line ‘Gone by, gone by, oh, for good and all gone by’.

The shadow of faith

Bygone times don't only call up a sense of wholeness and belonging, sometimes they are associated with feelings of grief, fear and guilt. This is the case when religion enters the picture. Eijkelboom's parents belonged to the orthodox wing of the Dutch Reformed Church (‘gereformeerde bond’). Although they educated their son in a loving, even relatively liberal atmosphere, the doom of Calvinist belief was an ever-present burden, as is suggested in some of Eijkelboom's poems. His poems often have an anecdotal core and conjure up an image of the poet at various stages in his life's journey. Take for instance ‘Worn clothes’ (‘Gedragen kleding’), a poem in three parts, of which the last one goes as follows: ‘I took off that silly faith/ as if it

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 were a jacket./ I was only fourteen years old/ and felt a state of grace,/ as if a miracle had happened./ Yet I didn't get off/

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 241 without rips and tears./ Later it dawned on me:/ you are permanently damaged,/ barely saved in time.// I didn't take off a jacket/ but a skin, and/ from now on I had to do without,/ hiding/ behind a smoke curtain/ - quickly raised by the genie in the bottle -/ to disappear for him who sees all,/ even though he doesn't exist.’ (What Remains is Never to Return). In a more austere, metaphorical fashion, the horrors of this formidable faith are summoned up in the poem ‘Sometimes’ (‘Soms’, The Golden Man - De gouden man, 1982). In Eijkelboom's first volumes of poetry, the Calvinist faith of his childhood still casts its shadow - as does the memory of failed relationships, drink addiction and loss, in poems of sometimes apocalyptic dimensions. In his later volumes the biblical God of Vengeance still pops up every so often, but in a less acrimonious setting. Even as a child the poet could always escape religion's

Jan Eijkelboom (1926-), Photo courtesy of Stichting Perspektief. doom by finding comfort in nature. (‘Said She’, ‘Zei zij’, The Arsenal). The image of a psalm-singing woman even has a nostalgic connotation (Hora incerta), and here again Eijkelboom tunes in with Dutch poetical tradition. Didn't Martinus Nijhoff (1894-1953), who also relinquished the religion he was brought up with, write this unforgettable portrait of a woman on a boat, reminding him of his mother, ‘and what she sang, I heard then, was a psalm’ (‘De moeder de vrouw’). Eijkelboom shares Nijhoff's simplicity and pictorial clarity. Things as they are, objects in the house, birds in the garden, certain effects of light acquire a mystical dimension. It may be the glimpse of a buffer-stop he spots from the train, blazing in the sun, in a peculiar shade of red, which gives him a feeling of felicity (The Arsenal), or it may be the rare sight of a white blackbird, spotted ‘in

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 242 the snow slightly more white than he was.// How he was scratching along/ with the customarily coloured/ couple of blackbirds./ Here the healing began.’ (The Arsenal). But the things observed in their ‘thing-ness’ don't need to be rare or peculiar to give a mystical sense of well-being. This sense may also come about as the daylight filters through and slowly fills the house: ‘Wait until silence is kindled, until the singing/ of the kettle joins in/ irrevocably.’ (The Arsenal). In his poem ‘The other way round’ (‘Andersom’), Eijkelboom portrays Mondrian, the painter who consciously rose above the ills of the past ‘just by/ stepping up to the light.’ Constantly evolving, Mondrian attained a certain mystical clarity in his work. But his last painting, ‘Victory Boogie-Woogie’, was not finished when he died. The last stanza of the poem voices a paradox which is characteristic of Eijkelboom: ‘As to that Victory Boogie-Woogie:/ it was never completed, remains for ever/ finished in its genesis.’ The Dutch word ‘eeuwig’ (for ever) can be read as the end of a statement, signifying that the painting remains for ever. But it can also be read to incorporate ‘in zijn wording’ (in its genesis) of the next line, signifying that the painting is eternally nascent. In the third reading we need to add ‘voltooid’ (finished): the painting is finished after all, but it's the picture of an eternal genesis, and for that reason even more mysterious.

Eijkelboom's famous line ‘Wat blijft komt nooit terug’. ‘What remains is never to return’, chiselled into the quay-rim of one of Dordrecht's ramparts Photo courtesy of Stichting Perspektief.

Another paradox is contained in Eijkelboom's famous line ‘Wat blijft komt nooit terug’: ‘What remains is never to return’, which was chiselled into the quayrim of one of Dordrecht's ramparts. ‘What remains’ refers to the memory of past situations and settings which are never to return. The only thing remaining is memory itself, but that too is finite. The vanity motive is not lost upon this poet

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 243 living in one of Holland's oldest cities. ‘Vita vapor’: life is like steam, as one of his poems is entitled (in Dawn's Eyelashes - Wimpers van de dageraad, 1987). Yet, living near canals and rivers, Eijkelboom is also aware of the continuity of life which is present in the constantly moving stream, ‘Movement which will endure/ when all has stalled.’ (The Golden Man). One of Eijkelboom's most impressive poetic achievements is his cycle of eight poems, ‘Harbour of the wool-weavers’ (‘Wolwevershaven’, in De gouden man), a series of musical-philosophical improvisations on the theme of the water, experienced by someone living in an old house on the River Maas. The mystic quality of the flowing water is caught in the second poem: ‘Water, how to put order to it?/ The bard of the water-course,/ how to consult him?/ The strategist of what is writ/ who encodes and decides/ and who thereupon still knows/ that nothing is ever alike.// Let me just try it myself:/ swaying along, looking, letting go,/ becoming fluid myself/ and registering that./ As long as this house/ holds out in this stream/ I can still go with the flow and learn.’

A new level of reality

Jan Eijkelboom himself claims the influence on his poetry of English confessional poets as well as of Chinese and Japanese poems. Many of his poems cover subjects close to his own life and can therefore be termed ‘confessional’. Reading them, we get glimpses into his life as a man who married, had children and a career, who became a disciple of ‘King Alcohol’, who divorced, who overcame his alcoholism as well as several life-threatening diseases, who remarried and fathered children again in middle life. As a confessional poet, he uses a liberating humour and self-irony. He also demonstrates a preference for simple, intelligible language, for ‘words as plain as hen-bird's wings’, as Philip Larkin would have it, for unadorned language. Yet, he has translated Craig Raine, one of the so-called ‘Martians’, poets who cultivate an entirely new view of their surroundings, employing ‘conceit’: bizarre, unusual metaphors that are nevertheless striking. In his last volume, Eijkelboom uses the image ‘the double axle/ of one push/ of breath’. His language isn't always as simple as it seems. I have mentioned his paradoxes; the reader should also be alert for ambiguities and hidden meanings, as well as suggestive lines of utter concentration which recall Japanese haikus. As the man who walks through life, contemplating, experiencing the change around and inside himself, Jan Eijkelboom lifts reality to another level and creates a poetical universe all his own.

Jan Eijkelboom has published the following volumes of poetry: Wat blijft komt nooit terug (1979), De gouden man (1982), De wimpers van de dageraad (1987), Kippevleugels (1991), Hora incerta (1993), Het lied van de krekel (1996), Het arsenaal (2000), Heden voelen mijn voeten zich goed (2002), Binnensmonds jubelend (2004) and Een olifant met geheugenverlies (2005). The last volume was published by Wagner & Van Santen (Sliedrecht), all other volumes by De Arbeiderspers, which also collected Eijkelboom's poetry up to 2000: Tot zo ver (2002). In 2000 De

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 Arbeiderspers published Eijkelboom's short stories about his experiences during and after the Dutch military actions against Indonesia: Het krijgsbedrijf.

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 244

Five Poems by Jan Eijkelboom

Sometimes

Sometimes I just have to smelt at that sulphurous pit, taste ash again and listen to the moaning. I marvel how sweet being lost, being nearly lost is to the senses. I turn away from the enchanting valley in which I use to draw furrows pleasing to the eye which bear fruit to boot. How come the shrew casts such a spell whereas the value of mother earth - though constant - is not so hot right now, and decay, foul-smelling decay a blistering plaster until the lump bursts open crimson and yellow. The fire painted by Patinir and Bosch in ever brighter colours than Purgatory's fainter glow which doesn't singe a single soul, which warms none.

Not to speak of heaven, where coolness flows we will yearn for. But later, in a little while, not now. Just not now. Soms

Soms moet ik ruiken aan die zwavelput, proef ik weer as en kan het kermen horen. Wat is er toch zo zoet aan het verloren, het bijna verloren gaan. Ik wend mij af van het bekoorlijk dal waarin ik anders de voren trek die goed zijn om te zien, die ook nog vrucht voortbrengen. Hoe is de helleveeg betoverend en moeder aardes waarde wel constant maar tijdlijk niet courant en het bederf, het stinkende bederf trek- pleister tot de buil weer openberst in karmozijn en geel. De brand die Patinir en Bosch altijd weer feller schilderden dan 't vage vuur daarnaast, waaraan geen ziel zich schroeit, geen mens zich warmt.

Om van de hemel maar te zwijgen, waar koelte stroomt, waarnaar wij zullen hijgen. Maar later, straks, nu niet. Nu even niet.

From The Golden Man (De gouden man). Amsterdam: de Arbeiderspers, 1982.

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 245

The Other Way Round as the man in autumn who suddenly trod on his shadow grown too long and left it behind just by stepping up to the light.

Leaving the chrysanthemums to rot and die in their water, he learned the measured steps of the fox-trot and passed on to a boogie-woogie which he chose to define as Victory: the war almost over, relegated to the past the brooding near stagnant waters that sometimes reflect a moribund moon.

‘There's a lot of abstract fellows over here,’ beckoned someone from Blaricum. He went, wrote turbid things and eventually painted so lucid that he could just as well let go.

As to that Victory Boogie-Woogie: it was never completed, remains for ever finished in its genesis.

Andersom als de man in de herfst die zichzelf op een te lange schaduw betrapte en die achter rich liet door gewoon op het licht af te stappen.

De stervende chrysanten liet hij verder in hun water verrotten. Hij leerde de afgepaste foxtrot en ging over op een boogie-woogie die hij nader aanduidde met Victory: de oorlog bijna voorbij, lang al voorbij het broeden aan stilstaande waters die soms een doodzieke maan weerkaatsen.

‘Er wonen hier veel abstracte luidjes.’ lokte iemand hem vanuit Blaricum. Hij ging. schreef troebele dingen en schilderde allengs zo helder dat het bijna niet meer hoefde.

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 Die Victory Boogie-Woogie nu raakte nooit af, blijft eeuwig in zijn wording voltooid.

From The Cricket's Song (Het lied van de krekel). Amsterdam: de Arbeiderspers. 1996.

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 246

A Friend from Former Days

It's a dim morning and the day hides. One could up-grade that greyness with electric light on this white sheet.

Then a hand from long ago holds back mine. A scant light enters shy yet purposeful

as if the window were the door. It's a friend from former days. He even knew your mother. She didn't need an alarm to always

get up before you. Nor did she bother about weather predictions. Now stay as motionless as this day.

Wait until silence is kindled, until the singing of the kettle joins in irrevocably. Een vriend van vroeger

Het schemert 's ochtends en de dag blijft weg. Men zou die grauwte kunnen opwaarderen met lamplicht op het wit papier.

Dan houdt een lang gestorven hand de mijne tegen. Schraal buitenlicht komt schuchter en toch doelbewust naar binnen

als was het raam de deur. Het is een vriend van vroeger Hij heeft je moeder nog gekend. Die had geen wekker nodig om altijd

eerder op te zijn dan jij. Zij had geen boodschap ook aan 't weerbericht. Blijf even roerloos nu als deze dag.

Wacht tot de stilte oplicht, het zingen van de ketel zich onherroepelijk laat horen.

From The Arsenal (Het arsenaal). Amsterdam: de Arbeiderspers, 2000.

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 247

Porridge Eaters

Time doesn't move, it's us that pass by despite our dawdling attempts to imitate time.

Once I sat in a room just being motionless, I saw through the narrow window all seasons pass through a tree but before I knew I was part of the motion again.

I found a potsherd in the mud, The bottom part of a plate. There shall be an End it said in calligraphic writing.

It's your dead mother calling you to clear your plate or else you won't grow up.

Billions and billions of porridge eaters march past but the petrified general who reviews it all doesn't notice us.

Papeters

De tijd staat stil, wij zijn het die voorbijgaan al trachten we soms treuzelend de tijd na te bootsen.

Ik zat eens in een kamer roerloos te weren, rag door het smalle raam alle seizoenen door een boompje gaan maar eer ik het wist bewoog ik weer mee.

Ik vond een scherf in het slijk, de bodem van een bord. Daar zal een Eijnde zijn stond er in schoonschrift op.

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 Het is je dode moeder die roept eet toch je bordje leeg anders word je nooit groot.

Papeters in miljardenvoud trekken voorbij en een versteende generaal neemt het in ogenschouw maar ziet ons niet.

From Inwardly Jubilant (Binnensmonds jubelend). Amsterdam: de Arbeiderspers. 2004.

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 248

I grope for another diction than that of my year-worn self.

Did I mutter too much, sound too little, utter too much without singing?

Old age is dear to me, all that piled up time of then and now showing from child to old man one big gap filled with war and measly loves.

Enough of that grime, pounded by an elephant with amnesia.

Should I lapse into wisdom? that would only yield texts which are then paraded in the paper when yet another successful deceased has exchanged his transitory state for nothingness. Stay clear of that.

But my circle of acquaintances expands. It happens that children who don't talk yet look at me with a glimpse of recognition. That will do. If I still wish to record that overpowering feeling, it should be done in unadorned language, almost self-evident.

Ik tast naar een andere dictie dan die van mijn verjaarde zelf.

Heb ik te veel gepreveld, te weinig geklonken, te veel ongezongen gezegd?

Ouderdom is mij toch lief, heel die opeengehoopte tijd van toen en nu met tussen kind en grijsaard één groot gat vol oorlog en verpieterde liefdes.

Zand erover, aangestampt door een olifant met geheugenverlies.

Moet ik vervallen tot wijsheid? dat leidt maar tot teksten die ongevraagd in de krant gaan staan als weer een geslaagde dode het tijdelijke heeft verwisseld met het niets. Blijf daarvan weg.

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 Maar mijn kennissenkring breidt zich uit. Soms kijken kinderen die nog niet praten

mij aan met een blik van herkenning. Dat is genoeg. Als ik die overrompeling

toch wil vast leggen, dan moet dat zijn in onversierde taal, bijna vanzelfsprekend.

From An Elephant with Amnesia (Een olifant met geheugenverlies). Sliedrecht: Wagner & Van Santen, 2005.

All poems translated by Kees Snoek

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 249

Aalst: A Flemish Provincial Town like no Other [Luc Devoldere]

When the workers of the spinning mill come home along chapel road, little ondine saw them fighting with those of the weaving mil ‘the labor’, who lived in the first dirty houses behind no-man's wood: termuren was encyclical because mr derenancourt was, and the first dirty houses were libertine because the owner of the labor was: none of them had the vote, though... something ondineke didn't know yet at the time. (Louis Paul Boon, Chapel Road; translated by Adrienne Dixon)

For the approach to the town I have chosen the N 9 (Brussels, Aalst, Ghent, Eeklo, Bruges, Ostend). I drive out of Brussels and into the province of Flemish Brabant. Less than half an hour later I pass the sign announcing East Flanders, but the real border, the old one, is a bit further on at the River Dender. After the fall of the fortress of Ename on the river Scheldt in about 1050 the Count of Flanders, a vassal of the French King, annexed the area between the Scheldt and the Dender, and the border between Flanders and the German Empire moved up to the Dender. So with a touch of pathos I can locate the border between France and the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation on the bridge across the river. But I am not yet at that bridge. First I have to cross the bridge over the railway. Only then does the hallucinatory town appear. Behind the black line of the Dender a smoky factory, etched huge against an apocalyptic light, stretches for hundreds of metres. The recumbent monster, which has no intention of moving, dominates the centre of this provincial town. A British multinational starch producer has its European headquarters here, as any visitor will have noticed. To the left of the bridge over the Dender stands a tall industrial building on which I can just make out the words ‘Redt uzelven’, ‘save yourselves’. It looks like the entrance to the underworld, but I have just driven into the town of Aalst. Once I have parked the car - and that is no easy task - I walk into town. After a couple of hours it is obvious that, as well as the industrial town it has become since the mid-nineteenth century, Aalst has all the ingredients of a Flemish

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 250

Statue of Dirk Martens on Grote Markt. Photo by Stephan Vanfleteren.

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 Statue of King Baudouin on Kerzerlijk Plein. Photo by Stephan Vanfleteren. provincial town: its Belfort (bell tower) and its schepenhuis, the oldest town hall in the Low Countries, dating from the first quarter of the thirteenth century; its ‘liberal’ café and meeting place, the eighteenth-century Graaf van Egmont, and its ‘Catholic’ one, De Borse van Amsterdam, that was once a staging-post on the road from Lille to Amsterdam; its monument to a famous son, Dirk Martens, the first printer in the Low Countries to use loose reusable type and the publisher of Erasmus and More - and that is just on Grote Markt, the main square; its Clara 't Roen, in 1524 the first person in the Southern Netherlands to be burned for her Lutheran beliefs; its Sint-Martinuskerk (Church of St Martin), which never became the cathedral it should have been, but which does have a Rubens - in the seventeenth century the hop growers were rich enough to commission a canvas from the Antwerp master depicting their patron saint, St Rochus; its pedestrian shopping streets, where everything can be bought, especially shoes, clothes and culinary delicacies; its four-hundred-year-old Jesuit school (now minus the Jesuits) that is referred to as the ‘big’ school, although the ‘little’ (diocesan) school is bigger; its world famous heart surgeon, who has had both Bill Clinton and the Belgian King under his knife; its dredger that throws up islands all over the world; its sports clubs; football and basketball teams that lurch from grandeur to misery and back again. And, in this month of December, its Christmas village on the very same Grote Markt, with wooden chalets, Glühwein, an artificial skating rink and, here and there in the town, its Father Christmases - motionless figures - that scale buildings with ropes.

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 It is Saturday on the Keizerlijk Plein and a market is in full swing under the benevolent gaze of sad King Baudouin and his ethereal mother Astrid, to whom

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 251 he turns his bent back. He missed her throughout his life after her very premature death in 1935. It is a market like those you can see in many Flemish provincial towns, the wares on offer range from sad bras and timeless, shapeless clothes for older women to fake jewellery, from the goat farmer with his organic products to every vegetable and fruit on the planet. The stallholders - especially those selling fruit and vegetables - tout their wares with whining, sometimes rhyming, cries. The only thing that distinguishes this market from one in the South is that the passers-by do not shout back, which lends a certain melancholy to the vendors' singsong. Their invitation goes unanswered, falls with a dull thud into the embarrassment of this people I call mine.

Pastor and anarchic nihilist ‘dirty old man’

Aalst has other famous sons besides the printer and humanist Martens. There is the Italianist and court painter to Charles V Pieter Coecke; the eighteenth-century bandit and Robin Hood of the Land of Aelst Jan de Lichte, who was broken on the wheel on the Grate Markt in 1748; the priest Daens (1839-1907) and the writer Louis Paul Boon (1912-1979). It is the priest and the writer that I want to talk about here. Daens ended up in fifth place in the election for the greatest Belgian of all time - at least in Flanders; Boon came 22nd. Obviously Flanders has a thing about pastors, because it elected Father Damien, who cared for the lepers on Molokai, as the Greatest Belgian. Flanders definitely does not choose an Adenauer, Churchill or De Gaulle. Father Daens took up the cudgels for the lepers of Aalst. In the 1894 elections, Pieter Daens, printer, publisher and newspaper journalist, asked his brother Adolf Daens, a stubborn priest who had found the discipline of the Jesuits not to his taste, to head the list for the Christian People's Party that had been formed a year earlier. Inspired by the 1891 social encyclical Rerum novarum, the party wanted genuine reforms instead of paternalism and charity. It also wanted to give the workers back their dignity - ‘A worker should be neither slave nor beggar. He should be a free and prosperous man.’ Conditions in the factories and workshops in Aalst were harrowing: starvation wages, child labour, moral and material misery, alcoholism. The 1894 elections were the first in which universal plural voting was used. The Socialists got into Parliament in huge numbers. Daens, too, was elected. He complained in Parliament about the social abuses and was one of the first members of parliament to speak Dutch there and argue for the Dutchification of the University of Ghent. Christian, social and Flemish - the church authorities wanted nothing to do with any of this, and deplored the rupture of unity amongst Catholics; they began to work against Daens. The conservative Catholic party, the pastors and the bosses were out for his blood. Workers who read Pieter Daens' newspapers were threatened with dismissal. But Daens was also against the socialists. In the end, the Bishop of Ghent suspended him. An audience at the Vatican was no use either, except for the secret warning that he should retire from politics. He died isolated and embittered, and only made his peace with the Church on his deathbed - one final defeat - so as to be able to receive the Last Sacrament.

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 Daens' tragic life story provided the material for a book by Louis Paul Boon, written from the perspective of his brother, the publisher Pieter Daens. In 1992

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 252 the film Daens, a sort of Flemish Germinal, even won an Oscar nomination in Hollywood, and in 2008 a musical based on the film will open; it is supposed to rival Les Misérables. In 2007, a hundred years after his death, it is mainly the memory of Daens the person that has remained; the party itself and the movement, having largely gone over to nationalism during the period between the wars, have disappeared. Sometimes the sparrow that falls from the roof at the beginning of a novel turns out in the end to have had its own significance. That is true here too; the historian and scholar of Daensism, Frans-Jos Verdoodt, tells me that the building with the Redt uzelven that I saw as I drove into the town was the seat of the Daensist cooperative institution, no more nor less than a fourth pillar that operated in Aalst between the wars alongside the Catholic, socialist and liberal pillars, and which was complete with a bank, pharmacy, health insurance, printer etc. That entrance to the underworld was actually the entrance to a purgatory, with a view - just for a while - of a heaven one could earn. And then there is the writer ‘of life the way life really is’, the seismograph of everything destroyed in the shake-up of the last century. Rumour still has it that Louis Paul Boon was going to get the Nobel Prize in 1979, the year he died in Erembodegem near Aalst. His work is set in and around the factory town of Aalst, where he was born and lies buried. His Chapel Road (De Kapellekensbaan), which he wrote in 1953, is the great experimental novel of postwar Dutch literature. I want to explore that road.

Kapellekensbaan (Chapel Road) Photo by Stephan Vanfleteren

I walk into the town park, laid out with primitive resources in the First World War to keep the people of Aalst from compulsory labour in Germany. Not far from the Delhaize supermarket - the one notorious for the never-solved, mindless hold-up and bloodbath by the Nivelles Gang in 1985, in which 8 people died - the park turns into woods, order into chaos, cultivation into nature. The Osbroek is a marshy wood criss-crossed with streams. It is a strange, ravaged wood, with deformed trees in all shapes and sizes cloaked in ivy. The lanes are straight, but between them lies the real nomansland of Boon's ‘no-man's-wood’ from Chapel

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 253

Nylon memories the former Bonneterie Du Parc. Photo by Stephan Vanfleteren.

Road, where Kledden, the spirit of the marsh, ‘with his goat's legs’, hunts for girls to ravish. A small castle looms amongst the trees; it belongs to ‘mr. achilles derenarcourt, the director of the yarn factory the filature’. Here, doomed to failure in her attempt to escape her roots and join the ranks of the middle class, the novel's heroine Ondine, will lose her honour. Nowadays it houses the VMM, the Flemish Environment Agency. In the wood itself I come across a fence enclosing a reserve that promises wild cattle and konik horses (back-bred wild horses). Here man has given nature back to itself - for a few hectares at least. The horses are nowhere to be seen in the fields or paths, the cattle graze peacefully and pay no attention to the rambler. Beyond the wood lies the Kapellekensbaan - the book has got its street in reality. The street displays ‘the endless long wall from the blanket factory the labor’, in reality a desolate and forbidding, boarded up, bankrupt tannery with polluted subsoil that is waiting for a new purpose, and in the meantime inhabits a purgatory that vividly evokes the novel. Come and see it before it disappears. A bit further on stands the Chapel, too, with crutches and votive offerings on the wall to thank the Virgin Mary for favours rendered. With a little goodwill, around the chapel you can still see some of the ‘dirty houses of the hamlet of ter-muren’ from the novel. A bit further again there is Erembodegem station, where the writer used to take the train to Ghent every day to write his piece for the socialist newspaper Vooruit. The final sentence from Boon's My Little War (Mijn kleine oorlog, 1946) says: ‘Kick people until they get a conscience’. In a second edition the book acquired another final sentence: ‘What's the point of it all?’ Boon's work lies somewhere

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 254 between the two. The man who described the rise and fall of socialism better than anyone, was himself more of an anarchist than a socialist, more a black nihilist and a dirty old man who collected thousands of pictures of naked women, and dreamed of young girls.

Voil jeanetten

Once a year in this town, the statues of the King and his mother disappear from view into wooden crates, and the windows of shops and schools are boarded up. The nervous section of the tradespeople with the posher shops disappears to safer places, and the publicans prepare for the best three days' turnover of the whole year. The furniture is removed from the cafés; a wooden floor is laid. Prince Carnival has the key to the town for three days, and dances with the lady mayor on Grote Markt, while the Emperor watches smirking. In the late 1960s the Emperor, a pure-blooded Aalstenaar, helped to breathe new life into the watered-down popular festival. But Aalst's Carnival is more than just a popular festival; it lasts for three days and casts its shadow over the whole year, it is a peaceful octopus whose tentacles stretch to shopkeepers and politics, the thread that keeps the fabric of the town together. In September the seventy carnival groups, like the contrade (districts, parishes) which prepare the Palio in Siena, set to work. They work on their costumes and floats in halls specially built for the purpose. To raise the money the groups organise fêtes and balls throughout the year. The most difficult task is the choice of the theme. Anything in the town or the world can provide it. Village and world politics are reviewed; the Pope, Saddam Hussein, local, Flemish and Belgian scandals. If Muslims cannot laugh at Danish cartoons, in Aalst the townsfolk parade through the streets as Hare Krishna - ‘You can laugh at us’. Pornography is (officially, at least) forbidden, as are spray cans, and minors who drink alcohol should look out. Feelings run high a few weeks before the actual Carnival, with the election of the Prince. He must be able to make witty remarks in the local dialect, come up with a carnival song, submit to a quiz and put on a real show. The winter fair, with its 75 metre catapult and its smoutebollen (a kind of fritter), adds to the atmosphere in the town. On Sunday the centre of the city is locked up and for hours the procession goes out urbi et orbi, for the town and the world. From the dais on Grote Markt dignitaries watch the huge floats pulled by tractors and battered lorries, and put up with the decibels and the taunts. On the margins of the procession can be found the unofficial groups and the individuals, the unguided missiles. They are the salt and pepper of the procession. Most noticeable are the Voil jeanetten (‘the dirty transvestites’). Decked out in fur coats, flamboyant corsets, net stockings, wigs and army boots, and with props like a pram or a birdcage with dried herring, they weave in and out of the groups as they perform their song and dance dozens of times over along the route where thousands of people stand packed together. The language of the Carnival is the unadulterated, sarcastic and clipped urban dialect of Brabant. Linguistically the area round the Dender is also the place where Flemish dialect turns into the dialect of Brabant.

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 255

The final convulsions of carnival on Grote Markt in Aalst, Ash Wednesday 2007. Photo by Stephan Vanfleteren

On Monday the procession sets off again - by now rather more dishevelled - and there is onion throwing from the balcony of the town hall. On Tuesday afternoon the voil jeanetten assemble. This is also the ‘day of the empty purses’. Carnival diehards celebrate for three days and nights. In the grey light of morning you can often see them staggering back to bed, only to join the party again a few hours later. The virus infects all the people of Aalst, so the boast goes. At any rate, it is not restricted to any one social class. Drunkenness abounds. But the melancholic and the euphoric types outnumber the aggressive. The centre of town is given over to noise and good-humoured vulgarity. The police are very flexible and wisely put up with taunts, or dress up and join in. On Tuesday evening the Shrove Tuesday figure is burned and the town slowly gets back to business as usual. The following day - Ash Wednesday - the dustcarts drive through the town and Dionysus turns into a good Apollo again and makes an appointment for the following year. In this town, carnival was saved in a singular way by the shopkeepers and the inhabitants. People come from far and wide for this bit of heritage, but for the time being it is the people of Aalst themselves who for the most part determine the ingredients of this wonderful invented tradition.

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 256

‘Across the water’

I could also have gone to Aalst by train. The first train arrived in Aalst in 1856. The factories followed in its wake. In 1910, Aalst had 853 factories in which 10003 workers were employed. The station building itself looks like a medieval castle with a keep and battlements. The square in front of the station has all the usual features: cafés, a chip stand and a couple of hotels. The place where things begin or end. In 1999, in the Hotel de la Gare, one of those family dramas unfolded that can happen anywhere these days. A man and a woman, at the end of their tether, moved in herewith two children. They smothered their daughter with a cushion and planted a pair of scissors in their son's back. Then they slit their wrists, phoned the police and not quite bled to death. Their intentions for their children were good - they did not want them to end up in the gutter like themselves or in an institution. They got life. Not far from the station is the Werf, the old harbour area and the original heart of the town. There the monument to Daens now stands proudly, in the middle of a roundabout. In the somewhat chilly new dockyard chapel from the 1950s, I find a sign that also constitutes a capitulation: ‘Camera surveillance has recently been installed here’. On the messy square Pizza Istanbul stands opposite Zwanger? (Expecting?), a shop for maternity clothes. I cross the bridge and bump into a public urinal close to the railway viaduct. Beside it there is a metal cabin where they sell snails, mussels - ‘the working man's oysters!’ - wine and jenever. The skeleton of an old factory gets ready to metamorphose into loft apartments. So here I am in the Holy Roman Empire, ‘across the water’ where still, according to many people from Aalst, a different type of people live - poorer people. A town needs a river, but it does not feel like it on these grimy quays, by this stagnant, sinister river into which only the occasional carnival reveller tumbles, or a suicide.

Vaut le détour

There is still a lot to see in this town that continues to vacillate between its industrial past (should it become heritage?) and the umpteenth cosy Kaufhaus des Westens. There is the Old Hospital, where the municipal museum, with its carnival museum (noblesse oblige), a Boon room and a refurbished Daens room, is trying to become a modern museum. Then to the chapel, where the Aalst landscape painter Valerius De Saedeleer's pictures now hang, to which Daens was banished to perform the daily mass alone. Besides the official Cultural Centre, where millions have disappeared into the foundations (wet Dender soil), there is a house of culture and an art gallery which capture contemporary trends. There is an Old Beguinage that could have become a world heritage site if it had not been demolished - bar the church, a chapel and a wall - in the 1950s. The Sisters of Charity refused to have it protected. A nondescript social housing estate has replaced it.

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 And the town council? It is a long time since 1128, when Iwein of Aalst was one of the first people in Europe to argue for the sovereignty of the people against the Count and the French King. On the whole, the three main ideological families govern the town alternately

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 257

- Socialists, Liberals (in this area liberalism has a social, even populist accent) and Christian Democrats. In recent years, however, Vlaams Belang has become the largest party in the town. I saw with my own eyes - sometimes one is in the right place at just the right time - how, on a beautiful day in May, the strong man of the far right-wing party from Antwerp came, in a spotless blue suit, to lay a wreath at the Daens monument. The priest is surrounded by a working-class family in a style that manages to keep a balance between scrawny Permeke and the unadulterated social realism so typical of the fifties. ‘Zelfde strijd’ - the same struggle - it said on the wreath, or how a poujadist party can steal a socially motivated ideology.

Photo by Stephan Vanfleteren.

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 258

Now I must make a confession. For me, Aalst was first and foremost a smell. When I first came to the town about 35 years ago, it was the all-pervasive, acrid smell of starches - the factory! - that struck me. Twenty years ago I came to live close to the town. After all, one has to live somewhere and it is Aalst... everywhere (you can substitute Middelburg or Zwolle if you live in the Netherlands, Ipswich if you live in the United Kingdom, or Duluth if you live in the USA). In the evening, flocks of birds fly twittering over my house to sleep in the marshy wood amongst the spirits of Boon and the Konik horses. Occasionally I meet Boon's only son, who lives in my street. He is beginning to look more and more like his father. His first publisher, a woman of 95, lives round the corner. The motto ‘Nec spe nec metu’ (‘Neither hope nor fear’), which Philip II had engraved on the bell tower in 1556, has been mine for years. The Delhaize of the notorious murders is my local shop. There is the rhetoric of those who were born in the town and have left it behind, like the young Flemish writer Dimitri Verhuist, who refers to carnival as a ‘collective crying fit’, the Dender as ‘beloved muck’ and refused to get used to the stench of the factory. There is the rhetoric of those who have landed in this town by chance. Nowadays I no longer notice the smell of the town. Have the filters in the smoking chimneys been improved or have I just got used to it? If the latter is true, I carry the town within me. Honni soit qui mal y pense. Translated by Lindsay Edwards

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 259

Chronicle

Viktor & Rolf, Cotton ruffle blouse. Photo courtesy of WGSN.

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 260

Architecture

One and a Half Kilos of Architecture A new Guide to Dutch Architecture

1987 saw the publication of the first edition of the bilingual (Dutch & English) Guide to Modern Architecture in the Netherlands (Gids voor moderne architectuur in Nederland), compiled by two architects newly graduated from the Technical University of Delft. It was a handy guide that introduced readers to major examples of Dutch architecture. It was in black and white and was indispensable when planning architectural trips around the Netherlands. The idea of publishing such a book really was brilliant: it clearly satisfied a demand for information on the most interesting recent buildings. Now, after almost twenty years, a completely revised edition, in full colour, has finally appeared. Like the first edition, the introduction is by the architecture critic Hans van Dijk. The text has also been revised; the final part puts the latest developments in Dutch architecture into context. This flat country on the North Sea has changed radically over the last two decades, and building has increased like never before. Each new generation has presented itself in its own striking manner through a number of trendsetting buildings. In that first edition the accent was on modernism, especially the work of the avant-garde. Buildings that did not belong in this ‘canonised’ category were systematically omitted. Buildings that arose out of a traditional approach did not qualify; they were seen as eroding the accepted image of the country as the most architecturally progressive in Europe. In post-1987 editions this was gradually corrected and less well-known buildings were also admitted to the list. The work of Granpré Molière and many other architects who was often relegated to the ‘traditional’ corner were rediscovered and included in the book. The latest edition is intended to prove that the Netherlands is still progressive when it comes to architecture. Over the past twenty years, with the help of abundant government subsidies, an unceasing stream of publications has been launched to promote Dutch architecture internationally. This policy appears to have worked: the Netherlands is acknowledged to be one of Europe's leaders and Dutch architecture has become an outstanding cultural and economic export product. These recent buildings have naturally been given a prominent place in this new edition.

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 Unlike previous editions of this work, the word ‘modern’ has this time been left out of the title and it includes several buildings that the authors were not even aware of at the time of the first edition, such as the 1910 houses for pilots in Vlissingen, designed by P.F. Smagge in an Art Nouveau idiom. Even so, there are still far more captivating buildings in the Netherlands than this guide would led us to suspect. There are certainly a number of omissions when it comes to churches. One example that has been left out is the interesting concrete domed St Anne's Church in Heerlen (by F. Peutz). Buildings in the style of the ‘Bossche School’, which arose out of an authentic, traditional vision, are also still undervalued. By contrast, the recent neo-traditionalist ‘Brandevoort’ estate in Helmond, designed under the supervision of the architects Krier & Kohl, is included and is described as the ‘showpiece of retro architecture in the Netherlands’. In some cases the authors opt to consider entire ensembles as one, such as the Sphinx Céramique site in Maastricht, the University of Eindhoven campus and ‘De Resident’ in The Hague. The

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 261 advantage of such grouping is that one can include several extra buildings under a single name. But the disadvantage is that the architectural quality of the buildings in a single project is often extremely varied. A great many foreign architects are given the opportunity to make a contribution to the architecture of the Netherlands. The most important of today's top architects have worked in the Netherlands in recent years, and no other country in Europe has extended invitations to so many designers from abroad. The book also includes several Belgian architects: Philippe Samyn, with a fire station and petrol station in Houten, Jo Crepain with a ‘residential castle’ in 's-Hertogenbosch, AWG/bOb Van Reeth with fascinating housing projects in Utrecht and Maastricht and Paul Robbrecht & Hilde Daem with the extension of the Boijmans Van Beuningen Museum in Rotterdam. Two architects from Liège are also prominent: Bruno Albert with projects in Amsterdam and Maastricht, and Charles Vandenhove with buildings in Maastricht, Amsterdam, The Hague and 's-Hertogenbosch. For this survey the country is divided into eleven regional sections, each with an extensive index of people and building types at the end. This well-designed search apparatus, among other things, makes the new edition more a reference work than a book one would take along when visiting buildings - it weighs almost one and a half kilos. It has become more of a compact compendium, almost an encyclopaedia, and contains a mass of information. In other words, a well-made publication that enables you to make the acquaintance of much of the Netherlands' twentieth-century architectural heritage.

Marc Dubois Translated by Gregory Ball

Paul Groenendijk & Piet Vollaard, Architectuurgids Nederland 1900-2000/Architectural Guide to the Netherlands 1900-2000 (with an introduction by Hans van Dijk; tr. John Kirkpatrick). Rotterdam: 010 Publishers, 2006. 584 pp. ISBN 978-90-6450-573-7 - ISBN 90-6450-573-X. Cultural Policy

Virtual Dutch

There are some 250 universities across the globe that teach Dutch language and culture in one form or another. The figure sounds, and is, impressive. But when you consider that China alone has well over a thousand universities, you begin to see things in perspective. In the Anglophone world, interest in studying Dutch at university level has always been modest. The reasons for this are well known. Dutch does not figure prominently in the list of what we now call ‘heritage languages’ because Dutch-speakers who emigrate to foreign lands exchange their native tongue for the local language at the earliest opportunity. Dutch culture - both from Flanders and the Netherlands - is known internationally for its painters and latterly perhaps for its architects and fashion-designers, but not so much for its writers. If for people outside the Low

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 Countries the economic benefit of studying a language of limited diffusion is not obvious, the perception of Holland in particular as having adopted English as its second language makes the effort seem even more futile. The dominance of English is of relatively recent date, but it has had a significant side-effect in the last couple of decades. Young people throughout the English-speaking world have become reluctant to learn foreign languages, in schools as well as at universities. As a result, Dutch studies at universities in Great Britain, for example, have struggled. Very few students now choose Dutch as their sole major, although combinations with other subjects continue. Until recently there were two fully-fledged university departments of Dutch in the country, now there is just one, at University College London (UCL).1 This does not mean that Dutch studies in Britain are dead or dying. It does mean that numbers, and consequently resources, are limited and, if anything, dwindling. Virtual Dutch was devised as at least a partial response to this problem. Virtual Dutch is an alliance between the main university centres where Dutch is taught in Britain. It comprises the universities of Sheffield and Cam-

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 262 bridge as well as UCL and exploits information technology to enhance the teaching and learning provision in Dutch studies across these three institutions. The rest of the world benefits as well, which is why Virtual Dutch is of more than local significance. The short-term aims of Virtual Dutch are straightforward: to increase the critical mass of students by making it possible for them to work together across institutions; to create shared online resources that can be used either as part of a structured course or for autonomous learning; and to pool the expertise of staff in different locations. All of this lays the groundwork for a more ambitious longer-term aim, which is to set up distance-learning opportunities for university-level Dutch studies in a global environment. Virtual Dutch has now been around for some five years and has expanded steadily. Its most visible and public manifestation is the ever-growing collection of online materials at its main website, www.ucl.ac.uk/dutch/virtualdutch. The collection, freely available to anyone with internet access, comprises reference grammars and multimedia self-study packs. There are two grammars, one for beginners with only a basic knowledge of Dutch and one for more advanced learners. Both are aimed at speakers of English and use English as their medium of communication, with an abundance of examples in Dutch. The self-study packs are more numerous and more colourful. There are currently about thirty of these packs, each addressing a particular topic at a particular level. The topics cover modern society, history and literature as well as language. The levels are defined as beginners, intermediate and advanced, reflecting both the expected linguistic competence in Dutch and specific subject knowledge. All the packs integrate graphics and sound with text, some of them using moving as well as still images, and in one experimental case synchronising voice-over with text on the screen. Most are available in both an English and a Dutch version. The packs are typically built around one short core text which is then elucidated and contextualised: the vocabulary is explained by means of pop-up windows, the key text can be heard (read with the appropriate Dutch or Flemish accent!), there are visual illustrations and questions to test comprehension (with model answers one or two clicks away), and so on. Individual packs may be navigated in a number of ways, and users can leave feedback if they wish. The topics vary from the contemporary multicultural society in the Netherlands and the Flemish Movement around the First World War to modern and traditional literature (Boon, Couperus, Multatuli, Hooft,...), a history of the Dutch language, a taster of Amsterdam and a full-size portrait of Brussels. There are also materials that are not in the public domain. They consist of online courses requiring tutor support and of courses using a virtual learning environment (VLE) to which all three institutions taking part in Virtual Dutch subscribe. The VLE, with its discussion board and chatrooms, also enables students from UCL, Sheffield and Cambridge to collaborate on joint projects which are backed up with videoconferencing sessions. Two such projects run every year for a period of five to eight weeks each. One concerns cultural studies, the other translation from Dutch into English. The translation project is built around the year's Writer in Residence, who is based in London but visits the other two universities. In fact, the writer is the only person who sees everyone involved: the students themselves only meet in cyberspace and on the videoconferencing screens! But in the process they pick up

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 more than academic wisdom. They learn communication and negotiation skills quite different from those acquired in a classroom, they appreciate the technological experience as a career skill, and more often than not they make friends at a distance. The added value of IT-based collaboration as pioneered by Virtual Dutch was highlighted in a report published in September 2003 by the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE), the body that distributes government funds to universities nationally. The praise came in a chapter of the report called ‘Excellent Learning and Teaching’. At that time the Virtual Dutch initiative was still in an experimental stage. It has since gone from strength to strength. This is due in part to the dedication of those driving the project, in part also to funding for it being made

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 263 available by such organisations as Britain's University Council for Modern Languages and the Dutch Language Union (Nederlandse Taalunie). Current plans include an overhaul of all thirty or so multimedia self-study packs to improve interlinking between them and between the packs and the two online grammars, an online self-access course teaching specialist reading skills in seventeenth-century Dutch and a similar course for Business Dutch, and the use of wikis. It is hoped also that before long there will be two comprehensive online courses for English-language learners of Dutch, one at beginners and one at intermediate level. When these components are in place, distance learning can start in earnest. It will mean that universities will no longer have to wait for students to come to them in person to learn Dutch or to engage in Dutch studies. Virtual Dutch will take the materials to the learners, wherever they are, and they will be able to learn in their own time and at their own pace. Of course, this will not reverse the declining interest in modern languages in the Anglophone world generally. Dutch studies will remain a minority subject at British and American universities. But it will be a more dynamic and more technologically savvy subject, and its reach will be global. Bearing that in mind, it is perhaps not such a bad thing that Virtual Dutch, which addresses primarily English-speakers, operates mostly on the basis of English.

Theo Hermans www.ucl.ac.uk/dutch/virtualdutch

Eindnoten:

1 For details see Rhian Heppleston and Roel Vismans, ‘Lying Low? Low Countries Studies in Great Britain and Ireland in the Early Twenty-First Century’, 2006, http://alcs.group.shef.ac.uk/databases/lyinglow/lyinglow.htm. The survey was conducted for the Association of Low Countries Studies in Great Britain and Ireland (ALCS).

A Dialogue, not a Directive A Canon of Dutch History

In 2005 the Dutch Minister of Education Maria van der Hoeven set up a commission with the task of establishing a canon of Dutch history. The canon was to consist of ‘those essential segments’ of Dutch history that the government ‘wished to pass on to new generations in the classroom’ (see TLC14: pp. 269-271). From the outset, historians and non-historians alike reacted with scepticism. Would a canon of Dutch history not be a little old-fashioned? Who had the authority to determine what ‘the Dutch’ needed to know? Would a canon of this sort not tend to divide rather than unite? Would it not lead to the ideas of a small elite being forced on the silent majority of the rest of society?

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 Now that the canon is actually in existence, the sceptics seem rather more positively inclined. The canon was presented to the public on 16 October 2006 by the Commission's chairman Frits van Oostrom, an eminent expert in medieval literature and president of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (Koninklijke Nederlandse Akademie van Wetenschappen - KNAW). His commission developed a list of 50 items, each of which offered an introduction to an important moment or an important trend in Dutch history. The Commission itself speaks of fifty ‘windows’, implying that Rembrandt, for example, should not only be studied in isolation as one among the fifty items but rather as a window onto other Dutch painters of the Golden Age, the art of painting as such or the art market in general. Each of the fifty windows is accompanied by a narrative which briefly explains the importance of the window in question and also provides additional ‘related topics’ and ‘references’. In the ‘related topics’, which are especially useful to teachers, the Commission indicates points of interest that can be linked to a particular window in the classroom. The ‘television’ window, for example, includes the following related topics: changes in society since the advent of television, television and globalisation, and the role of major international companies in the Dutch economy.

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The ‘references’ include background literature for teachers, books for young people, and places or institutions associated with the window that can be visited. The television window, for instance, mentions the Sound and Vision (Beeld en Geluid) Experience in Hilversum. In addition, anyone accessing the canon's website (www.entoen.nu) can add their own related topics and references. There is also space for illustrative audiovisual material. From the very beginning the Commission's goal was to put together a canon that would encourage ‘dialogue’ rather than imposing a ‘directive’. It was considered essential that the canon should be talked about and discussed. The Commission has also recommended that the canon it has set up should be evaluated after five years by a new commission, so that some windows might be allowed to disappear and others be included in their place. It regards the canon as a reflection of the Dutch collective memory rather than a normative description of the Dutch identity. It is precisely this broad and open perspective that makes the Dutch historical canon so useful. Indeed, the commission stresses that it is primarily a task for teachers to bring the canon to life in their own classrooms. Teachers can use the window ‘Roman Limes (frontier)’, for example, to talk about archaeological discoveries in their own area. In relation to the window ‘gas deposits’, which deals with the exploitation of gas resources in the Netherlands and the finite supply of fossil fuels, teachers might organise a visit to their local gasworks. So this is not a canon that is smugly ensconced into its own authoritarian niche; it's out there in the big wide world. It is actually a web of 50 hyperlinks, each of which refers the user to much more and very different information. While this conception of a canon as a flexible opus apertum was probably enough to mollify those who were originally sceptical, critical voices have not been completely silenced. Some, for example, maintain that, with 16 of the 50 windows, the twentieth century has been slightly overvalued, (for completeness' sake: 9 windows relate to events prior to 1500, 4 to between 1500 and 1600, 10 to the Golden Age, 5 to the eighteenth century and 6 to the nineteenth century). Others have remarked that in spite of the Commission's broad perspective, which led to the inclusion of cultural icons like De Stijl and the very first Old Dutch sentence, the list nevertheless contains an awful lot of names. What, in fact, does one find when one explores the canon? In summary: 18 individuals, from Willibrord as the bringer of Christianity to the Social Democrat Prime Minister Willem Drees, founder of the Dutch welfare state. In addition, there are 13 geographical terms, 8 events or processes, 5 documents, 3 inventions and a few other topics that are difficult to classify. Not all of the windows have a wholesome story to tell; slavery is included, as are child labour and even Srebrenica. The Commission appended a special text to this last item, in which its members state that they had their doubts about including it as a window and warn teachers to be careful how they use it: ‘We trust in the teacher's capacity to explain (this material) in the secondary school context and note that a canon of this sort must dare to make reference to the darker side of history. Thanks to the internet, however, the Srebrenica tragedy in all its dreadful pictorial detail is simply a mouse-click away. While the truth is no doubt being served, the Commission would nevertheless like to draw the attention of teachers and others working with the canon to the risks associated with this item.’

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 Great names from Dutch history which have their own windows naturally include William of Orange, together with Spinoza, Vincent van Gogh and Anne Frank. Johannes Vermeer, however, has not been granted his own window and has to be sought behind that of Rembrandt. Moreover, the Enlightenment is pinned to the relatively unknown figure of Eise Eisinga, an eighteenth-century Frisian who built his own planetarium at his house in Franeker; it is now the world's oldest working planetarium. His object was to allay the fears and anxieties of his fellow citizens, who had been alarmed by a booklet that had appeared in 1774 which predicted that the earth would be thrown out of its orbit by a collision between the moon and a number of planets. To demonstrate that there was no reason to panic, Eisinga decided to

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A few windows from the Dutch canon. © www.entoen.nu construct a scale model of the solar system on the ceiling of his living room. The planetarium was completed in 1781. In his own unique way, therefore, Eisinga would thus appear to be an excellent representative of the spirit of the Enlightenment. The British Enlightenment specialist Jonathan Israel, however, strongly disagrees with the choice of Eisinga. He maintains that the use of such an individual as an example is a conservative strategy: ‘It is part of a long tradition maintained by the established order to marginalise the more radical voices that echoed throughout the Enlightenment.’ Israel would have preferred to see the immigrant Frenchman Pierre Bayle representing the Enlightenment. Israel's criticism is perhaps correct from the standpoint of his own area of expertise, but it also lacks a degree of perspective. In fact, the flexibility of the window system allows the canon to refer to Pierre Bayle on two occasions, once through the Spinoza window and a second time through the Enlightenment window. It should also be clear, however, that the ‘window system’ cannot be used to fill every gap. Perhaps the most justified criticism of the canon is that of the scientists Robbert Dijkgraaf and Louise O. Fresco, who lament the absence of ‘a scientific perspective’. The gulf between the humanities and the sciences in the Dutch education system is far too great, they argue. The canon confirms this fact and so misses an opportunity to correct it. Where, for example, are Constantijn Huygens, Anton van Leeuwenhoek and Nobel Prize winners Van 't Hoff (for chemistry in 1901) and Lorentz (for physics in 1902)? Why not provide more information on the steam engine and energy generation in connection with the item on ‘the first railway line’ or on the chemical features of methane and greenhouse gases in the ‘gas deposit’ window? The answers to these questions cannot be found via any of the fifty windows of the new Dutch canon, but without that canon the questions would never have been asked. The conversation has only just started and can now continue unabated.

Bart Van der Straeten Translated by Brian Doyle www.entoen.nu

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Film and Theatre

Paul Verhoeven. Black Book. Photo courtesy of A-Film BV. Amsterdam.

The American Dutchman Paul Verhoeven and his Black Book

Paul Verhoeven (1938-) left the Netherlands some twenty years ago, disillusioned by the state of the Dutch film industry. In Hollywood he became known mainly for making large-scale science fiction films (RoboCop, Hollow Man), films that are famed above all for their special effects. He is infamous for his two erotic thrillers from the early nineties (Basic Instinct and Showgirls), particularly because of their rather un-American exposure of bare flesh. After Hollow Man - Verhoeven had found the production process of that film very unsatisfactory - he decided to turn his back on Hollywood for a while; he had become somewhat tired of the compromises, negotiations and conflicts associated with big-budget productions. Despite this, he almost immediately embarked on a megalomaniac project in the Netherlands: Zwartboek (released in English as Black Book) had the largest budget ever for a Dutch film, estimated at around 13 million euros (but according to rumour actually much higher). Not all that much by American standards, but in the Dutch situation such a budget meant foreign co-financiers, and therefore compromise, negotiation and conflict. Black Book's publicity department has made the most of this: in a manner reminiscent of the Americans (remember the advertising campaign for Titanic?) the fact that this was the The Most Expensive Dutch Film Ever became the main point of the publicity. The budget luckily shows in the screen production. Black Book has a wonderful visual sense of grandeur and attention has been paid to every detail. This is not very surprising: the entire Dutch film world rushed to welcome Verhoeven home. His usual Dutch script writer Gerard Soeteman led the way; major Dutch actors such as Frank Lammers and Peter Blok competed eagerly for supporting roles (‘if Verhoeven phones, you automatically say yes’). On seeing the film it is immediately clear where the money was spent. Unfortunately it is less obvious why it needed to be spent. Black Book is about the Jewess Rachel Steinn (Carice van Houten), who lost her ‘safe house’ in 1944 and became involved in the Resistance. Her name

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 267 became Ellis de Vries, and she bleached her black tresses blond. And because it is a Verhoeven film, her pubic hair also had to be dyed; no-one says a word about Rachel's dark brown eyebrows and hair roots. By chance ‘Ellis’ finds favour with the German SD officer Müntze (Sebastian Koch), and while she works as a spy the two fall in love. In true Hollywood fashion Van Houten and Koch apparently really did fall in love, something which the actress revealed at length to the Dutch press. When some of the resistance group were arrested, the rest of the heroes worked out an elaborate plan to free them. Logic was stretched to its very limits during this process; the whole plan revolved around the fact that the ladies' toilets of the SD headquarters offered a convenient entry to the cell block in the basement. And this happened to have a hardly noticeable exit, closed only with a simple padlock. But even with all this help the escape attempt failed, and the rest of the film revolves around which one of the ‘resistance heroes’ had betrayed the group. Black Book is presented as Verhoeven's first Dutch film in 20 years, and in precise terms this is indeed the case. But Black Book is certainly not a typical Dutch film (whatever that may be); in this respect the style, the manner of telling the story, the film language that is used are all too American. It fits well into Verhoeven's oeuvre: his Dutch films from the seventies were arguably also Hollywood films with a smaller budget and more sex. Black Book is closer to Basic Instinct than to his earlier war film Soldier of Orange (Soldaat van Oranje). The extravagant and overused music by the British Anne Dudley is perhaps its greatest fault. It might do the film some favours on the American market, although the main question is whether a conservative American audience will appreciate the repeated references to the Dutch Resistance as ‘terrorists’. In interviews Verhoeven and Soeteman hammered home the fact that the film is about the assumption that there are no really good or really bad people. No-one is simply black or white, there is only grey. Verhoeven had developed this theme before (and better) in Soldier of Orange. This time it clashes with the central thriller plot of the film, which derives its excitement from the question of who among the ‘white’ is actually ‘black’. That there is also a good German around is not particularly significant; he too is just seen as ‘white’. And the bad Germans are very, very bad - demonstrating that here too Verhoeven cannot avoid emulating the Americans.

Joost Broeren Translated by Joy Kearney www.paulverhoeven.net

Try Not to Mention David Lynch The Provocative Thrills of Abattoir Fermé

In spring 2005 the Nona arts centre in Mechelen organised a film evening. Three films were to be shown, with short intervals, starting at 8.30 pm. They were selected by Stef Lernous, one of the artistic core of Abattoir Fermé and as such very much at home at Nona. The first film was a bizarre but excellent art house film, shot in black

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 and white in the style of the ‘Dr Mabuse’ films, called The Saddest Music in the World. A rich and powerful but one-legged factory owner (Isabella Rossellini) offers a prize for the person who can bring her the saddest song in the world. I can't remember what the second film was, but for the final offering Lernous promised a porno film ‘about which even my most hardened friends told me: well, this time you've really disgusted me’. Oh, how often I have regretted that I had to leave after the first film. The Abattoir Fermé theatre collective was founded in 1999. By 2003 it had won the hearts of almost all the theatre critics; it had also built up a loyal audience. No one will deny that this company has added extra variety to the Flemish theatre scene. Regarding the origins of the company, Stef Lernous once said: ‘Abattoir Fermé grew out of the amateur circuit in Mechelen. A few of us wanted to go in a particular direction of our own. The company is a jumble of influ-

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 268 ences. Anyone who has an idea they want to try out can do it here. Sometimes we almost literally pick up people off the street if we feel they have something to say. We gradually have to shape all these styles and expectations into an homogeneous whole.’ (De Standaard, 31 May 2002). Lernous is one of the company's co-founders. The other members of its artistic core are Tine Van den Wyngaert, Nick Kaldunski and Joost Vandecasteele. The fact that Lernous is a writer and director makes him seem the most important of the group's members, though Vandecasteele also often supplies scripts for them. Lernous is a jack of all trades: he studied applied graphics at St Luke's, had his own short programme on the Canal+TV channel and has acted with Theater Teater, Bronstig Veulen and Antigone. Abattoir Fermé was fortunate in that its inception coincided almost exactly with the opening of the Nona arts centre. The arts centre could not imagine any better ‘appointed supplier’ than this theatre collective, while the company immediately obtained a permanent venue. Dirk Verstockt, a former director of Nona, sometimes directed Lernous' plays for the company, and guided it in a particular direction by commissioning plays. This led to such pieces as the working-class drama Marc & Betty and The Warm Heart of the World (Het warme hart van de wereld], a play about the deportation of Jews from the Dossin Barracks in Mechelen. As time passed the influence of the amateur circuit diminished considerably. Two main lines of approach can be distinguished in Abattoir Fermé's recent productions: its Chaos Trilogy, whose final part, Lalaland, opened early in 2007, and the ‘one-shot’ plays. In the instalments of the Chaos Trilogy, Lernous and company try for a balance between seriousness and humour, horror and the grotesque. In the independent plays the balance tilts clearly towards the horror side. Testament, their latest piece, was an exploration of death. Which may seem a bit odd, as all the company's plays have been about death. In the excellent Tired but Up and Erring (Moe maar op en dolend), for example, they first let us see and hear how some people (such as an electric-chair salesman and a pathologist-anatomist) treat death as if it were the most normal thing in the world, simply a part of life. In the rest of the play we see a series of images that ‘re-evaluate’ death to make it the unimaginable horror that it is. A fundamental fear. This is exactly what Abattoir Fermé wants to open up: the fears, longings and obsessions that man seeks to rationalise. Not just to administer quick shocks (though the stage images they create are often demeaning], but because these extremes are part of life. Cheerful pop music exists, of course, but sometimes one needs the saddest possible music. Virtuous loving relationships do exist, but hurting one another can also be an expression of love. This becomes apparent in the S&M fairytale Galapagos. Not everyone appreciates these extremes. With reference to Tired but Up and Erring, Guido Lauwaert wrote in De Tijd that there are other subsidised institutions that are better suited than theatres for people with fantasies like those of Lernous. One example of this perverse beauty is the closing scene in Tinseltown. In the foreground we see Tine Van den Wyngaert and Chiel Van Berkel, lifting a naked Kirsten Pieters into a harness. The actress is then hoisted into the air. Until Van Berkel shouts ‘Again!’, when she is let down, lifted up again, Van Berkel shouts again, she comes down, goes up again... When Pieters spins round, you see her bare buttocks bulging obscenely out of the harness.

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 For the critic it is always a challenge to review an Abattoir Fermé production without referring to David Lynch. It is of course true that Lynch examines the underbelly of society, his films feature characters who personify death, and Abattoir Fermé shares with him a penchant for classic fairytales. Wild at Heart was Lynch's version of The Wizard of Oz, and Testament can be seen as a perverse variation on Alice in Wonderland. But there are other similarities too. Lynch is also a master of tempo. His films are always that little bit slower than one is used to in the cinema. The characters take their time to do things, shuffling from one end of the set to the other. It is both realistic (be-

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Tinseltown by Abattoir Fermé cause this is actually how people behave) and alienating (because one rarely sees reality portrayed in this way). With this conflict in mind, Abattoir Fermé has already created several incredibly funny scenes. I cannot deny that this sort of theatre is not for everyone. Just a thimbleful more story would make these plays a lot more audience-friendly. The division of work is currently something like: ‘we do our thing on stage and you make up a story for it, OK?’ Too easy? This sort of contract between creators and audience is not unusual. It's always worth watching the latest Abattoir Fermé production, because what you see is always aesthetic, original and stimulating in many ways. Abattoir Fermé sends out a confused shriek into man's deepest depths. The echo that comes back is repulsive, comically distorted and infinitely enthralling.

Mark Cloostermans Translated by Gregory Ball www.abattoirferme.be

A Budget Holiday in the Middle Ages Crusade in Jeans

Films about the far-distant past often take a run-up from the present, just to be on the safe side. Before you travel back to the year 1912 with James Cameron to witness the sinking of the Titanic, you're introduced to a couple of modern-day deep-sea specialists who are looking for the wreck of the legendary ship. Call it cold feet, but sometimes filmmakers are scared that the modern viewer will quickly lose interest in a past that seems a long way from home. Sometimes that leap into the past provides more than an introduction or an educational boost; sometimes it is an integral part of the story. Think, for example, of a popular film such as Back to the Future (1985) by Robert Zemeckis, where, as the title suggests, time travel becomes a theme in itself. Travelling through time is

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 not a new phenomenon: it dates back to before the advent of the computer age. You only have to think of the novel The Time Machine (1895) by H.G. Wells, one of the pioneers of science fiction. This novel has been filmed several times. Journeys through time have definite advantages for an author: they make it completely acceptable to the reader that the author should give explanation and clarification about the strange habits and customs encountered in those far-distant times. Authors do not have to tie themselves in knots to justify this exposition: it is obvious that the main characters will have a lot of questions about all of the new things that they get to see. Just under a century after The Time Machine, the Dutch children's novel Crusade in Jeans (Kruistocht in spijkerbroek, 1973) was published. Based on the same concept as The Time Machine, it is about the fifteen-year-old Dolf Vega, who ends up right in the middle of the Middle Ages with the help of just such a time machine, subsequently steering a children's crusade in the right direction. Crusade in Jeans is a special moment in the history of children's literature in the Low Countries. Not only because the book scooped a number of awards, including the Gouden Griffel and the European prize for the best historical

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 270 book for children, but above all because it was so incredibly successful. Crusade in Jeans has been published in over twenty countries and the book taught a whole generation of teenagers in both the Netherlands and Belgium to read historical novels. Thea Beckman's books were perhaps not the most penetrating of psychological novels, but they certainly succeeded in stimulating the imagination of young readers, and they are still doing it today. So the production of a film version should have come as no surprise. The Flemish director Harry Kümel once had his eye on the story, but in the end it was a Dutch filmmaker who got to film this Dutch book. The choice of Ben Sombogaart was a logical one. His CV consists for the most part of children's films, including two film versions of books by that other well-known Dutch children's writer Annie M.G. Schmidt (Abeltje, 1998, and Pluk van de Petteflet, 2004). His film Twin Sisters (De tweeling, 2002) also demonstrated that he was quite at ease with historical themes, albeit in that case recent history. This very reasonable film version of Tessa de Loo's book took the top awards at the Dutch film festival in 2003 and was the Dutch nomination for the Oscars in 2004, which considerably increased Sombogaart's credibility. Experience with children's literature, with historical subject matter and with the adaptation of works by Dutch authors: these were all points in his favour. And yet Crusade in Jeans is most definitely not an obvious book to film. Try filming the Middle Ages, including that long procession of over 8000 children on their way to the Holy Land. Then put it on the screen with the average budget for a film from the Low Countries. It was apparent from the start that the producers would soon have to go looking for international capital, and that the language of the film would be English. A budget of ten million euros, a co-production involving a number of countries (the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, Hungary and Luxembourg), a technically complex production: all these factors are accompanied by risks. The complicated co-production structure also involved a complicated multinational cast, with the Dutch Jack Wouterse and Janieck van de Polder and the German Benno Fürmann appearing alongside the Belgians Jan Decleir and Josse Depauw. Most of the main parts were given to English actors: Michael Culkin, Joe Flynn as the lead character Dolf, the Dominican-British actress Stephanie Leonidas as his sweetheart, and Emily Watson as the scientist behind the time machine, who is also Dolf's mother. This national diversity is not in itself a problem, and neither is the fact that everyone speaks English. A less obvious risk, but certainly a very real one, is the danger that this sort of large-scale production can produce films without much personality, with no soul. Twenty years ago, the term ‘Europudding’ was coined to describe this phenomenon, to which Crusade in Jeans is not entirely immune. Quite clearly, this is all connected to production costs: the higher the investment, the less likely investors are to accept risks and the more ‘safe’ the filming becomes. ‘Safe’ filming means emulating the tried and tested formulas employed in the commercial films of the big American studios. American input was present in the first synopsis of the film, written by Reed Burnstein, which was apparently used as the basis of the final film. This was the version submitted to Thea Beckman before her death in 2004, and with which she was not at all happy. In this version her Dutch teenager had become an American

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 teenager and rather than a strapping young Dutch lad, he was a gang leader in Baltimore. On one of his expeditions, he ends up in a laboratory where scientists are experimenting with time travel. Unsuspecting, the young man sits in the time machine and whoosh, he's off to the Middle Ages. After Reed Burnstein, the screenplay went to Jean-Claude Van Rijckeghem and Chris Craps, both from Belgium, who shifted the basis of the story closer to Thea Beckman's version once again. In their story, the mother of the young lead character is a scientist who is experimenting with time travel. In Thea Beckman's book, the teenager's curiosity is sufficient reason for the journey into the past. This was not enough for Van Rijckeghem and Craps, who developed a completely different plot thread: the boy blasts himself back to

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Ben Sombogaart Crusade in Jeans Photo courtesy of RED the past with the intention of changing the result of a football match. In his haste he keys in the wrong details and ends up in the year 1212. Van Rijckeghem and Craps introduced other changes designed to make the Crusade in Jeans story more psychologically sound and more believable. Dolf's relationship with his mother, for example, is turned into an issue. His mother is too focused on her work and pays little attention to her son. The question is, how much psychology a children's book about time travel can handle. A second series of changes made by the Flemish writers of the screenplay may be put under the heading of ‘prettification and modernisation’: for example, Dolf gets to know the medieval Jenne, an attractive girl who introduces the love element into the movie and who is a very important character, particularly for the conclusion of the story. We probably live in faster times nowadays than in the early 1970s, which explains the screenwriters' efforts to crank up the rhythm and tension of the story. In the film, Dolf has to take pills so that he can survive in the past. He naturally runs out of pills, automatically creating a certain amount of gratuitous tension, but nothing more is made of this. iPods didn't exist in the seventies either, and the Van Rijckeghem-Craps team enjoys using these and other modern gadgets to give the contemporary audience a bit of a giggle. Often rather a cheap one, if you ask me. A third series of changes may be classified under the heading of ‘censorship’ with the aim of increasing audience-friendliness. A number of difficult passages from the book (such as the large number of children who die) have been scrapped from the film. The film version ends on the beach in Genoa, where Dolf's heroic role reaches a climax, so the viewer can also go home with a feeling of ‘all's well that ends well’. Everything in the book that follows the scenes on the beach in Genoa, including the gruesome battle with the army of Count Ludovico, has been scrapped. Instead the

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 filmmakers even suggest that Dolf might take his medieval love interest back to the future. In my opinion, in this film version Thea Beckman's story for boys is over-romanticised, over-sentimental, over-psychological and overly light-hearted. But I am aware that these comments will not count for much with a young audience. The story clearly continues to appeal to children in its upgraded form. The high production values of the film certainly play a part in this: the medieval settings and the enormous crowds of children filling the screen, almost like in the Lord of the Rings films.

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This clear use of digital effects is relatively new to the cinema of the Low Countries. To my knowledge, there has never been such extensive cutting and pasting of Flemish and Dutch extras on the screen. Never before have castles been pixellated together from nothing in a film from this part of the world. Anyone who looks closely will see that the budget was a good deal smaller than in the prime examples of the genre, but few people will be disappointed. For a somewhat older audience, already familiar with the Middle Ages through other routes, the decisions of the makers, but also simply the choice of Thea Beckman's book, will result in something of a kitsch overkill. The characters are flat, the story is stiff and fantasy is, after all, just fantasy. The philosophical ambitions of an episode of Dr. Who or Star Trek are what they are. However noble the filmmakers' desire to give their young audience a crash course in the Middle Ages along with their tubs of popcorn, this film never becomes more than the title promises: a crusade in jeans.

Erik Martens Translated by Laura Watkinson

A recent English-language edition of Thea Beckman's novel is: Crusade in Jeans. Asheville, NC: Front Street, 2003 History

Remembering Herbert Hoover

The outbreak of the First World War in August 1914 marked the beginning of difficult times for the majority of the Belgian population. On the one hand the invading German troops prevented goods being brought in, and on the other the British blockaded access by sea. Seven million Belgians were threatened with starvation. A handful of politicians and business people tried to do something about the situation. Adolph Max, the Mayor of Brussels, organised aid for the inhabitants of the Belgian capital together with the American businessman Dannie Heinemann. They also received financial support from the Belgian industrialist Ernest Solvay, and set up the Central Aid and Food Committee, the leadership of which was entrusted to the dynamic businessman Emile Francqui. Not long after this, the Committee ceased to limit its activities to the capital alone and was reconstituted as the National Aid and Food Committee. This Committee began negotiations with the German and British governments to make it possible for grain to be imported into occupied Belgium. Thanks to the diplomatic support of America and Spain, two neutral states, these discussions could only lead to a favourable outcome. In London the Belgians who had come to plead the cause had a conversation with the American businessman Herbert Hoover. The latter remembered Emile Francqui from the time when they both worked in China in competition with each other. Hoover was prepared to take on the management of a newly established organisation, the Commission for Relief in Belgium (CRB). It was the responsibility of this organisation to centralise the funds that had been raised

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 in Belgium and abroad for the provisioning of the country. In an astonishingly short time Hoover made the American people aware of the problem in Belgium. He succeeded in making Belgium a national problem for America. A campaign was mounted throughout the whole of America. The Chicago Daily Tribune was given permission by the Belgian government to film at the front and its reports moved the people of America.

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Foodship for Belgium Poster. Photo courtesy of the CRB collection, Hoover Institution Archives.

Hoover organised ‘Save Belgium Festivals’ all over the place and posters were put up with slogans such as ‘Hoover calls for clothes for Belgium’ or ‘Keep Belgium warm this winter’. At a rough estimate the man who was elected in 1929 as the 31st President of the United States amassed some two and a half billion dollars. The money did not come directly to Belgium but was used mainly to buy grain and other foodstuffs. Between January 1915 and December 1918 3.2 million tons of goods were shipped to Belgium They reached Belgium via Rotterdam, because the port of Antwerp was blockaded by the British. In Belgium these goods were distributed by the National Committee, the CRB's partner. Together they succeeded in successfully organising food supplies for the Belgian population. This still required a lot of diplomatic discussion because both the Germans and the British had to be convinced that the food was really going to the people of Belgium and not to the enemy. Hoover knew that he had to maintain as neutral a position as possible. Naturally that became problematic when the US became actively engaged in the war in 1917. At that point the role of the CRB was taken over by the Spanish-Dutch Committee; Spain and the Netherlands were of course still neutral. Co-operation between the CRB and the National Committee and the Belgian government, which was in exile in Le Havre, did not always run very smoothly. The Belgian government had very little control over the running of the Committee, despite the fact that it was the chief source of funds. Moreover there was repeated tension between the CRB and the National Committee. The conflict came to a head in 1916 when Hoover made known his plan to intervene much more directly in the distribution of aid in Belgium and of the funds raised from the sale of foodstuffs. The Belgian Minister of Finance spoke of ‘an attempt by Hoover to gain absolute power’ and the Spanish ambassador in Belgium, Villalobar, spoke of ‘Hoover the adventurer’. But Francqui was reluctant to lose the support of the Americans and therefore agreed to certain of their conditions. So in 1916 a new agreement was reached between the CRB and the National Committee. The CRB was given a greater role in the

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 organisation of supplies to Belgium and the fact that three-fifths of the funds came from Belgium itself was quietly ignored. At the end of the First World War a considerable amount of the ‘Hoover-money’ which had been collected still remained unspent. Hoover and Francqui both believed strongly in the role of the universities and the importance of the intellectual development of young people. Some of the money went directly to the large Belgian universities and another part was used in 1920 to establish the University Foundation. In the same year Hoover gave some of the profits from the sale of surplus foodstuffs to the Belgian American Educational Foundation. Ever since then this organisation has been responsible for arranging exchanges

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 274 of students and researchers between the US and Belgium. In the 86 years of its existence it has helped 3,719 people: 2,853 Belgians and 866 Americans. Various streets and squares in Belgian cities remind us of the activities of Herbert Hoover - among them the Herbert Hooverplein in Leuven. This is right by the University Library that was destroyed in the First World War. Hoover himself raised funds for the rebuilding of this library. When the first stone was laid in 1921 the American ambassador, Brand Whitloch, noted in his diary: ‘And why should American Protestants build up a Roman Catholic seat of learning, even though it were destroyed by furor Germanicus?’ But the ambassador immediately corrected himself and noted: ‘But perhaps all these are unworthy reflections.’ They were certainly just that for Herbert Hoover, because when the building of the university was halted in 1926 through lack of funds, in his own name he collected 11.5 million Belgian francs and added a further 10 million francs from the CRB Educational Foundation. The presidential elections in 1928 prevented him from attending the inauguration of the university library, but in 1938 he was entertained there in grand style. On his arrival in Brussels the former US ambassador, Tom Korologus, wondered why Hoover was held in such affection in Belgium. He received his answer during the Remembering Herbert Hoover exhibition organised at the end of 2006 in the Royal Army and Military History Museum in Brussels.

Dirk Van Assche Translated by Sheila M. Dale www.rememberinghoover.be

Dutch-Jewish Documents in the Diaspora The Coppenhagen Collection in Oxford

Anyone interested in the history of Dutch Jewry will immediately turn to Amsterdam University and the great riches of its Bibliotheca Rosenthaliana. Outside Amsterdam (or Mokum, as it is known in Yiddish), other important Jewish collections are held in provincial libraries throughout the Netherlands (that is, the Mediene). In Leeuwarden, for example, there is the Dr L. Fuks Collection, which holds a unique collection of books in Yiddish as well as in Hebrew, printed before 1800. In Enschede, the beautifully restored synagogue houses the impressive EU Regional Centre for Jewish History and Culture. And in Middelburg, the provincial library has mounted a very interesting exhibition to commemorate the Amsterdam rabbi and scholar Menasseh ben Israel (1604-1657), who established the first Hebrew printing press in Amsterdam. In 1655 Menasseh came to London on an embassy to Cromwell, to negotiate with him for the readmission of the Jews into England, and today the Dutch connection to Anglo-Jewish history is still evident to those who visit the old Bevis Marks synagogue of the Sephardic community or the so-called ‘Dutch synagogue’ in Sandy Row near Liverpool Street Station. From Holland too, just before the outbreak of the Second World War, came the Wiener Library, which to this day remains one of

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 the world's most important library resources for the study of Nazism and the Holocaust. A further unique resource available today is the Coppenhagen Collection, which has recently been acquired by the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies. This collection was built up by three generations of the Coppenhagen family in Amsterdam, Isaac (1846-1905), Haim (1874-1942) and Jacob (1913-1997). The central theme of the collection they built up over almost one and a half centuries, and which miraculously survived the Second World War, is the history and culture of Dutch Jewry and the Holocaust in the Netherlands. The Coppenhagen Collection contains more than 30,000 books, including an extremely valuable collection of rare seventeenth-century Hebrew books printed in towns in different parts of the Dutch Republic. Here we find rabbinical editions of the Torah as well as Christian editions of the Hebrew Bible, and also, for example, a Sefir Terillim (Psalter) printed by Plantin in Leiden in 1592 and a Hebrew alphabet printed by

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Johannes Drusius in Franeker in Fryslân (where there was a university until 1811). There is also an almost complete collection of the Hebrew books printed and published in Amsterdam by Menasseh ben Israel, as well the books he wrote himself. All this makes a very important contribution to the history of the Hebrew book and Hebrew printing in the Netherlands. It is no coincidence that it was Jacob Coppenhagen who, in 1990, published the definitive Menasseh ben Israel bibliography in Jerusalem. In addition, the collection holds many important books, journals, photographs, pictures, prints, leaflets. pamphlets and other archive materials on Jewish life in the Netherlands, which the Nazis tried so hard to destroy. Extensive holdings of newspaper cuttings and articles can be accessed through a file index holding some 300,000 entries. A large section consists of archive boxes holding very rare materials on Dutch anti-semitism, and on many other topics such as the unique collections of prayers against the cholera or prayers of the Jewish community for the well-being of their patrons, the House of Orange. There are also important holdings of Yiddish printing and extensive documentation on the many smaller Jewish communities that existed all round the Netherlands before the war. Jacob Coppenhagen was himself a musician, so the collection also contains some very interesting holdings of Hebrew and Jewish music and of Jewish cabaret. All this constitutes a veritable treasure trove for researchers interested in Jewish life in the Netherlands. In 1970 the Coppenhagen family emigrated to Israel, and from there the collection has now come to Yarnton Manor, in the countryside near Oxford, where it was officially inaugurated in January 2007. Housed in a completely new, purpose-built, state-of-the art library building in the grounds of the manor house, the collection takes its place amidst other important library holdings such as the Jacobs, Loewe and Montefiore collections. And through the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies it is also fully integrated into Oxford University's library and research systems. To facilitate further study of this important collection, the first - and massive - task is now obviously the conservation and systematic ordering of the rich materials contained in this collection, as well as the development of an online catalogue. Secondly, the fact that the collection will now remain together as a whole in Yarnton Manor offers a great opportunity for research, as this will make it possible to study it as a record of how over the past hundred and fifty years learned Dutch Jews in Amsterdam devoted themselves to studying the religion, culture, history and languages of the Jewish community as well as their interaction with and treatment by the Dutch society in which they lived. Last, but certainly not least, it is to be hoped that in the years to come scholars working in Dutch and Jewish Studies will find their way to this unique resource. Without doubt, the holdings of the Coppenhagen Collection provide materials for a series of very interesting Anglo-Dutch-Jewish monographs and PhD dissertations - not just on the history of Yiddish in the Netherlands, or on the tradition of Jewish publishing from Menasseh ben Israel to the present, but certainly also on Dutch anti-Semitism and on the Holocaust in Holland.

Reinier Salverda

For a description of the Coppenhagen Collection see the website of the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies: users.ox.ac.uk/~ochjs/library/news.html

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 References

Ben Barkow. Alfred Wiener and the Making of the Holocaust Library. London, 1997. J. Bethlehem, Gids voor onderzoek naar de geschiedenis van de Joden in Nederland. Amsterdam, 2000. J.H. Coppenhagen, Menasseh ben Israel, Manuel Dias Soeiro, 1604-1657. A Bibliography. Jerusalem, 1990. A.K. Offenberg et al., Bibliotheca Rosenthaliana. Treasures of Jewish Booklore marking the 200th anniversary? of the birth of Leeser Rosenthal, 1794-1994. Amsterdam, 1996.

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The Epic Tale of ‘Father’ Anseele

As well as the imposing neo-classicist university auditorium (1826) and the baroque Jesuit college (1592-1773), the Volderstraat in Ghent can boast a third remarkable and recently restored monument. From 1923 until its sensational bankruptcy in March 1934 it was the head office of the Belgische Bank van de Arbeid (Belgian Labour Bank). The large corner building - close to the Kouter, the old financial centre of the city - impresses the onlooker with its facade which is reminiscent of the Louis XVI style, enhanced by bas-reliefs and groups of statues based on the theme of labour by the Ghent sculptor Geo Verbanck. The very rich interior architecture has all the splendour of the contemporary art deco style. Its architect was Oscar Van de Voorde, who earned fame and honour as the principal architect of the 1913 World Exposition in Ghent. It was commissioned and built by Edward Anseele, the socialist chairman who had established the bank in 1913 to set the seal on his ‘modèle gantois’, the ‘Ghent Model’ that was imitated, extolled or maligned in all sections of the Second International. No serious biography of Anseele has ever been written, which is regrettable since as person and myth Anseele exerted an enormous influence on the evolution of the socialist movement in the years 1870-1940, not only in Ghent but throughout Belgium - and also much further afield. The latest and best work to describe this influence is the empirical investigation carried out by Hendrik Defoort on the relationship between the socialist and the cooperative movements.1. In Ghent, the proletarian textile city, the two became intricately interwoven and the relationship was extremely successful in the period between 1875 and 1914. An ideologically based myth of origin was constructed, which gave rise to violent controversy in Belgium and within the Second International. The most important inspiration, the animator and leader of the cooperative movement as the backbone of and for socialism, was Anseele. Edward Camille Anseele was born in Ghent on 26 July 1856. His father, Jan Anseele, a cobbler's assistant, and his mother Rosalie Washer, a boot stitcher, belonged to the educated working class that was strongly influenced by radical liberals. These were the people who, via better public education and workers' associations, sought to keep social emancipation on the bourgeois, paternalistic track. In the Anseele family, with its seven children, this would seem to have succeeded well: apart from the two children who died young, one daughter became a teacher, two sons teachers and later head teachers, and a third son a chief guard on the railways. With the aid of financial and political support, Edward had the best opportunities: he was able to attend the prestigious athenaeum (grammar school), although he was no zealous or brilliant pupil. At the age of 17, he gave up the whole idea of education and took employment, first as a telegraph messenger, then as a clerk with a furniture manufacturer, a dealer in groceries and a notary. His greatest interest, however, was in the socio-political climate of the factory city of Ghent, with its visible, massive working-class misery. Since the year of Anseele's birth an independent, belligerent labour movement had been active, especially among the weavers and spinners. At the revolutionary head of this movement was the Ghent Division of the First International. As everywhere else, this division faced a crisis from 1871 onwards. The surviving core of militants sought new paths and new strategies, with 1873-74 as the pivotal years. In the harsh winter of starvation in

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 1873, some of them formed a cooperative bakery. The Free Bakers' proved a great success, expanding from 57 members to just over 1,500 in 1880. For the most adamantly committed, the cooperative method was only pulling bourgeois wool over the people's eyes. For their true model they turned to Germany, where August Bebel and Wilhelm Liebknecht were changing the political scene. Between the congresses of Eisenach (1869) and Gotha (1875), the SPD (Sozialdemokratische Arbeiders-partei) grew into a formidable political weapon. The path to socialism had to be a political one. The pioneer in this respect was a political, autonomous workers' party that took the lead in every aspect of the social struggle, with the initial aim of winning universal suffrage.

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Edward Anseele had just turned 18 when on 21 September 1874 he attended his first socialist meeting and became an immediate convert. The talented semi-intellectual swiftly emerged as an inspiring executive militant. He learned the additional craft of typography and became the editor, setter and salesman of the weekly magazine De Werker (The Worker). In 1877, based on the German model, he wrote the manifesto of the Flemish Socialist Workers' Party (VSAP - Vlaamse Socialistische Arbeiderspartij), the first step towards the Belgian Workers' Party (BWP - Belgische Werkliedenpartij) which was founded in 1885. Also in 1877, on 9 September, Anseele could be found standing with several hundred workers at the Dampoort Station to greet foreign visitors to the International Socialist Congress that had chosen Ghent as its venue. At one of the meetings Wilhelm Liebknecht said that Ghent had become the strongest citadel of socialism - but this was only a beginning. 1881, Anseele was the instigator of a breakaway movement in ‘The Free Bakers’. He became the chairman-manager of the SM Vooruit, the first step from an industrial bakery towards an economic empire that aimed to make a militant out of every customer. In 1884, he went to Paris to learn sales and advertising techniques at the Grand Magasins du Louvre, and in the same year he founded the daily newspaper Vooruit (Forward). The rapidly expanding cooperative with an ever-increasing range of consumer articles became the basis for a large, profitable network of shops, workers' housing and cultural organisations in Ghent and elsewhere. It also provided the basis for political power: Anseele became a member of parliament in 1894, a city councillor in 1895, first alderman of Ghent in 1909, acting mayor of Ghent during the last months of the First World War, a minister in the first postwar government of 21 November 1918 (first until October 1921, then a second time from 17 June 1925 until 22 November 1927), and gained the honorary title of minister of state on 8 April 1930. With the purchase of a large weaving mill in 1903 Anseele went a step further: from a consumer cooperative

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 Building a monument for Anseele in Ghent The Vooruit Palace is in the background Photo AMSAB, Ghent to an industrial cooperative. There ‘the shroud of capitalism’ was to be woven. This too proved a success, though it was soon apparent that the financial clout of the cooperative method had reached its limits. In 1910 six Ghent Vooruit factories merged to form a public limited company. In 1913 the same economic compulsion prompted Anseele to establish his own bank. He attempted to explain this as a necessary and pragmatic step, a phase in the evolution toward complete control in socialist hands. His opponents in his own Marxist ranks did not see things that way. In March 1911 the influential Karl Kautsky placed his magazine Die Neue Zeit at their disposal for a

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‘Sonderheft’, a special issue, on ‘Die Arbeiterbewegung in Belgiën’. In it, two Young Turks, Louis De Brouckère and Hendrik De Man, were allowed to fire a broadside at Anseele. As it happened, it suited the leaders of the German SPD to let the Belgian Left have their say. The Belgians had a bit too much influence in the Second International, according to the Germans. Practically and ideologically, it suited them well to have Anseele's ‘Ghent model’ toppled from its pedestal. This was no easy matter, since Anseele's political and economic successes were phenomenal. Using his own cooperative construction company, work began in 1906 on a vast Vooruit Festival Palace, the biggest temple of culture and People's Palace in Europe: ‘From now on, we are proud to see it flaunting its gargantuan appearance, which because of its colossal scale completely dominates its surroundings, just as the socialism in honour of which it has been built will one day rule the world’ (Vooruit, 11 June 1906). At the 1913 World Exposition in Ghent, the SM Vooruit had a large, splendid pavilion on Belvédèrelaan - the main axis of the exhibition. There one could drink ‘Vooruits Triomfbier’ (Beer of Triumph), brewed and bottled in their own brewery. It was during the First World War that Anseele gained his greatest power and prestige. He was the man who was summoned as socialist chairman on 11 November 1918 to be present at the political discussions with King Albert I at the castle of Loppem (near Bruges). There the outlines of a new political landscape were drawn up, with socialists in the government. Anseele was part of that government and served in important departments: first at public works and reconstruction, later at the railways and postal service. Meanwhile, he did not relinquish one ounce of power in his ever-expanding economic empire. His Belgian Labour Bank became the financial centre of many new investments, in, among others, the rising synthetic fibre industry (Filsoietis, Sidac), his own cotton plantations (Belgian Congo, Ruzizi) and a ‘Red Fishing Fleet’ in Ostend. At the grandiose ‘Exposition internationale de la Coopération et des Oeuvres sociales’, which opened in Ghent on 14 June 1924, about 200,000 visitors were able to admire Les Oeuvres de Vooruit. At Vooruit's Golden Jubilee celebrations on 15 August 1931, dozens of people sang the festive cantata ‘Vooruits Roem’ (‘Vooruit's Fame’) and there was a never-ending ovation when the 75-year-old Anseele concluded his speech with: ‘Long life Mother Vooruit, long live socialism.’ There were, however, already many signs of waning influence and of sclerosis in the ‘Ghent model’. Anseele's political influence had already been outstripped by other power centres in the BWP: Antwerp in the Flemish provinces, Brussels and the Walloon industrial centres. Economically speaking the Vooruit empire seemed very powerful, but it was certainly no real decision-maker in Belgian economic life. In addition, the anti-capitalist creed was sounding increasingly crude and provincial. Above all, though, there were the weak points that turned out to be fatal in the great crisis years. Over-investment in longterm industrial projects and too many short-term deposits proved fatal for the bank. Neither the conservative government nor other banks were prepared to offer any assistance. On 28 March 1934, the many small savers found themselves standing at closed counters. In the general climate of governmental crisis and financial scandals the bankruptcy had an enormous impact. The party leadership set up an enquiry, which led to Anseele - for so long impregnable - being grilled for weeks. It ended with a compromise: public disgrace was avoided,

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 but he had to relinquish all political and other positions. It was a very bitter pill to have to swallow at such a sombre time. Anseele was sidelined, but when he died on 18 February 1938 his charisma and popularity seemed scarcely tarnished. The turnout at his funeral service was massive. The people of Ghent wept at the passing of their ‘vader Eedje’. In his funeral oration, Huysmans spoke of ‘that legend and piece of history...... to be chiselled into the stone for ever’. Fund-raising for a monument to Anseele began immediately after his funeral. The sculptor Jozef Cantré won the commission. A nice touch in this connection is that Cantré had been thrown out of the party in December 1918 as a Leftist revolutionary! Because of the war the mon-

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 279 ument was not unveiled until 1948. It stands almost at the foot of Anseele's Vooruit Festival Palace, and it is still a well-known landmark in the city. In autumn 2006 the AMSAB Institute of Social History organised a modest exhibition about Anseele in his restored Bank van de Arbeid. It was an obvious occasion on which to plead once more for his biography to be written.

Herman Balthazar Translated by John Irons www.amsab.be/anseele

Eindnoten:

1. H. Defoort, Werklieden bemint uw profijt. De Belgische sociaal-democratie in Europa. Lannoo Campus/Amsab, 2006. An English translation is expected.

The Holland Land Company Investing in Land in the Nascent United States

The French Revolution of 1789 may have given the people of Europe hope, but it worried the bankers and investors. The banking houses of the Netherlands were no exception. They decided to look for new ways to secure their financial position. In 1790 the banking houses of Van Staphorst, Stadnitski, Van Eeghen and Ten Cate & Vollenhoven sent an agent, Théophile Cazenove, to the new United States and in the course of the next few years he bought about 2.2 million hectares (5.5 million acres) of land for them. The new country which would attract a lot of immigrants looked like a sure investment. But the Dutch venture, which lasted a generation, turned out to be full of risks and uncertainties as well. The Van Staphorst house was familiar with investing in the US In 1782 it had been part of a loan consortium of three banks: Van Staphorst, Willink and De la Lande & Fijnje. These banks were the first to lend money - five million guilders - to the new American republic. In the following years loans to the value of thirty million guilders would find their way to the US Also, in the course of the 1780s the Dutch made big profits trading in American government debts. They also invested and lost money in risky ventures like canal funds and a manufacturer's fund. About a year after his arrival, Cazenove suggested from Philadelphia the possibility of starting a maple sugar industry in upstate New York. Less than a year later Gerrit Boon of the Rotterdam firm Van Beeftingh & Boon went to the US to explore the possibilities. Boon acquired almost 12,000 hectares (30,000 acres) of land on behalf of his Dutch superiors. These were the four Amsterdam bankers and the Rotterdam firm. Boon was so idealistic that he thought he could find an alternative to slavery, which was widely used for growing sugar cane. Boon, who has always been ridiculed

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 by historians for his stubbornness and naivety, had to abandon his experiments in 1794. Meanwhile the Dutch bankers had seen the French Revolution expand northward, and in 1792 the French stood at the doorstep of the Netherlands. Boon's four superiors joined with one more banker, Willem Willink, and a legal advisor/investor Rutger Jan Schimmelpenninck, and this group of six decided to acquire land in the states of Pennsylvania and western New York. Shares in this venture were offered to Dutch investors in two separate issues, six months apart. Interested parties lined up in droves and a lot of them had to be turned away. A total of 6,450,000 Dutch guilders was collected from investors. At the same time the bankers made purchases and investments totalling 3,830,000 Dutch guilders, which left them a nice surplus. The Dutch rode a wave of American land speculation. Throughout the US investors figured they could make easy profits by investing in land. The Dutch were so confident (and so rich) that they paid in cash for the landholdings. The amount of land they bought over the course of a couple of years in the early 1790s totalled 2.2 million acres. First lands were bought near present-day Barneveld-Boonville-Prospect and in the vicinity of what is now Cazenovia. After that huge tracts of land were acquired in western New York: everything from somewhat east of Batavia, minus the Indian reservations and a strip of 1 mile along the Niagara River north of Buffalo. In Pennsylvania

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 280 the Dutch bought 900,000 acres east of the Allegheny River and 499,660 acres west of that same river. In total these purchases amounted to approximately 22,000 square kilometres (the Netherlands measures 41,500 square kilometres) in the states of Pennsylvania and New York. The land speculation of the late 1780s and early 1790s ended in 1796, when prices collapsed. Did the bankers know what they were getting into? Most likely they didn't. Imagine a foreign company setting up an investment in a young country where land laws were hardly established. The company encountered difficulties every step of the way. In addition it had to deal with the retail side of selling small lots to many owners, since after 1796 no wholesalers would invest in land for a long time. The immigrants were poor and bought on credit; even so they had trouble meeting their interest payments, let alone repaying the principal. To go after the delinquent owners required extra personnel. It also demanded constant changes of strategy. What could be done to attract new settlers? What new payment schedules were acceptable? How could the Dutch shareholders in the company be persuaded to retain their investments? After a few years the bankers remodelled their company as a stock company and called it Hollandsche Land Compagnie. It has been known as the Holland Land Company (HLC) ever since. The reason for forming the company was that some of the bankers were eager to sell some of their interest while others preferred to wait. The way the HLC was set up was that Willink owned 256 shares, Stadnitski 208, Van Staphorst 192, Van Eeghen 128, Ten Cate & Vollenhoven 80 and Schimmelpenninck 32. To settle the ownership of the area acquired in New York there had to be an agreement with the local Indian tribes. In 1797 the parties closed the Treaty of Big Tree. The signed document, today still preserved in the Holland Land Office Museum in Batavia, New York, shows the signature of the various representatives. Everybody partied for three days, including two nephews of Van Staphorst who happened to be travelling in the area. Among the Indian representatives

Holland Land Office Museum in Batavia. NY was the famous Red Jacket, chief of the Seneca tribe. His Indian name was O-Te-Ti-Ani, which meant Always Ready. Later on his name became Sa-Go-Ye-Wat-Ha, which meant He Keeps Them Awake because Red Jacket was a brilliant speaker. Investment in Pennsylvanian land was encouraged by the fact that so far that state was the only one that allowed foreign ownership of American land. Once the HLC

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 started selling the land it turned out that the state laws were ambiguous on absentee ownership. For instance, if an owner did not cultivate his land for two years or longer and a new settler arrived, after making some improvements he could claim the land as his own. In those days all of the United States was pioneer country and ‘the wild west’ started right outside New York City. After innumerable difficulties the HLC decided it couldn't wait for better times in Pennsylvania and sold out as quickly as possible. The losses have been calculated at about one million Dutch guilders. In the state of New York foreign ownership was not possible for many years after the purchase, but a trusted agent in Philadelphia in the person of Cazenove was an acceptable solution. Meanwhile attempts were made to get the state of New York to

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 281 change the rules. There was a promise to help finance the construction of a canal and to donate the land needed for the project. The canal was needed to connect the Atlantic Ocean via the Hudson and Mohawk rivers to Lake Erie, opening up the midwestern territory. Changing the law however was a lengthy affair, and there is evidence that in the end the bankers bribed New York state assembly members to achieve their goal. The Erie Canal opened in 1825. The sale of land was a task that required a network of trusted agents and a system adapted to the kind of settlers the company wanted to attract. The surveyor of the lands, Joseph Elicott, later also became one of its agents. He had named a little settlement at Lake Erie New Amsterdam, but the locals changed the name to Buffalo. His office was established in 1801 in a town further east, named Batavia. There the Holland Land Office was established. Ellicott was prepared to meet prospective settlers halfway by giving them credit and helping them establish their farms. Other agents, whose number increased throughout the area, worked the same way. There were many discussions between Cazenove and his agents on how best to proceed. Is a downpayment of ten percent enough, or should it be twenty-five? Is title of ownership due at twenty-five percent or should fifty percent be paid off? These regulations were important not only to make investment attractive to settlers, but also to establish communities in which there would be enough ‘freeholders’ (a freeholder is a legal title owner) to have courts with juries and legal voters. There was also the question of the HLC building roads, taverns, churches and schools. The HLC built some roads and a few taverns; it made land available for churches but none for schools. The activities of the HLC required some staff to be based in the area, and most of these were of Dutch origin. First of all there was Cazenove in Philadelphia, succeeded by Paul Busti in 1800. In the area itself there were Gerrit Boon and Jan Lincklaen, pioneers in the early days. After them Adriaan van der Kemp and Adam Mappa were employed. Both men were refugee patriots from the Netherlands, in fact political refugees. They settled in Oldenbarnevelt, the town founded by Boon, which was later renamed Barneveld. A small Dutch community thrived there for a couple of decades. Besides Van der Kemp and Mappa and their families we have a Mr Smits, a Dutch couple named Zahn and Harm Jan Huidekoper who are mentioned in letters and records. Huidekoper was briefly employed by the HLC in Pennsylvania. Over the years the HLC became the big bad company from a faraway country. This came about for several reasons. Not only is it unheard-of for small land-owners and big proprietors to be friends, but the agents also pursued policies that were not popular. For instance, the HLC reserved some lands, like the town centre of Buffalo, for their own account. Atso, it had been able to exempt itself from paying road tax. Only residents had to pay road tax, absentee owners didn't. The system of discounts was often also considered unfair. When new lands were made available for a lower price to attract settlers, the HLC agents only gave discounts to new settlers, not to residents who wanted to expand. This uneasy relationship culminated in riots in the spring of 1836. When the HLC sold large parts of its land to a new company, an angry mob destroyed the office in Mayville. They also stormed a vault of the HLC in the same town but the rioters weren't able to destroy it. A subsequent attempt to storm the office in Batavia was thwarted by the police.

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 At that time the HLC was still active, but it no longer owned any land. The winding up of its business took another couple of years, and only in 1848 could the HLC close its accounts. There are no reliable estimates of a profit or loss for the HLC, but experts think that in the end investors neither gained nor lost.

Lucas Ligtenberg

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Literature

The Village of Lieve Joris

There are certain much-quoted pieces of advice that were spoken or penned by great writers and intended to set the authors of the next generation on the right path. Maxim Gorki, for example, advised the young Isaac Babel to ‘get out and about more’ and Stéphane Mallarmé recommended that his disciple Paul Valéry seek solitude at the beginning of his career as a poet: ‘Quant à des conseils, seul en donne la solitude.’ And during an evening devoted to war reporting I once heard the famous CNN journalist Peter Arnett preach his personal professional creed to his Dutch colleague Raymond van den Boogaard: ‘Save your ass and get the story back.’ All of which are good, if sometimes mutually contradictory, bits of advice. So far, however, Lieve Joris (1953-) would appear to have been able to observe all three of these recommendations in her work to a significant degree. She has been ‘out and about’, in the Arabic world, in Congo, in Hungary, in Egypt, in Syria, in Mali. Every time she has managed to return safely, always bringing a story with her. And every time she has also been able to put her story down on paper in the solitude of her study, from her debut - The Gulf (De Golf, 1986), twenty years ago now, to her new book The Rebels' Hour (Het uurvan de rebellen, 2006). Anyone inclined to explore her output over the last two decades, however, will quickly realise that as a writer she has completely ignored one well-known piece of authorial advice, perhaps the most famous recommendation of all. As Leo Tolstoy put it: ‘If you want to deal with universal themes, write about your own village.’ Lieve Joris' own village is Neerpelt, a dusty, secluded little town in Belgian Limburg, cut through by the Bocholt-Herentals canal and the little river Dommel, and a place that has gone almost completely unmentioned in the ten or so books she has published to date. One would almost be tempted to say that the author has consciously and with immense tenacity turned Tolstoy's advice on its head: if you want to deal with universal themes, write about someone else's village. The official website of the municipality of Neerpelt gives the town's motto as ‘convivial, dynamic, green and young’, not exactly the environment Lieve Joris has sought out by preference as the backdrop to two decades of writing. It would be hard to describe Damascus under the watchful eye of the secret police as ‘convivial’, ‘dynamic’ would be something of an understatement when referring to years of African war, if there is anything ‘green’ in the Arab Gulf States it's the oil revenue dollars and the velvet revolution in Hungary was anything but ‘young’. Lieve Joris' personal quest through decades of writing and several books has been the search for universal themes as they manifest themselves in a variety of different cities, regions and countries. Tourists tend to pass over such themes, literally, in their aeroplanes, heading towards the next holiday destination. Even the serious traveller risks missing them, since reality is, was, and always will be a primordial forest of which only the fringes are visible. So what is a writer to do? In the last analysis, it's still someone else's village. It takes time to learn your way round, you don't know the unwritten rules, and the village's history is not part of you. How can you write both personally and universally on a world that isn't yours?

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 I believe it is on this point that Lieve Joris proves her quality as a writer, and The Rebels' Hour is an admirable example of her mastery. The following statement appears at the beginning of the book by way of explanation: ‘This book is based on existing characters, situations and places, without ever matching them completely.’ Such a phrase would not be out of place at the beginning of a literary novel, and is in fact to be found in many. Take the statement from the opening pages of Michael Ondaatje's The English Patient, for example: ‘While some of the characters who appear in this book are based on historical figures and while many of the areas described (...) exist, it is important to stress that this story is a fiction (...).’ The boundary between Lieve Joris' methodological explanation and that of Michael Ondaatje would appear - in principle - to reflect the difference between non-fiction and fiction, but in fact it is so nar-

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 283 row that the reader has to be careful not to overlook it, because there is another important difference at stake. The Rebels' Hour describes the fortunes of a young soldier named Assani who comes from the eastern part of the immeasurable Congo, the Central African border region with Rwanda and Burundi. This is where he was born, half orphaned, on February 2, 1967. His country's capital is Kinshasa, roughly 1700 kilometres to the west. Yes, spell it out: seventeen hundred kilometres. By European standards it's incomprehensible. It's like being born in Neerpelt and having your country's government in the Ukrainian capital Kiev. Assani is African, his nationality Congolese, but in terms of ethnic background he is a Tutsi, and his tribe, just to complicate matters further, is the Mulenge. Half a life story is hidden in this set of identities, the other half is thrust upon him by history, a history of dictatorship, corruption, civil war, oppression, tribal feuds, rebellions, genocide, three African wars, poverty, hunger and an unlimited supply of arms. The major difference between the work of Lieve Joris and that of fiction-writers who base their narratives on historical facts is that the history in The Rebels' Hour is still very far from being history. Rather it is current affairs, hot off the press. The main character of this book is at constant risk of his life. His existence is one of extremes, from fugitive rebel to senior officer in the Congolese army. Even after the much-praised democratic elections in his country, the first in over forty years, the actual men and women pictured for us along with Assani are still prey to the most immense political and human uncertainty. The way in which Lieve Joris effectively and authentically presents the main character of her book, based on years of meetings and conversations and complete with a world of memories, thoughts and fears, goes far beyond the convention among fiction writers of briefly exploring the locations they plan to employ in their novels. What Lieve Joris does is not simply field research, it is literary vivisection on history as it is being made. The result of this vivisection - and this is what makes her relationship with writers of literary fiction so interesting - is put together with the most literary of means: characters, a variety of narrative perspectives, flashbacks and flash forwards, narrated time passing in a way that makes development of the various characters both visible and tangible. To paraphrase the cnn motto: The Rebels' Hour is ‘Literature as it happens’. The above-mentioned Peter Arnett, who for 35 years was the eyes and ears of the world and witnessed wars and conflicts from Vietnam to the first Gulf War, had something else to say during his conversation with Raymond van den Boogaard in Amsterdam. Arnett made a distinction between wars that interested him and wars that didn't, and as a salient example of an unimportant war he made reference to that between the ‘the Hutsis and the Tutsis’. Coming from him, it sounded like a reference to a comic film: the Hutsis and the Tutsis. The conversation took place in De Rode Hoed on April 27, 1994. At that very moment one of the most brutal genocides in twentieth-century world history had already been in full swing for three weeks; it had begun, to be precise, on April 6. In little more than three months, some 800,000 Tutsis were murdered by Hutu militia, with their bare hands, with clubs and machetes, sometimes as many as 10,000 on a single day. The CNN's star reporter, awarded the 1966 Pulitzer Prize for his coverage of Vietnam, found it an unimportant war.

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 Against the background of this - unfortunately not unique - Western disinterest when it comes to the long-running humanitarian and political tragedy of Central Africa, Lieve Joris' The Rebels' Hour is a particularly valuable book, because it compresses that tragedy into the cheerless, anxious, moving story of the life of one single human being in his own complex and threatening environment. Thus in the 256 pages of her book the author succeeds in making the drama of an incomprehensible, and still ongoing, historical reality thoroughly comprehensible. If a non-fiction writer, bursting with empathy and narrative vigour, is capable of such a feat, then to explain the

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 284 enormous impression this book leaves with the reader we are forced to consider a completely different interpretation of Tolstoy's recommendation that authors ought to write about their own village. And then we realise that actually Lieve Joris has been following Tolstoy's advice to perfection for all these years, and that is precisely what gives her books their universal and personal power. All one needs to do is to understand is that for Lieve Joris half the world is her village.

Maarten Asscher Translated by Brian Doyle

Translations: Back to the Congo (Tr. Stacey Knecht). London: Macmillan, 1992 / The Gates of Damascus (Tr. Sam Garrett) Melboume/Oakland/London/Paris: Lonely Planet, 1996 / Mali Blues. Traveling to an African beat (Tr. Sam Garrett). Melbourne/ Oakland / London / Paris: Lonely Planet. 1998. A translation of The Rebels' Hour (Het uur van de rebellen) is in preparation (New York: Grove / Atlantic; London: Atlantic Books).

A Book Full of Longing Tommy Wieringa and Joe Speedboat

Inspector Morse's first name was Endeavour, but that was kept a secret until the end of the last instalment. Just as embarrassing, especially to its bearer, but also to the narrator of Tommy Wieringa's novel Joe Speedboat (2005), is Joe Speedboat's real name: Ratzinger (and this before the present Pope was elected). His first name makes it even worse, so I won't reveal what it is. It knocks him right off his pedestal for the narrator Fransje, who is in a wheelchair and who idolises Joe Speedboat for being so elusive and clever and adventurous. In an explosion that he causes in the school's washroom, for example, he loses part of his hand. And from odds and ends he manages to build a small aeroplane, and even gets it off the ground. The revelation of Speedboat's real name is however only the beginning. Very cleverly and over time, Fransje plays his own trump cards and it is he, who at first didn't seem to have much of a chance in life, who ends up being the winner after all. After two novels published in 1995 and 1997, Tommy Wieringa (1967-) made a new start with Everything about Tristan (Alles over Tristan, 2002), the story of a biographer who goes to great lengths to work himself into the life - about which little is known - of a poet and who finds that the more he discovers, the less he has to write about. For if he were to reveal a certain well-kept secret, his whole project would become superfluous. In that book one was struck for the first time not only by the clever and well-developed plot, but by the distinctive and original style of the writer, his sharp powers of observation and surprising characterisations. In Joe Speedboat Tommy Wieringa develops all these things even further and this has put him in the spotlight. It also earned him the F. Bordewijk Prize, and in October 2006, in Frankfurt, the English translation rights were sold to Portobello Books. It is definitely the whole approach which makes this novel so special, the way it presents himself, the atmosphere it creates, the intriguing effects, but especially the tone of the story. When after his recovery Fransje once more wakes up to his

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 surroundings, he can see very clearly how drab everything is. It is hard to believe that an Afrikaner family, with a daughter PJ with whom everybody is infatuated, would want to come and live here. Fransje is the son of a demolition contractor in a depressing village on the waterside, which is under threat of being completely cut off from the outside world by the building of a new motorway with a noise barrier but no exit road. This isolation accounts for a somewhat singular way of life, an environment dominated by demolition debris and wrecked cars which is evoked by powerful images and a language that is direct and down-to-earth, coarse and simple and as apt and practical as a monkey-wrench. Still this book rises far above a mere sociological sketch about people who are the product of their environment. For the story is completely permeated by the idea of entropy, the natural law that says that a closed system inevitably degenerates into breakdown and

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 285 chaos. ‘Entropy, Fransje’, Joe explains, ‘is the law of irretrievable loss’. People watch powerlessly as their lives disintegrate. The challenge is to get away from it. But that can be difficult when you're in a wheelchair. That is why there is so much longing in the book, a longing for heights and faraway places. Joe's widowed mother brings a Nubian back with her from Egypt. After some time, impelled by homesickness, he builds a felucca and disappears without trace on his maiden voyage through the Dutch delta. Speedboat sees an opportunity in Fransje's handicap: he maps out a career for him as an arm wrestler and they travel all over Europe. It all works out very well, but it doesn't bring the hoped-for satisfaction. For after a spectacular win over a hefty opponent, Fransje still has to see Speedboat disappearing into a separate bedroom with PJ, while he himself is so much in love with her. The deciding factor comes at the end. Speedboat enters for the Paris-Dakar Rally in a vehicle he has built himself, because he wants to track down the lost Nubian. He thus stands for movement, progress. With Speedboat out of the way, Fransje gets what he has always longed for: warmth. Again according to the law of entropy, as explained by Speedboat: ‘Energy with which nothing happens, which is never processed, turns into warmth. Warmth is the lowest form of energy.’ That's good enough for Fransje, though, who turns his loss into pure gain. This book has a very particular charm. The writing is clear and realistic and at the same time imbued with an enchanting imagination. It is simple and easy to read and yet very intelligently conceived with striking details that stick in one's mind. The world it evokes is totally recognisable, but in its depiction it also acquires a mythic quality. Much of this comes from its wonderful, original and disarming language. With this book Tommy Wieringa has undoubtedly gained a solid reputation. And it has also earned him an additional 42 euros. The Tzum Prize, the prize for the best sentence in a Dutch narrative, was won in 2006 by this sentence from Joe Speedboat: ‘The exhaust pipes shone like trumpets, the world seemed to wilt from the deafening noise as the boys stepped on

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 Tommy Wieringa (1967-) Photo by Rene Koster the gas with the clutch held down, just to let everyone know they existed, so no one would doubt it, for something not reflected doesn't exist.’ As well as a handsome cup Wieringa received the same number of euros as there are words in the original Dutch version of this sentence: 42.

Jos Borré Translated by Pleuke Boyce www.tommywieringa.nl www.debezigebij.nl

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Music

Ben Sluijs and the Rehabilitation of the Songbird

The alto-saxophonist Ben Sluijs writes candidly and courageously on his website about a subject that is often taboo among musicians, i.e. those who have influenced him. Sluijs lists them in the following order: John Ruocco, Charlie Parker, John Coltrane, Peter King, Lee Konitz, Hank Mobley, Ornette Coleman. This is followed by three dots in order to provide an escape route. His French page also lists Cannonball Adderley, but this detail makes little real difference. The fact remains that many renowned contemporary jazz musicians become very evasive when others try to place their work in its historical perspective. They often don't want to know whether this or that influence can be heard in their work, as if they believe it might undermine their originality. This is not the case with Ben Sluijs. When he brought out his CD Food for Free in 1997 he did not shy away from expressing his admiration for Johnnny Hodges in ‘Ballad for Johnny’ - a courageous thing to do, since it's considered a no-no in that little world. Hodges was that melancholy lyrical alto sax in many of Duke Ellington's big bands, an icon of the period before Charlie Parker and so often regarded as ‘too simple’ or simply not interesting enough by ambitious jazz people. Ben Sluijs understood that Hodges - with that timbre, that rolling elegance, that sober sensuality and melodic brilliance of his - was an unrivalled master. Food for Free marked the beginning of a long road for Ben Sluijs; his initial quartet stayed together for seven years and reached the height of their power in Flying Circles, part six of The Finest in Belgian Jazz, an ambassador project set up by De Werf in Bruges. The other members of this remarkable quartet were the cool craftsman Piet Verbist on bass, the emancipated outlaw Eric Thielemans on drums and the pianist Erik Vermeulen, a specialist in high crests and deep troughs. The group preferred an eclectic approach, no strictly logical line of thought but a tight rather compact sound. There was seldom room for headstrong improvisation or daring explorations of sound. Jazz reviewers were practically unanimous in their judgement: well-crafted atmospheric themes with a taste of the melancholic and extremely tight musical teamwork. Their comments were very positive, but the tenor has remained more or less the same for the past seven years. The Ben Sluijs Quartet had become one of the best bands of the so-called golden generation of young Belgian jazz musicians. Here we are talking about the generation that dominated jazz venues during the 1990s and left their mark on the newly instituted courses in jazz at music academies. Meanwhile, Ben Sluijs himself still seemed hungry and unsatisfied. In recent interviews you often hear him talking about the restlessness in the music, those impromptu in-depth improvisations on harmony, searching deep, as for example the tenor saxophonist Wayne Shorter did during Jazz Middelheim 2005: imperturbably paring those compositions down to the bone while at the same time taking an almost nonchalant stroll past the milestones of his own career. Those who have been keeping a close eye on Ben Sluijs would have seen the storm clouds approaching. He'd already cut an album called Stones with Erik Vermeulen, a follow-up to an exhibition of sculpture at the Middelheimpark in Antwerp. Here

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 improvisations were the order of the day, and the effect of sound reverberating on (dead) stone. Of decisive importance in the change of style marked by the recent CD True Nature is his growing musical friendship with the tenorsax player Jeroen Van Herzeele. Van Herzeele is a true devotee of the saxophone, a vociferous admirer of John Coltrane and someone who is fanatically involved with the continuous reshaping and remoulding of the complex universe of his instrument. In the autumn of 2005 Sluijs and Van Herzeele took turns playing solo and duo at Opatuur, a jazz café in Ghent. It seemed almost like a demonstration piece, but in fact it was mainly an honest dialogue and at the same time an expression of warm love for their instruments. Ben Sluijs and the quartet on True Nature seem to have jumped two hurdles at the same time. Hurdle number one: a victory over horror vacui. This group doesn't need to outline the scenario for each set beforehand. The drummer Marek Patrman (Czech Rep.) and the bassist Manolo Cabras (Italy) are also brave

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 287 enough to venture across the great divide without a compass to guide them. During a gig at the Vooruit in Ghent they took the audience by storm despite initial resistance. Hurdle number two: daring to go for larger compositional forms and broader spans of tension. The former quartet could not be considered traditional as such, but it still built on compact foundations of rhythm and theme within clearly outlined time schemes. This new quartet plans further ahead, for example by laying down a theme that they only take up again a half hour later and then transform it. The impressive composition ‘Interval Suite’ is an excellent example of this. Ben Sluijs himself regards his compositional work as a sort of journey of exploration; he wants to discover as he writes. In any case, up till now he has never written on commission but rather for the group he is actively involved with. And his sources of inspiration are not always to be found within jazz, despite what the list mentioned at the beginning of this piece might suggest. For example, Sluijs has a soft spot for Olivier Messiaen, and that's a step further than the usual influences of Debussy and Ravel. Messiaen's music is full of independent voices that fight in an happy uninhibited way for their place in the sun. It's no wonder that Messiaen has worked birdsong into his music: each bird in the wood sings his own song and almost unawares adds something to one single beautiful work. In his collaboration with Marek Patrman, Manolo Cabras and Jeroen Van Herzeele Ben Sluijs has clearly found the courage to come out into the open from now on. It has been a long road for the Sluijs we used to see some ten or fifteen years ago working in academic ensembles like Sax-No-End. Back then it was all about the hard work of getting the job done on time, but today we witness an avid search for broader horizons. Still focused exclusively on the alto sax, but driven by a new hunger.

Didier Wijnants Translated by Peter Flynn www.bensluijs.be Philosophy and Science

In the Republic of the Learned Einstein and the Netherlands

At the beginning of the twentieth century Albert Einstein maintained intensive scientific and personal links with colleagues from the Netherlands. At the height of his scientific career, in the period between 1909 and 1927, Einstein corresponded with Dutch physicists, visited them regularly, and briefly held a visiting professorship in Leiden. The book Einstein in the Netherlands (Einstein in Nederland, 2006) provides an overview of the scientific and personal significance of Einstein's ‘Dutch connection’. Until now this theme has hardly been explored, partly because Einstein almost never cited his exemplars. Yet in the Netherlands Einstein found a ‘Republic of the Learned’ that has rarely flourished and expanded as it did in this period. One of the most impressive indications of this second ‘Golden Age’ of Dutch science is that in the

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 period between 1900 and the First World War the Nobel Prize for Physics was awarded to scientists working in Leiden, Utrecht or Haarlem on average every three years. So what attracted Einstein to this Republic of the Learned? A reconstruction of Einstein's friendship with four leading Dutch scientists sheds some light on the matter. First, there is Hendrik Antoon Lorentz (1853-1928): Lorentz was Einstein's greatest intellectual example. ‘Everything this outstanding mind produced,’ he said on the occasion of the commemoration of the centenary of Lorentz' birth, ‘was as clear and as beautiful as a good work of art, and one had the impression that he did it more easily and effortlessly than anyone else I have ever known.’ He added: ‘He was more important to me than anyone else I have met in the course of my life.’ Lorentz' theory is so central to Einstein's thoughts on space and time that for years contemporaries of the two physicists were unable to see any difference between Einstein's and Lorenz' ideas. What is now known as the ‘Special Theory of Relativity’ was for a long time officially known as the ‘Lorenz-Einstein theory’.

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National Einstein Memorial. Washington, DC

The second person who had a big intellectual and personal influence on Einstein was Lorentz' successor as professor of theoretical physics at Leiden, Paul Ehrenfest (1880-1933), a naturalised Dutchman of Austrian Jewish origin with whom Einstein had one of the most intimate friendships of his life. For years Ehrenfest acted as a sounding board for Einstein. One of the fruits of this was a thought experiment with which Ehrenfest made a significant contribution to Einstein's thinking on how the Special Theory of Relativity could be linked to gravity. Ehrenfest also saw to it that Einstein came into contact with the leading physicists of his time. For example, one of the twentieth century's theoretically most influential debates about physics, which was conducted between Einstein and the Danish physicist Niels Bohr, only came about because of Ehrenfest. An outline of the friendship between Ehrenfest and Einstein shows something of the passion they both felt for ‘everything that is dear and intelligent’. A third key figure in Einstein's life and work was the Leiden professor of astronomy, Willem de Sitter (1872-1934). De Sitter discussed the cosmological implications of Einstein's General Theory of Relativity with him. In 1916 this led to three long and influential essays that appeared in the British scientific journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. The importance of these essays is fourfold. First of all, De Sitter introduced into the Anglo-Saxon language area a theory which had not previously reached it because of World War I. Secondly, he showed compellingly that that theory is in complete harmony with the fundamental traditions and principles of physics. Thirdly, De Sitter demonstrated that the General Theory of Relativity has important and verifiable consequences for cosmology. He even presented a legitimate alternative to Einstein's cosmology model. Finally and most importantly, De Sitter provided the theoretical framework which gave significance to the results of the now famous British astronomical expedition of 1919. Shaped by De Sitter's theory, the expedition produced observational data that were considered to be experimental proof of the General Theory of Relativity. That proof was celebrated worldwide and gained Einstein international renown. The fourth person who belongs in an overview of Einstein's links with Dutch scientists is the Dutch Nobel prize winner in chemistry, Peter Debye (1884-1966). It is notable that the relations between Einstein and Debye - unlike the contacts with

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 his other Dutch colleagues - are characterised by a rupture. Although scientific rivalry between the two cannot be excluded, the reasons for the rupture are most likely to have been political. In 1933 Albert Einstein left Nazi Germany. Peter Debye however, who had spent his whole career living and working in Germany, decided to remain in Germany after 1933. A year after Einstein's departure, Peter Debye was appointed as Einstein's successor. The question of Debye's conduct in National Socialist Berlin provokes many conflicting views. On the one hand, Debye behaved in much the same way as his German colleagues. Like Otto Hahn, Carl Friedrich von Weizäcker or Max von Laue, Debye never openly supported National Socialism or the ‘Führer cult’. He shared with his colleagues the quasi-mythical idea of the ‘reine Luft der wissenschaftlichen Forschung’ - the pure air of scientific research - based on the principle that fundamental scientific

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 289 research should be considered a completely free activity of the mind. It is equally clear that on more than one occasion Debye defended the principle that there is no place for politics in science. In addition, the fact that he helped Lise Meitner to escape proves that he was not completely indifferent to the plight of his Jewish colleagues. On the other hand, historical documents also show that Debye was prepared to make considerable political concessions after Hitler came to power. In 1938, for instance, it was Debye who purged the ‘Deutsche Physikalische Gesellschaft’ of all Jewish members. For a reconstruction of the relationship between Einstein and Debye such conflicting views are merely sidetracks. Einstein quite simply condemned the fact that Debye stayed in Germany after Hitler came to power. When, in 1940, Einstein heard that Debye wanted to take up a position as professor at an American university, he tried to prevent it. He did so by circulating a letter to his colleagues in which he warned them that Debye was probably a Nazi spy. Einstein's letter was based upon his previous experiences with Debye, his own tragic experience with the political powers in Berlin and upon information he had received from an anonymous source. After the publication of Einstein in the Netherlands a remarkably emotional debate developed in the Netherlands about the ‘rights’ and ‘wrongs’ of Peter Debye. The discussion also attracted international attention after the University of Utrecht decided to drop Peter Debye's name for its physics research institute. The Netherlands Institute for War Documentation has been asked to analyse Debye's years under National Socialism. The focus of the research will be quite different from that of Einstein in the Netherlands, i.e. how Debye's behaviour in Berlin can be interpreted in the broader social and political context of his time. Its final report is expected in autumn 2007.

Sybe Rispens Translated by Lindsay Edwards

Sybe Rispens is the author of Einstein in Nederland. Een intellectuele biografie. Amsterdam: Ambo, 2006, 242 pp.

Christine Van Broeckhoven, a Pioneer in Alzheimer's

Christine Van Broeckhoven was born on 9 April 1953 and, despite her strictly scientific approach to life, she does tend to say with a smile that her being born in this year was a matter not of chance but of predestination. For 1953 was a milestone in science. It was in April of that year that James Watson (USA) and Francis Crick (UK) discovered the double helix structure of DNA. It was on the research results of Watson and Crick, who received the Nobel prize for Medicine in 1962 for their insights into heredity, that Van Broeckhoven was to base her career. No. Correction. It was to DNA, the secret of life, that she would dedicate her life, her whole existence. Initially she studied chemistry. Later she applied herself to biochemistry, then to molecular biology, finally ending up with her pet subject: molecular genetics. She concentrates on tracing the hereditary factors that can give rise to brain diseases in adults. In Belgium Van Broeckhoven is known primarily for her research into Alzheimer's dementia; abroad, and particularly in the United States (where she was

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 the first woman to receive the renowned Potamkin Prize) she is also renowned for her research into manic depressive psychosis and other diseases of the nervous system in adults. Van Broeckhoven's reputation can be attributed partly to the fact that she (who is one of the five world pioneers in the molecular genetics of Alzheimer's) has among other things identified the amyloid gene, a key protein in the biological process of Alzheimer's disease. In 2006 Van Broeckhoven received the international Unesco-L'Oréal Award: she was singled out as the best scientist in Europe. Her career has had its ups and downs. Particularly ‘ups’. Her career and her life are characterised by perfectionism, perseverance and obstinacy. ‘Three important characteristics of every true scientist’, she says. More than three decades after her birth Christine Van Broeckhoven began her own research into molecular genetics at the University of Antwerp. Because there was no-one in Belgium - then mired

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 290 in the economic crisis of 1983 - who could tell her how best to direct her research into heredity, she did not hesitate to turn to leading figures in the field in neighbouring countries. From international molecular geneticists of high repute she learned what she needed to do to ‘establish a world class research laboratory’: ‘I wasn't even interested in starting anything at less than “world” level. I always want to be the best in anything I do. Good isn't good enough.’ It worked. Van Broeckhoven, who was born a few weeks before Watson and Crick's first publication in the scientific periodical Nature, now, 54 years on, herself regularly publishes in this leading journal. Her research department, with a total of around eighty staff, is among the top scientific departments in the world and is highly regarded by the ‘inner circles.’ Her staff are, so she herself says, ‘among the best in the field. If I'm reaping success, it's partly due to their expertise and efforts’. In her own country and in the Netherlands Van Broeckhoven is also well-known to the general public. That is because she figures so conspicuously in social debate. Van Broeckhoven never misses a media opportunity of championing the battle against Alzheimer's. Or the battle for more women in science. Because that battle is hers too: that of a woman against the male stronghold that universities have always been, and still are. ‘Today my research department consists of four groups. I head the group researching into hereditary factors in Alzheimer's disease. Each of the other three groups (research into manic-depressive psychosis, peripheral neuropathies, and the genetics of various neurological diseases) is led by a man. I'm still the only female professor in my department! And that when I do the appointing and will always try to take a female applicant if any women apply who are as capable as the men. I believe in providing equal opportunities. But when I was looking for professors to lead my department there didn't seem to be a single woman. Of course that's no accident. The careers of women in science get bogged down. Women who study science and aim for a top career in their field still find themselves today among the post-doctoral researchers. They need time and opportunities to develop into leaders. Emancipation is a long-term project. But I'm optimistic. The more women you train, the greater the number who'll try for higher things. And evidently I function as a role model, because my example seems to have led to an encouraging increase this last year in the number of female science students, particularly in biochemistry and biotechnology. The under-representation of the female sex in science, and in every other area of society, is a waste of skills and knowledge. Moreover, scientific research needs diversity: men and women, young and old. I regard it as my duty to remove, at a structural level, as many obstacles to the top as possible for all the excellent women in science. So my policy is woman- and family-friendly. I don't hold meetings on Wednesdays, nor in the evening. I maintain that women shouldn't sacrifice their careers to their husbands.’ With those words Van Broeckhoven immediately distinguishes herself from many other scientists: when she speaks she does so in straightforward, clear language, and with immense passion. She doesn't mince her words and is not afraid to raise certain issues and problems and to criticise them. As someone who is not religious and as a scientist really takes Catholicism to task, she says that far as Cardinal Danneels is concerned she has to admit that he ‘is an intelligent man’, but that ‘his behaviour is schizophrenic’. She also has a go at the way university research is financed in Belgium: ‘Something that's completely

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 inconceivable abroad is the most ordinary thing in the world in Belgium. When it comes to granting funds for research, researchers are examined and appraised by their own colleagues. For example, I'm a member of an inter-university committee responsible for assessing researchers in Flemish universities. I assess my colleagues. And they assess me. So we decide together about the rest. But we're also all competing among ourselves. So we're all after the same money. No need to point out that the national money pool doesn't have unlimited depths or riches, and that this situation means that, always, absolutely without exception, people talk of conflicts of interest! Because everyone defends their own project and research group. Everyone defends their own university. And everyone

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 291 wants to come out on top. While there's only one good thing that should and can be defended, namely the best or most promising research project.’ Or this too: about the university as the so-called fount of all wisdom she says: ‘That used to be so. When professors didn't live in ivory towers but were involved with the world they lived in. Today's university is no longer a Mecca of intelligence. A colleague of mine once said that our universities are getting more and more like sheltered employment. I don't think he was very far wide of the mark with that description.’ Despite her forthright pronouncements, which are not always kindly received, no one doubts the pioneering, much-needed work she is doing. The essence of Christine Van Broeckhoven's profession and her success lies in the fact that she combines her three passions: brains (mankind), genetics (heredity) and social engagement. For Van Broeckhoven no end is more degrading than that of someone losing their faculties. ‘Dementia is a Latin word, a compound of “de” - (from, out of) and “mens” (mind): i.e. out of one's minds. I feel it's my duty to use my knowledge and expertise in the battle against more and more old people losing their mind! Society is ageing. Medicine is keeping bodies functioning for longer and longer. But what do we gain from being a hundred years old in a sound body if our mind stops working when we're 75? We are our minds! Our brains are our personalities. When our brains shrink our identity shrivels up. And without identity we're not people any more. It's time the politicians asked themselves this question. And dared to come up with some answers. As long as they fail to do so, or to do so adequately, I shall keep ringing the alarm bell. Just as often and as hard as I can.’

Margot Vanderstraeten Translated by Sheila M. Dale

Virtue Will Undo Us All Bernard Mandeville

‘I know our Mob has ever grumbled at the coming in of Strangers, because they force them to be more diligent and industrious than otherwise they would be; but whoever counts that a Misfortune, is a short sighted Politician. Whence you would have had your Silks of so many different Fabricks, your Colchester Bays, Norwich Stuffs; nay, your whole Woollen Manufacture, which now is the Basis of our Trade, the Wealth of the Kingdom, and the support of the Poor, if Strangers had not brought them among you?’ But the Bulk of the Nation is made up of Strangers, we have but few very ancient Families among us, and the Fore-fathers of most of us were Foreigners once within five hundred Years. The succeeding Generations we see don't remain so, and let a Man come from what Country he pleases, he can be but a Foreigner for himself, all his Posterity, if they stay here, must be English in spite of his Teeth. I have always been, and am still of Opinion, that the bringing in of Foreigners can never be counted detrimental to the Nation, at the worst more than planting of Trees to a Family. They are chargeable at first, take up that Ground which might be otherwise employ'd and perhaps yield a little or no Profit to him that plants them; but then his Posterity often makes Ten Pounds for every Six Pence he laid out.’1.

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 This is certainly one way of looking at the immigration issue. The passage dates from 1714 when its author Bernard Mandeville wrote it on the occasion of the accession to the throne of England of the Hanoverian George I. The King spoke Latin, French, Italian and even Dutch but no English. Mandeville (whose collected works are now being published in Dutch) did not share the objections of most Englishmen to this prince and was of the opinion that a foreigner on the throne could be beneficial - a view no doubt derived from the fact that he was himself an immigrant. Mandeville had been born in Rotterdam, the son of the city's physician. He would follow in his father's footsteps and like him become a doctor but from the age of twenty-three he practised medicine in England, having been banished from his native

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 292 city. His offence had been to write an inflammatory satirical poem directed at the corrupt Bailiff and Sheriff Jacob van Zuylen van Nyeveldt. This was posted up on 5 October 1690, and the so-called Costerman riots broke out the day after. Mandeville settled in London as a physician specialising in internal and nervous disorders and psychosomatic complaints. Although little is known of his life, we do know that he moved in upper-class and scholarly circles and was known as an extremely keen-witted and amusing conversationalist. The American scientist and politician Benjamin Franklin met him as a young man and described him as ‘a very witty and entertaining companion’. As a physician Mandeville did not see eye to eye with the medical establishment as presided over by the Royal College of Physicians, which was wary of the new experimental approach to science. He took an empirical approach not only to his own profession but also to his study of society. Instead of complying with long-established notions and pious accounts of how things should be, he inquired into how they actually were. He did not preach, he observed. Anyone who wants to know how society functions has to take into account human vices and failings. In this he resembled the controversial seventeenth-century philosopher Thomas Hobbes. But unlike his predecessor, who considered that the only guarantee of a well-ordered society was an almost absolute ruler, Mandeville believed that the vices of individuals - such as vanity, greed and lust for power - were on the whole a blessing to society. Hence his famous dictum ‘Private vices, public benefits.’ Private Vices, Public Benefits is the subtitle of his best known work, The Fable of the Bees (1723-29) which along with the poem ‘The Grumbling Hive, or Knaves Turn'd Honest’ included various explanatory essays. Most people put self-interest first, and a good thing too in Mandeville's opinion. In the struggle to compete they employ all their energy and ingenuity, and this leads to discoveries and inventions that promote the common good. If on the other hand we were to behave in an utterly virtuous and altruistic way, not wishing to harm anyone, renouncing our

Frontispiece of the second edition of Bernard Mandeville's The Fable of the Bees (1723). self-interest and rejecting all vanity, our lives would be impoverished both materially and culturally.

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 Contrary to what his many enemies claimed, Mandeville did not glorify human failings. He simply refused to label them as vices or failings, looking upon them instead as qualities. Rather than deny or suppress them as the moralists wish, he thinks it better to deal with them in a rational way. Another controversial work, entitled A Modest Defence of Publiek Stews (1724) which is also included in this edition, reflects this way of thinking. Mandeville contends that the pious enemies of prostitution do more harm than good in trying to put a stop to it. Governmental regulation of prostitution could contain the rampant sexually transmitted diseases then known as ‘the French pox’. Moreover Mandeville believed that people who had no sexual experience often made disastrous marriage partners. The scathing tone Mandeville adopts when attacking hypocrisy is hard-hitting and a pleasure to read. It is not surprising that Voltaire reacted enthusiastically to The Fable of the Bees. He composed his own version of this fable, Le Mondain, which concludes with the famous last line ‘the earthly paradise is where I am’. Mandeville, who was better known in the rest of the world than in his native country, was a typical representative of the Enlightenment and to-

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 293 day is considered one of the most important founding fathers of liberalism. But now, almost three centuries later, when liberalism seems to have triumphed on all fronts, the flaws in Mandeville's vision become apparent. It is becoming more and more questionable whether an efficient and well organised government is capable of holding together a society consisting of individuals who always put their own purse, fame or sexual satisfaction first. Neither, as the passage on immigration shows, does he know how to deal with groups that have collective and divergent identities. His diagnosis of some social ills is convincing, but his cures are ineffective.

Rob Hartmans Translated by Elizabeth Mollison-Meijer

Article translated and reprinted courtesy of the author & De Groene Amsterdammer (www.groene.nl)

Eindnoten:

1. Original text provided by Arne C. Jansen, who translated Mandeville into the Dutch (www.bernardmandeville.nl)

Society

The City's for Everyone Council Elections in Belgium

‘Flanders still liveable in’ was the headline in the Flemish daily De Morgen. ‘Halte-là’ wrote Le Soir in capitals on its front page the day after the Belgian municipal elections (Sunday 8 October 2006). So great was the euphoria following the very moderate election results of the extreme right party, Vlaams Belang, that the news headlines were seasoned with a strong dose of opinion. It was a complete surprise. For the first time in years the strongest party in Antwerp was not Vlaams Belang but the socialist SP.A The success of the extreme right had been the main issue in the local elections. The fear was that the Front National would make a huge break-through in Wallonia, and that Filip Dewinter's Vlaams Belang (previously Vlaams Blok) would be victorious at the polls for the thirteenth time. The Front National did not gain as much as had been feared, and in Antwerp Vlaams Belang only gained 0.56 percent. But for Dewinter the fact that he could no longer claim to be the most popular politician in Antwerp was harder to bear than this status quo. Mayor Patrick Janssens (SP.A) had polled ten thousand votes more. Filip Dewinter referred to Janssens' success as a ‘Pyrrhic victory’. He has ‘cannibalised his own coalition. The SP.A has only got off the ground with the votes of the liberals and the greens’. Indeed the liberals and the greens paid the price for the success of Janssens, who gained an extra ten seats. ‘Only the mayor himself

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 personally, not even his party, has been able to cash in on the success of the council's policy’, goes the criticism. And that supposedly came about through the ‘presidential-style election campaign’ of former advertising director Janssens. First he gave Antwerp a logo and a slogan (‘The city's for everyone’, a clear retaliation to Dewinter's ‘Own folk first’). Many of Antwerp's citizens associated this campaign with Janssens personally. He went on to run an election campaign with a strong personal flavour. 26 well-known and 26 unknown people from Antwerp posed for 52 posters.

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Their likenesses were accompanied only by the name ‘Patrick’. No space was left for the surname of Janssens or for the SP.A's logo. He seemed to stand above the parties, including his own. Once the election result was known, Janssens assumed a modest attitude. He praised the ‘teamwork’ of his bench of aldermen working with the mayor. ‘The coalition parties will possibly find the result not entirely fair, and there is some truth in that’, he admitted. Was the jubilation over the defeat of the Vlaams Belang premature? Although the party may have scored worse in Flanders as a whole than in the Flemish parliamentary elections in 2004, compared to the municipal elections of 2000 it showed a definite gain. In Flanders the party increased from 439 to 794 council seats. Many commentators dismiss this as a ‘catch-up movement’ in the many places where the party had not fielded a candidate before, or had a limited presence. The ‘autonomous growth’ was limited. However, the fact that there could actually be a catch-up movement should give food for thought. One in five Flemings still votes for Vlaams Belang. In Antwerp it is as many as one in three. The real windfall appears to be that the extreme right seems to have reached its limit in, of all places, the districts of Antwerp-Centre and the Borgerhout district. It was in these very places that the rise of the party began at the end of the eighties. The ‘fall of Schoten’ so fervently hoped for in Vlaams Belang circles did not happen either. This exurb just outside Antwerp is home to fifty Moroccans and a thousand Dutch people. But the panic anxiety about North Africans threatening to ‘flood’ the area was hammered home there in Schoten to such an extent that the party scored 34.7 percent, as against 24.5 percent in 2000. But Vlaams Belang had hoped for more. If Antwerp is bucking the trend that can send a signal to other villages and towns. If the party militants of Vlaams Belang lose their unshakeable confidence that one day the party really will come into power, then things can quickly go downhill. Particularly if others, like Janssens, go in for a different, positive kind of government. That happened in Ghent, among other places, with a ‘purple’ coalition (social-democrats and liberals). Result: in that city Vlaams Belang went down from 11 seats to 9. Finally, on 10 June 2007 there will be Belgian national elections. That is turning into a new test for Vlaams Belang, and also an ordeal by fire for the ‘Purple government’ of Guy Verhofstadt. His liberal party, VLD, fared badly on 8 October, while its socialist coalition partner SP.A did well in the cities but less well in the countryside. All in all, the Flemish Christian Democrats (CD&V) were the real winners in Flanders. In Wallonia the Christian Democrats' sister party, CdH, did well also. The Socialist Party (PS) took a hiding in many places. In Namur, the capital of the French-speaking Community, they lost the Mayor's sash and in Charleroi they lost their absolute majority. In this city the Socialist Party came under heavy fire on account of cronyism and scandals in the social housing company. But the party is relieved that those problems haven't upset its applecart in Wallonia as a whole.

Bart Dirks Translated by Sheila M. Dale

Dutch Electorate All at Sea

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 The results of the parliamentary election in the Netherlands on 22 November 2006 made it immediately obvious that it would be difficult to form a new government. Premier Jan Peter Balkenende's Christian Democrats suffered some losses but remained in the majority. The liberal VVD, with whom Balkenende's CDA had governed in recent years, lost six seats. This made it impossible to continue with the centre-right cabinet. But it seemed very difficult to form any other coalition. Many of the parties really could not work with each other. The Dutch parliament has 150 seats. Following the elections these were occupied by ten different parties, varying from slightly left to extreme left, from slightly right to extreme right and from slightly Christian to extreme Christian. And to top it all there is also a green party and an animal rights party.

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Jan Peter Balkenende. Photo by E. Vanthournout

Six months before the elections everything was still very clear cut in the Netherlands. Opinion polls indicated that the election would be won by the PvdA, the social democratic party. Such a scenario also seemed to be borne out by the outcome of the municipal elections at the beginning of 2006, when the PvdA came out on top. The PvdA leader, Wouter Bos, would become prime minister in a cabinet with the CDA. But opinion polls are no more than opinions. On 22 November 2006 the reality proved to be quite different. Far from winning, the PvdA lost nine seats. So, no prime minister Bos. In the election campaign the CDA had portrayed him as a ditherer, a time-server. Bos was unable to refute that image sufficiently and the voters turned away from him. Jan Peter Balkenende, on the other hand, had gained a lot of respect in the months leading up to the elections. That had not been so when he took office as prime minister in 2002. Research showed that at that time the majority of Dutch people were even ashamed of their leader. Apparently that is no longer the case. The economic growth under the three Balkenende cabinets will undoubtedly have contributed to this change. Thus Balkenende's CDA remains the largest party in the Netherlands, with 43 seats. The PvdA remains the second largest, with 33 seats. And after that comes yet another socialist party (SP), to the left of the PvdA. The SP has been active in parliament for years. They had 22 seats and now they have 25. According to the leader of the SP, Jan Marijnissen, the electorate have voted for a ‘more human and socially concerned’ Netherlands. So according to the SP the years under Balkenende were not human and socially concerned enough. Harsh criticism, that makes it hard for the SP to participate in a government with the CDA. Along with the SP's gains we have those of Geert Wilders' PVV (Partij voorde Vrijheid - Freedom Party): a party right at the other end of the political spectrum. It campaigned in particular against what it sees

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 296 as the Islamisation of the Netherlands. Wilders now has 9 seats in parliament. Popular with the electorate then. But the other parties aren't too keen on him. With Wilders' arrival the heirs of the right-wing politician Pim Fortuyn disappeared from the scene. Fortuyn was shot dead in May 2002, just before the parliamentary elections of that year. His party, the LPF, had previously failed to gain a seat in parliament, but after the murder it got 26 seats. They went on to share in government in the first Balkenende cabinet. The inexperienced members of the LPF caused constant ructions. After a few months the government fell and there were further elections in 2003. Fortuyn's party was reduced to eight seats and went into opposition. In the recent elections the LPF disappeared entirely, and other parties laying claim to Fortuyn's political inheritance also failed to gain any seats. One party that has not yet been mentioned is the Christian Union of André Rouvoet - a party based on Christian norms and values (but with a social-economic and centre-left profile). A party, too, that doubled in size in the elections. It had 3 seats before, and now it has 6. This Christian Union entered discussions with PvdA and CDA about forming a new government. These talks followed the failure of attempts to bring the SP into a cabinet. There were just too many points of disagreement. The new cabinet in the Netherlands is now made up of two Christian parties and one social democratic party: the CDA, PvdA and the Christian Union. A Christian-red government, then, which has as its motto ‘Work together, live together’. The voters' rejection of the European Constitution in 2005 was seen as a vote against Premier Balkenende. At the time a large majority of the Dutch people reckoned that he had absolutely no chance of remaining in office. But he did stay, he won the election of 22 November 2006 and is now one of the most experienced politicians in his own cabinet. Fie will now be presiding over a government for the fourth time in five years. And his popularity rating has improved considerably.

Joris van de Kerkhof Translated by Sheila M. Dale Visual Arts

British Vision The Art behind Inspector Morse and Mr Bean Comes to the Low Countries

In the Autumn of 2007 the Museum of Fine Arts (MSK) in Ghent is holding a retrospective exhibition of British visual arts from c.1750 to c.1950, under the title of British Vision. With over three hundred works of art, including various outstanding examples, this is the largest exhibition of British art to be held on the Continent for decades. By means of oil paintings, watercolours, prints, drawings, sculptures, books, periodicals and photos various trends and periods are illustrated and approached from a fresh angle. The timing of Dr Robert Hoozee, the director of the Ghent MSK who has designed this exhibition in collaboration with a team of mainly British experts, is perfect. For

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 in the last few years it has become apparent that the Low Countries are taking a renewed interest in British art, and particularly in Victorian art. During a recent lecture in Birmingham Elizabeth Prettejohn, one of the leading authors on Victorian art, observed that today almost more attention and respect is paid to this kind of art in the Low Countries than in Great Britain itself. She pointed to successful exhibitions of Victorian art such as Femmes Fatales 1860-1910 (2003) in the Groninger Museum and the Royal Museum of Fine Arts in Antwerp, Dante Gabriel Rossetti in the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam (2004) and the exhibition devoted to John William Waterhouse that the Groninger Museum is currently preparing. Flowever, the general public in the Low Countries is probably more familiar with products of British culture other than the visual arts. British TV programmes, films and literature are remarkably popular on the continental side of the Channel. Some Victorian works of art have even become famous as a result. For instance, there is the episode The Way Through the Woods in the Inspector Morse detective series (repeated countless times by the Flemish TV station Canvas especially). In this a painting by the Pre-Raphaelite artist John Millais is the key that enables Morse to solve the mystery. At British Vision visi-

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 297 tors can have a good look at the picture, entitled The Woodman's Daughter (1850-1851), for themselves. James McNeill Whistler is also represented in the exhibition. Since the 1997 Mr Bean film more or less everyone here is familiar with one particular painting by this artist (Whistler, not Bean): Arrangement in Grey and Black No 1: Portrait of the Painter's Mother, better known as Whistler's Mother (1871). In the film Mr Bean makes a fake of this work of art in a manner as masterly as it is comical. Neither Bean's version nor Whistler's features in British Vision, but visitors can admire the etching that can be seen hanging on the wall by Mrs Whistler in the painting: Black Lion Wharf, a work done by her son in 1859. British Vision, then is a marvellous opportunity for adding depth and breadth to the appreciation of British culture that already exists in the Low Countries. There are also art-historical reasons for organising an exhibition about British art in the Low Countries: throughout history bonds were regularly forged between British art and that of Belgium and the Netherlands. I will give a few examples from the Victorian period. The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, a group of young artists (including William Holman Hunt, John Millais and Dante Gabriel Rossetti), formed in London in 1848, considered that the established art in the Great Britain of that period had lost all power, significance and honesty. They resolved to change this by creating a new style that was based on truthfulness to nature and edifying subjects. As their name indicates, they wanted to draw inspiration from the purity and simplicity of early Renaissance art from Italy, the art from before Raphael. Recent studies however have shown that the Pre-Raphaelites looked for inspiration just as much to Flemish paintings of the same period. Jane Langley has drawn attention to the enormous importance for the Pre-Raphaelite style of The Arnolfini Portrait (1434) by Jan van Eyck, which the National Gallery had purchased in 1843. That the Pre-Raphaelites were familiar with this painting is clear from the typical convex mirror that crops up in the work of, among others, Holman Hunt and Ford Madox Brown. It is true that the latter was not really a member

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Ecce Ancilla Domini 1849-1850 Oil on canvas mounted on panel. 72.7 × 41.9 cm. Tate Gallery, London of the Brotherhood, but he was part of its immediate environment. Of greater importance is the fact that the Pre-Raphaelites, just like Van Eyck, opted for bright colours, an almost photographic reproduction of reality and the attachment of a symbolic meaning to almost every object in their paintings. Thanks to their visits to Belgium Holman Hunt, Madox Brown (who among other things studied at the Antwerp Academy) and Rossetti were also familiar with other work of the Flemish Primitives. Marysa Demoor wrote recently about why a visit to Belgium in 1849 was crucial to the young Rossetti in the development of his style. It was there that he learnt to appreciate Memling, and in Ghent The Adoration of the Lamb (1432), by the brothers Van Eyck, made a profound impression upon him. There are strong similarities in composition, colour and atmosphere between Rossetti's painting Ecce Ancilla Domini (1849-1850) and the exterior panels of The Adoration. More generally the sumptuous representation of

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 298 women, the symbolism, and the interplay between word and image of the Flemish Primitives had a clear impact on Rossetti's art. The early Pre-Raphaelites and their environment are well represented in British Vision, with work by Rossetti, Holman Hunt, Millais and Ford Madox Brown. I have already mentioned James McNeill Whistler. He was an American who worked mainly in England and France, but who cherished a great love for the Netherlands and the artists of the Golden Age. Whistler admired Steen, de Hooch, Vermeer and especially Rembrandt, whose Night Watch (1642) he came to study in 1863. He visited the Netherlands regularly and in 1889 he designed a series of high-quality etchings in Amsterdam. The technique that Whistler used in this immediately reminds us of the etchings of Rembrandt. He created a lively, charged atmosphere with chiaroscuro effects. These are built up by means of fine networks of lines, sometimes parallel, sometimes crossing each other, often very close together, just as in the etchings by his hero from the Golden Age. Typical of Whistler are the ‘working class’ subjects which he even sought out in the red-light district. Also characteristic is the fact that in Amsterdam he worked by and on the water. He had previously done the same in Venice and, as we clearly see from the two pictures of his at British Vision, in London on the Thames. In 1997 Whistler's relationship with the Netherlands was the subject of the exhibition Whistler and Holland in the Rijksmuseum. In the catalogue J.F. Heijbroek and Margaret F. MacDonald shed light on the various aspects of this relationship, including Whistler's surprising influence on a number of Dutch visual artists. British Vision also devotes attention to British book illustration. William Morris is represented with three works. He was a designer, poet, social reformer, political activist and businessman, yet still found time to turn the printed book into an art form once more. Morris created a number of beautiful editions with great care for ornamentation and illustration. His masterpiece, The Works of Geoffrey Chaucer (1896), published by his own Kelmscott Press, can be seen at British Vision.

Edward Burne Jones The Baleful Head 1886-1887 Canvas, 155 × 130 cm. Staatsgalerie, Stuttgart

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 Ellen Van Impe has observed that the British re-evaluation of the art of the book and book illustration had an important influence in Belgium. From the early 1890s British graphics and book illustrations appeared at the annual exhibitions of Belgian artists' groups such as Les XX (1883-1893) and La Libre Esthétique (1894-1914). The Arts and Crafts Movement, of which William Morris was a leading light, created an impression with books by Morris himself but also with editions illustrated by Walter Crane. Around that period Belgian artists such as Georges Lemmen, Henry van de Velde, Fernand Khnopff and Théo Van Rysselberghe also began creating illustrations for books and designs for covers. The illustrations in the William Morris works in British Vision were designed by his lifelong ‘creative partner’ Edward Burne-Jones who is also represented as a painter by two items. Just like Morris, Burne-Jones belonged to the second generation of Pre-

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Raphaelites that had formed around Rossetti after the collapse of the original Brotherhood. Of all the Pre-Raphaelite painters Burne-Jones became the best known in Belgium. The reason for this lay not only in the indisputable quality of his paintings, of which a number were exhibited in Brussels in the 1890s. Burne-Jones also owed this popularity to the wholehearted admiration his friend the Belgian Fernand Khnopff expressed for him in several publications. Khnopff was an art critic and Symbolist painter. The Belgian Symbolists recognized a precursor in Burne-Jones; consequently there are clear similarities between the work of Khnopff and that of the Englishman. Both tried to convey an inner state with their creations and both, as Laurence Des Cars has pointed out, frequently show mesmerised figures staring into a mirror, the symbol of introspection. An interesting example at British Vision is Burne-Jones' painting The Baleful Head (1885) in which he creates a complex interplay between faces and their mirror images. There are many other such incidences of cross-fertilisation between British art and that of the Low Countries that I could draw on, but it will be apparent from all of the above that British Vision is part of a rich tradition of mutual appreciation between these two cultures.

Nic Peeters Translated by Sheila M. Dale

British Vision - Constable to Bacon. Observation and Imagination in British Art 1750-1950 is running in the completely refurbished Museum of Fine Arts in Ghent from 6 October 2007 to 13 January 2008 (www.mskgent.be)

Bibliography

Marysa Demoor, ‘Art Catholic Revisited: Dante Rossetti's Early Paintings and Northern Renaissance Art’. In: The Journal of Pre-Raphaelite Studies New Series 14 (Spring 2005). pp. 4-15. Laurence Des Cars, ‘Edward Burne-Jones and France’. In: Stephen Wildman & John Christian (eds.), exhib. cat. Edward Burne-Jones, Victorian Artist-Dreamer. New York (Metropolitan Museum), 1998, pp. 25-39. J.F. Heijbroek & Margaret F. MacDonald, exhib. cat. Whistler en Holland. Amsterdam (Rijksmuseum), 1997. Jane Langley, ‘Pre-Raphaelites or ante-Dürerites?’. In: Burlington Magazine, 137, no 1109 (August 1995), pp. 501-08. Ellen Van Impe, ‘Een blinde vlek in de studie van de Belgische Arts-and-Craftsreceptie. Morris en Ruskin in katholieke tijdschriften’. In: Raf De Bont, Geraldine Reymenants & Hans Vandevoorde (eds), Niet onder één vlag - Van Nu en Straks en de paradoxen van het fin de siècle. Ghent, 2005, pp. 283-306.

Perversity, Pleasure and the Boundaries of Our Order

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 The Art of Folkert de Jong

In the summer of 2006 the three-dimensional worlds of Folkert de Jong (1972-) went on show in two prominent venues in Belgium. Visitors to the Braem Pavilion in Middelheim sculpture park in Antwerp were met with a remarkable scene. They found themselves both drawn to and repelled by four human figures grouped around a landscape made of Styrofoam, polyurethane foam and silicon rubber. The landscape consists of a large mountainous plateau resting on two piles of pink and blue Styrofoam sheets. On the plateau and built of the same material is a little village of half-timbered houses, a water pump and an archetypal castle. The small blue buildings look reassuring and immediately conjure up associations with miniature worlds like the ones built for decades by the German toy manufacturer Märklin. The four human figures include a wild-looking man seated on a cube, pointing authoritatively to the landscape, his frenzied expression directed towards us. His left hand is clutching a model of Brancusi's Infinite Column, but that too is made of Styrofoam. Opposite him is what appears to be a rather smart gentleman wearing a suit, hat and glasses, standing stock-still on a pile of Styrofoam sheets, another little half-timbered house balanced on his outstretched hand. The skin of his face however is horribly ravaged. What might be a lumberjack is standing with one leg resting on a chair,

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 300 his dejected eyes downcast. His neck and upper body are streaked with red; the axe he is holding may have something to do with it. Then there is the gigantic female head, sporting fashionable sunglasses and a headscarf, but below a string of beads her body is in the form of a long pillar. Entitled The Sculptor, The Devil and The Architect (2006), the scene is a juxta-position of a stereo-typical rustic idyll and horror. They even become interchangeable. The alarming bystanders give the charming little landscape an ominous air and yet their stilled ecstasy and attractive pink, blue and orangey-red colours lend the solitary human figures a convivial quality. De Jong also made an installation with sculptures for the Watou Poetry Summer (2006) in West Flanders. A gigantic soldier, his back bent and his helmet pressed against the roof of the barn, looks with a frenzied smile to the right. He has one large blue and one yellowish eye, and he is holding castanets in his left hand. He is guarded by a couple of soldiers, their delirious eyes protruding from their pulpy and horribly pockmarked, grimacing faces. Their military equipment belongs to the eighteenth or nineteenth century rather than the twentieth. The drummer cum standard-bearer, who contemplates the spectacle with a superior laugh, also appears to be from another age. Everyone knows of the horrors that took place in the area around Watou during the First World War. This work by De Jong - Shooting... at Watou; the 1st of July 2006 - refers to those events, but it also has an extra dimension. The two soldiers with rifles and bayonets seem to have been inspired by

Folkert de Jong, The Sculptor, The Devil and The Architect at the Middelheim Braem Pavilion, Antwerp (2006).

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Francesco Goya's famous painting The 3rd of May 1808 (1814), (which went down in the history of art as the first ‘journalistic’ account of a political incident). It shows Spanish partisans being shot by French revolutionary soldiers. Here the concept of ‘freedom’ acquires an ambiguous overtone. Spaniards fighting for their freedom are executed by soldiers waging war in the name of enlightened thinking. Folkert de Jong claims not be looking to make a social or political statement with his works, yet here he seems to cast doubt on man's attitude to the notion of ‘freedom’. Here, too, the familiar cheap building materials in pink, blue and yellow form the basis for the partly turbulent, partly quiescent scene. As with The Sculptor, The Devil and The Architect, here too the spectator can walk between the sculptures and in so doing is also implicated in the events; he becomes a participant in the madness. De Jong began working with Styrofoam and polyurethane foam in 2001. His breakthrough as a ‘sculptor’ came with his work The Iceman Cometh, shown at the Stedelijk Museum Bureau Amsterdam in the spring of 2001. The Iceman Cometh (also the title of a play by the American Eugene O'Neill in which a number of desperate characters are constantly scrutinising one another) depicts a gruesome landscape peopled by cripples. A line of blue and yellow characters is frozen in ecstatic poses on a cool blue, wintry island. The procession is led by a bent figure with large rabbit's ears and a proudly erect genital organ, who is holding a pistol in his right hand. He is followed by a soldier with a weapon in one hand and a miniature Mickey Mouse in the other; behind him come a legless individual in a wheelchair, a man on crutches with a wooden leg and a figure jubilantly raising the stumps of his arms above his head. The man with the crutches laughs as he steps over a limbless body and next to him, on the sideline, is another proud character whose mouth is frozen in a scream. This bizarre procession is on its way to a smaller island further along, where there is a half-ruined igloo inside which a tormented woman with amputated breasts seems to be hospitably awaiting

Folkert de Jong, The Iceman Cometh (detail) at the Groninger Museum (2002) the gentlemen's arrival. They are probably in for another rude awakening. An American flag flies from the igloo and next to it lies a crashed warplane.

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 ‘The Iceman Cometh’ is essentially a ‘still’ from a gruesome story, which can only be viewed from a distance. This time you cannot move between the figures, but only walk gingerly round the islands. De Jong is obsessed by the caverns of the human soul, the twilight world we all, it seems, carry within us. This work was inspired by paintings and drawings by George Grosz and Otto Dix which communicate the madness that lurks inside us all, and by photographs of groups of soldiers returning from the front. One drawing by Otto Dix in particular, a self-portrait in a trench (which actually dates from 1924) made a great impression on de Jong. It illustrates the insanity of war and the effect of its horrors on the human psyche.

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Even in his earlier work De Jong was looking for concentrated experiences of frustrated desire and constraint which can so easily result in madness and horror. In 1996 he camped in a studio in the port area of Amsterdam, where he often came across abandoned shoes, pornographic magazines and the like. One day he found a bag containing women's clothing, stilettos and letters, which he took back to his studio and painstakingly examined, detective-style. He fantasised about the fate of the woman who owned the bag and then went on to create potential victims out of wood, foam rubber and tape. De Jong's video recordings of them, and of himself lying as a ‘victim’ on the back seat of a car proved that the dummies lent themselves to being used in a more narrative context. During his studies at the Rijksacademie in Amsterdam (1998-1999) he started creating environments which revealed worlds that appeal even more explicitly to our darker nature. It is precisely the proximity of a neat and tidy, sunny lifestyle to a life full of dark passions and unfinished business that never fails to fascinate De Jong. He has read about men who play Nazi games up in the attic after a day at the office, and about a small community in America where a man who called himself ‘The Bishop’ founded a semi-religious cult in which he actually sacrificed fellow villagers. In his workshop at the Rijksacademie he made recordings in which he took part in dark rituals with his brother and his girlfriend. Videos show a girl lying with a bag over her head, a figure dressed as a doll and De Jong - the undisputed leader, holding a gun and wearing a jacket embroidered with the words ‘The General’. Until 2001 De Jong made these sort of environments and filled them with homemade weapons, a wooden tank, a Stuka aeroplane and flags bought from army surplus stores onto which he sewed caricatures of soldiers and strange names like ‘Sacke en Sugar’ and ‘Pecke in the Crown’ - light-hearted worlds filled with potential destruction. Already at this time he was drawing inspiration from West Coast artists like Paul McCarthy and Mike Kelley, and also from B and splatter movies and comics. Since 2001 De Jong has concentrated on developing and perfecting his sculptural skills. In Life's Illusions (2003) an ungainly figure without arms sits drinking from a glass through a straw, his head covered in blood. Near him is a green monster (he looks like a Michelin man) sitting on a stool and a woman in a flowery dress who is laughing and waving two axes. In the middle a blue, purple and green wood fire crackles and at a suitable distance is a horse ridden by a man in a blood-stained orange uniform, a top hat perched on his grinning head. The scene is surrounded by collapsed walls and a mass of building rubble. It portrays the desperation within which these characters verging on madness can thrive. Yet, interestingly, the rubble is made of the same material (Styrofoam and polyurethane foam) as the characters. When examining the notion of ‘psychological transformation’, De Jong uses materials which are easy to transform. The building materials can be cut quickly, and as they lend themselves to cutting and pasting they can be assembled with relative ease. The colours in Life's Illusions are more varied and more expressive than in The Iceman Cometh and so the sculptures acquire rather more painterly connotations. The work Medusa's First Move: The Council dating from 2005 is a complex and skilfully executed group sculpture. Scenes from films like Fritz Lang's Dr Mabuse (1922) and Ingmar Bergman's Smiles of a Summer Night 1955) were important sources of inspiration for this work. A large round table stands on a plateau (raft)

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 resting on oil drums. People dressed in a variety of historical (mostly military) costumes sit at the table on baroque chairs. Around the table are objects which include a globe, a bust and a skull; above it hangs a sumptuous chandelier. Despite being a very compact composition, Medusa's First Move: The Council presents a multiplicity of attributes, human attitudes and facial expressions. The work seems to portray a secret consultation at world level. Yet in this séance-like setting, the participants are totally sidelined and behave like lost souls. In particular this work shows that De Jong has developed a virtuoso sense of form and composition.

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It is a brilliant embodiment of human madness. Or as Folkert de Jong puts it: ‘I like the relationship between play and violence. Pleasure and brutality produce a strange mix. Perversity and pleasure go together if we explore the boundaries of our order. I like the faces of my sculptures to be humorous in a dark sort of way.’1.

David Stroband Translated by Alison Mouthaan-Gwillim

Eindnoten:

1. Folkert de Jong ‘Shoot the freak’; Folkert de Jong & Simon Wallis; page 2 of this interview; Rotterdam, 2005.

The Sweet Smell of Success Viktor & Rolf

When it comes to the history of Dutch fashion, Viktor & Rolf's story is an unusual one; in fact, it has all the magic of a fairy tale. And there is no denying that there is an element of the fairy tale in fashion, or, to quote Viktor & Rolf at the opening of their retrospective exhibition at the Louvre in 2004: ‘Fashion is an aura. It is applicable to more than one product. Fashion is a dream, something intangible.’1. The way Viktor & Rolf present themselves shows that this premise is the driving force behind their activities. When for example in 2004 they were invited to appear on an Italian television show, they were aware that they were virtually unknown to the wider Italian public. So by way of introduction they had a man-sized book made, with the words ‘The Story of Viktor & Rolf in Italian on the cover and underneath: ‘by Viktor & Rolf.’ The two designers turned the leaves of the gigantic book in a joint choreography, while clips from their shows were projected onto the pages. Eventually live mannequins came strutting through the open frame of the ‘last page’ wearing Viktor & Rolf's latest collection and antlers on their heads. The Italian presenter read out the text supplied by Viktor & Rolf as a voice-over: ‘The creative urge was so strong that they set off into the great unknown to acquire fame and fortune. They achieved their goal with their fabled fashion shows in the capital of fashion.’ The creative urge is generally what enables resolute Dutch fashion designers to persevere and hold their own in what has traditionally been a non-fashion-conscious climate. And there are many Dutch labels and fashion-designers operating in the Netherlands and also abroad, many with considerable commercial success. Yet not one of them can be compared to Viktor & Rolf. Why is that? What makes Viktor & Rolf different from other Dutch designers? Viktor Horsting and Rolf Snoeren were born in small towns in the province of North Brabant in 1969. In later interviews they talked about their craving for glamour

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 in that thoroughly Dutch environment and how the only ray of light came from a particular soap advertisement on television.

Viktor & Rolf in their own menswear for Spring/Summer 2005.

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As the retrospective book Fashion in the Nethertands (Mode in Nederland) explains, the foundations of fashion in the Netherlands were firmly laid between 1945 and 1965 with (among other things) the introduction of the first fashion training courses. Between 1980 and 1990 the Netherlands evolved as a fledgling ‘fashion country’2.. Yet Amsterdam was never able to compare itself to Paris, Dutch fashion had no identity abroad and in the Dutch countryside fashion was an unknown phenomenon. But then along came Viktor and Rolf, who studied fashion at the art academy in Arnhem and together with their fellow students Pascale Gatzen, Saskia van Drimmelen, Lucas Ossendrijver and Marcel Verheijen, began to change all that. Together they were a highly competent, indeed exceptional, class which focussed on patterns, experiments, concepts and research. Even as students they attracted the attention of international avant-garde journals. In Paris in 1994 and 1995 the above-mentioned designers presented themselves collectively as a group under the name of Le Cri Néerlandais, and along with Alexander van Slobbe they were seen as representatives of a new movement dubbed Dutch Modernism.3. According to Viktor & Rolf, in those days students in Arnhem were discouraged from launching their own brand when they graduated and advised to go and work for brand names or fashion houses. Viktor and Rolf were undeterred, however, and promptly set about their careers with a great sense of purpose: ‘After living in Paris for a while, we realised it was not a hobby we were engaged in, but a profession. It was there that we learned to take ourselves seriously’, they explained in 2004.4. In 1993 Viktor & Rolf won a major fashion prize at the Festival d'Hyères in the South of France with a series of numbered Experiments: floor-length garments characterised by strange, distorted silhouettes of which only fragments were recognisable. Looking back at those creations, which opened Viktor & Rolf's retrospective exhibition in Paris in 2004, the designers realised they had been crying out for attention, describing them as ‘a cri de coeur’.5. And it worked! ‘Two young men from The Netherlands are

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 Viktor & Rolf. Fall/Winter 2006-07. Paris about to be plucked from obscurity and turned into star designers - that is, if fate decides to aid and abet their talents,’ wrote a journalist in 1993 with reference to their prize-winning collection.6. That fate was given a helping hand in the second half of the nineties when Viktor & Rolf launched a series of haute couture collections, each of which was a conceptual milestone. There was, for example, the 1995 ‘golden collection’ made of gold fabric and characterised by strong formal shapes and lines. 1998 brought white dresses with porcelain balls and hats, which the models smashed on the floor at the end of the show, and 1998-1999 the strangely proportioned atomic bomb collection. In 1999-2000 there was the

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 305 highly memorable Babuschka collection, when the designers dressed model Maggie Rizer in seven layers of couture dresses on the stage, and in 2000-2001 there were the dresses decorated with little bells which jingled softly on the mist-filled stage even before the public could see them. Viktor & Rolf eventually staged their spectacular shows at the invitation of the Chambre syndicale during the official haute couture calendar in Paris, making them among the first young foreign designers to be accepted into an intensely regulated system that was French to the core. Back home the Groninger Museum and the Centraal Museum in Utrecht bought their collections. The expectations of the international fashion press always ran high at the start of their shows, where the designers increasingly presented themselves as an iconic, often identically dressed duo. Amy Spindler wrote: ‘Once again, the themes that make Viktor & Rolf so magical. Dedication. Passion. Defiance.’7. The haute couture collections were hailed as a brilliant commentary on the whole fashion system. But as Viktor & Rolf themselves admitted in 2004, their snow-white ‘Communion Collection’ (spring/summer 2002) symbolised the fact that having infiltrated the fashion system, they were determined to embrace it. Thanks to a Japanese financier who had discovered them through their couture shows in 1998, by the year 2000 they were able to launch their own ready-to-wear collection. The large Italian clothing manufacturer Gibo started producing their garments. As the designers themselves explained, they had needed haute couture as a laboratory for experimenting with ideas and developing their artistic idiom, but now it was time to start selling their clothes.8. At a press conference held in Paris in 2004 by cosmetics giant L'Oréal for Viktor & Rolf's first real perfume, Flowerbomb, L'Oréal's international general manager Patricia Turck Paquelier emphasised the importance of the event. ‘It is not often that we sign up a new designer,’ came the understatement. ‘The last time was back in 1982 with the great designer Giorgio Armani.’ She later added: ‘When we do sign up a new name, we do everything possible to make it great.’9. The Parisian couturier Paul Poiret was the first to bring out a luxury line of perfumes named Les parfums de Rosine after his eldest daughter. That was in 1911. But the first couturière to fully understand that her name was enough to sell a whole range of products was Coco Chanel, whose perfume Chanel No. 5 was an overnight sensation.10. Inspired by Chanel's success, Christian Dior went into the business of selling auras; it was he who pioneered the development of licencing agreements and he put his signature on the most diverse products, though he was always careful not to interfere with their design or production.11. In the 1950s the great couturiers became superstars. They were idolised and no matter what product they put their name to, it acquired their aura. Perfume proved to be one of the most profitable and enduring articles produced under licence and, indeed, Chanel No. 5 is still one of the best selling scents in the world. Though many Dutch designers have tried to follow Viktor & Rolf's example by making a name for themselves in haute couture, nobody else has achieved the same level of success. With their spectacular shows, their ever-extraordinary designs and their consistent ‘double act’ presentation as their trademark, Viktor & Rolf have made a lasting impression on the international fashion world. It was no accident that their first retrospective exhibition took place in Paris - the

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 © www.viktor-rolf-parfums.com

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 306 capital of fashion - and not in Amsterdam, the capital of their native country. Viktor & Rolf are so extraordinary because they succeeded in joining the ranks of ‘génie créateurs’ and this brought commercial success within their reach. Their best-selling perfume Flowerbomb - followed recently by the Antidote fragrance for men - set the seal on their work and the sale of their aura could begin. Viktor & Rolf have successfully combined the eminence of haute couture with the broad reach of commercial success.

Nanda van den Berg Translated by Alison Mouthaan-Gwillim

Eindnoten:

1. See Femke Wolting's documentary, Viktor & Rolf. Because we're worth it. The making of a fashion house, www.submarinechannel.com, 2005. 2. See José Teunissen's introduction in Mode in Nederland. Arnhem, 2006 (with contributions by Jos Arts, Els de Baan, Nanda van den Berg, Jetty Ferwerda, Gert Jonkers, Bregje Lampe and José Teunissen), pp. 5-15. 3. José Teunissen, Le Cri Néerlandais, idem, p 44. 4. Author's interview with Viktor & Rolf, 7 May 2004. 5. Statement in Femke Wolting's documentary, op. cit. note 1. 6. David Woolf, ‘Profile. Far-flung Dutchmen. Viktor & Rolf’. In: Couture eve mode 1994. Included in the Viktor & Rolf catalogues. Première décennie, no. Magazine, Artimo, 2004. 7. Amy Spindler in Viktor & Rolf Haute Couture Book, catalogue accompanying the exhibition at the Groninger Museum, 2001, p 10. 8. Author's interview with Viktor & Rolf, 7 May 2004. 9. See Femke Wolting's documentary, op. cit. note 1. 10. Guillaume Erner, Verslaafd aan mode?. Amsterdam. 2006, p 21. 11. Idem, p 44.

Short Takes

In November 2006 old money was discovered in Cuijk in North Brabant. No, not guilders; this was one of the largest hoards of Roman coins ever found in the Netherlands during a scientific archeological dig. The hoard consists of at least 200 coins packed into leather pouches and a number of ornaments, and it had been hidden away in an earthenware pot. Yes, hidden, for closer inspection revealed that at some time after 220 AD the pot had been deliberately buried in a pit. What we don't know is whether this was the work of an early thrifty Dutchman, or whether the inhabitants of the Roman settlement there had feared being robbed and just happened to hide their valuables at this spot. But it could also have been an investment in still more good fortune. For as it was being excavated it became apparent that the pot had been placed on the exact spot where lightning had struck, and so may have been a sacrifice after the event. Today the Dutch usually know better: money belongs in a bank and not in the ground. Or in a museum. Because money should be used for spending, and one

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 shouldn't worry about it too much, but it's also nice to look at. On Friday 25 May 2007 the Money Museum in Utrecht opens its doors to the public. The museum is based on the curious calculation that one is greater than the sum of three. For in 1994, during the debate on the privatisation of the National Mint, the Second Chamber passed a motion to combine the National Royal Coin Cabinet, the Netherlands Coin Museum and the numismatic section of the Nederlandsche Bank. The Minister of Finance adopted the motion, and on 14 February 2004 the three organisations finally merged and became the Money Museum, which is housed in splendid premises in Utrecht. Since 1911 all Dutch coins have been struck here. A fitting location, then, for a museum about money and the culture of money. The Money Museum administers, conserves, records, exhibits and researches the Netherlands' numismatic cultural heritage. But there is more. Don't expect rooms full of coins, medals and banknotes; the Money Museum looks more like a science

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New Year card of the Money Museum in Utrecht centre. What part does money play in people's lives? To what extent can today's social problems be solved by money? Does money necessarily have to roll? What emotions determine what someone does with his money? In answering all these questions the museum pays particular attention to its young visitors. Its programme for 2008 includes Money and Your Life, a travelling exhibition at which youngsters can use MTV-style videos to put themselves into the shoes of various characters and work out solutions to their money problems. It's several years now since the guilder gave up the ghost, but following eighteen months of restoration, for a mere couple of euros you can see for yourself how fine this ‘national numismatic, financial-history and finance-behavioural museum and research institute’ now is. The opening exhibition The Art of Money shows how the likes of Keith Haring, Jan Cremer, Ben Vautier and Herman Brood deployed their artistic skills on banknotes. And sensitive souls who think that you don't play or fiddle with money can simply go and watch the machines striking euro coins and quietly enjoy the tinkling in the collecting bins. www.geldmuseum.nl And while we're talking about money: art doesn't have to be expensive. Money matters, of course, if you want to get something by Van Gogh, and even a child's drawing produced by Queen Beatrix fetched exactly 11,856 euros in October 2006 when auctioned by Sotheby's in Amsterdam. Not bad for the work of a 12-year-old princess who drew on her own life to make a collage of a prince and princess holding hands, surrounded by a number of other - what else? - princesses. And in fact the sovereign too benefitted financially, for the artist is entitled to 3 percent of the hammer price - in this case about 330 euros. Yet art can also cost nothing at all. In 2006 with www.artstart.nl the Art Loan Foundation launched the largest and most varied online art catalogue in the Netherlands. On that occasion art-lovers could vote for the most beautiful Dutch work of art of the past fifty years. A draw decided which of all the art-lovers who voted would receive the first prize: gratis art in their home for the rest of their life. The eventual choice was the stained-glass window created in 2005 by Marc Mulders for the Nieuwe Kerk in Amsterdam to mark the Silver Jubilee of Queen Beatrix. Mulders' image of an enclosed garden symbolising the hope of a better world attracted 1011 of the 5289 participants.

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 Organisations that sell, hire out and/or loan compemporary visual art can all display their collections on www.artstart.nl. In this way the Art Loan Foundation hopes to make the art market more accesssible. So on its website you can not only look at pictures, but also get answers to such burning questions as ‘How much does an art-loan subscription cost?’, ‘Is the art insured?’ and - not entirely insignificant if you want to get it up above your sofa or on your mantelpiece in one piece - ‘Can I have the work of art delivered?’. Another new, but quite different, website devoted to the fine arts is www.lukasweb.be. This is a central distribution point for digital images of artworks. Lukasweb makes top Flemish works available for ‘quality printing, tasteful campaigns and other exacting applications’. As well as the images they also sell ‘quality derivative products’. A glance at the site shows

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 308 that these include, for instance, a mug with a detail from the panel of the ‘Singing Angels’ from the Van Eycks' Adoration of the Lamb, a magnet with Jean Fouquet's Madonna, and a transparent ruler - ‘made of durable and high-quality synthetic material’ - bearing a detail from the central panel of the Adoration. But Lukasweb is more than just a webshop full of artistically sound household goods. When requested by museums or heritage organisations Lukas (named after Saint Luke, the patron saint of painters and scultors) will act as an online databank and take on the management of images of works from their collections. A wide range of professional users can make use of this for all kinds of applications. The site is an initiative by the Flemish government that disseminates and controls images, information and reproductions of Flanders' heritage throughout the world without limitation of place or time. The digital image-bank and Internet circulation are intended to greatly increase access to and knowledge of Flanders' significant artistic patrimony, both for professionals and for the general public at home and abroad. So as a private individual you can order a high-definition print of your favourite Memling or Ensor and enjoy it at home. Or you can order a jigsaw and make your own central panel of the Adoration of the Lamb - in a mere thousand pieces. www.artstart.nl - www.lukasweb.be

Until 27 May 2007 Antwerp's Royal Museum of Fine Arts is showing the exhibition Flemish Primitives, the Finest Diptychs, previously on show at the National Gallery in Washington as Prayers and Portraits: Unfolding the Netherlandish Diptych (12 November 2006 - A February 2007). The exhibition is the result of scholarly collaboration between the two museums and the Harvard University Art Museums in Cambridge, MA, and it brings together over thirty diptychs from the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. A number of them have even been reunited for the first time in many years. To name just one: the Madonna (Huntington Art Gallery, San Marino) and Philippe de

Rogier van der Weyden's Madonna (Huntington Art Gallery, San Marino)

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 and Philippe de Croÿ (Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten, Antwerp).

Croÿ (Royal Museum of Fine Arts, Antwerp) by Rogier van der Weyden have met again for the first time in a long while. The sudden popularity of the diptych in the Low Countries is tied up with the Devotio Moderna. In the late fourteenth century this religious movement brought about cultural changes throughout Northern Europe. Christ's Passion and the veneration of the Virgin Mary became central themes in Christian literature. The faithful were encouraged to read the Bible, both as a source of knowledge and as an aid to devotion. And from then on emotion had an important place in the religious experience. Their intimate nature made diptychs appropriate to a more personal religious life. They were popular not only in monastic orders but also among the well-to-do middle class that emerged in the Low Countries in the fifteenth century. The baker and the merchant wanted to ape princes and the aristocracy and have themselves depicted at prayer alongside the Madonna. The flourishing art market scented a golden opportunity; as well as the many diptychs painted to order there were others that were produced for the open market. Here too, then, art for the home. Although we know precious little about how the diptychs were originally used. Some were hung on the wall, others were kept in boxes, pouches or chests. Devout individuals could order smaller diptychs which could be placed on a table, domestic altar or

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 309 lectern like a book. Be that as it may, devotional diptychs usually show whoever commissioned them at prayer on the right panel and the Madonna on the left. So for the duration of this exhibition Philippe de Croÿ can once more gaze from the right-hand side at the child Jesus, held by Mary as mediatrix between the human and the divine. In fact, it was only in the nineteenth century that the fifteenth-century panel painters of the Low Countries, such painters as Van der Weyden or Hugo van der Goes, were ‘rediscovered’. Since then, interest in their works has really taken off. Early Netherlandish Paintings. Rediscovery, Reception and Research provides an introduction to Early Netherlandish painting by showing the various ways in which it has been collected, researched and interpreted since its rediscovery. From this it is clear that the art of this period still raises far more questions that that of the so popular Golden Age (celebrated once more in 2007 with major exhibitions in the National Gallery in London and the Metropolitan Museum in New York). For instance, the book explains in ten pages how specialists have respondedto Jan Van Eyck's Arnolfini Portrait over the past fifty years. From a nuptial rite to a betrothal, from a bedroom to a reception room, from feminist interpretations to art historians who believe it has no narrative meaning at all: the mystery of Early Netherlandish painting goes on. And the research into it is every bit as exciting as the hunt for the panel of the Adoration of the Lamb that was stolen over 70 years ago, and for which at the end of 2006 Flemish Culture Minister Bert Anciaux promised a reward of 20,000 euros to the finder. Though a number of sleuths maintain that there really ought to be one more nought on the end. Art is priceless, after all.

John Oliver Hand et al., Prayers and Portraits. Unfolding the Netherlandish Diptych. New Haven (CT): Yale University Press, 2006. 352 pp. ISBN: 0300121551 / Bernhard Ridderbos et al., Early Netherlandish Paintings: Rediscovery, Reception, and Research. Los Angeles: Getty Trust Publications/ J. Paul Getty Museum, 2006. 481 pp. ISBN 0892368167. Dutch Portraits: The Age of Rembrandt and Frans Hals (National Gallery, London, 27 June-16 September 2007): www.nationalgallery.org.uk/exhibitions/dutchportraits The Age of Rembrandt: Dutch Paintings in The Metropolitan Museum of Art (11 September 2007-6 January 2008): www.metmuseum.org

When Hans Steketee settled in London in 1998 as the correspondent of NRC Handelsblad the ‘national identity crisis’ was the topic of the day: ‘The British no longer knew who they were (...) Immigrants, the European Union, coming autonomy for the Scots and economic globalisation meant that Britishness had come to mean less and less.’ Steketee arrived in a country where books with titles like The Day Britain Died and After Britannia were rolling off the presses, and where Roger Scruton proclaimed from beside a glowing stove in his Wiltshire farmhouse that the British would have to forge themselves a new identity. The conservative thinker further announced that a new national cement was needed, that electrical equipment should really give way again to tools a man could get his hands on and - of course -

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 that the British had to take back the sovereignty of their country from the fox, for that beast is a solitary robber who thumbs his nose at that sovereignty. And Scruton ‘put another log on the fire’, Steketee adds in his book Island Between the Ears (Eiland tussen de oren). A phrase that shows with how much affectionate irony he writes about the United Kingdom. For Steketee does more than report on newspapers going from bad to worse, new Britons, the transformation of the British royals (from mysterious emissaries of God to run-of-the-mill celebrities with eating disorders, depressions and adulterous tendencies), the war in Iraq, the derailment of privatised rail transport or the ever-threatening glutton called Europe. He also sets down his own experiences: what one might call ‘England and I’ snippets, in which he is surprised at how many of the clichés about the British turn out to be true. The class system has never disappeared completely, and so there are people who eat tea at an hour when the middle classes are almost ready for dinner. And those tea-eaters have their dinner when the others

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 310 are sitting down to lunch. Furthermore, complaining in the UK proves to be mainly ritual in nature. When two Britons moan to each other, they are not talking about exactly what is wrong now. Nor are they looking for a solution, because both parties tacitly accept that there's nothing to be done about it. So complaining becomes a social, almost cheering and in any case reassuring ritual. And the bonus is: when you complain about a neutral topic (‘bloody rain’) you break the silence without having to expose yourself. Cheerful inscrutability, bone-dry stoicism and a slight tendency to eccentricity. Steketee has immersed himself in the society of his host country, with a keen eye and a sharp ear for the social codes and the finer nuances of the language. He establishes that the Empire has evaporated, but that the islanders are still different. The question is whether they are differently different than the Germans, the French or the Dutch. Certain British nostalgic types are irritated, for instance, by the European passion for meddling in the field of ‘Health and Safety’, which according to some of them led to the scrapping of the ‘Slammer’. In these unique trains you, the traveller, open the door by lowering the window, sticking your arm out and then pulling the handle on the outside. But Steketee notes that many others do not regard this as a perfidious Euro-plot against Britishness - I personally have heard rumours that breakfast bacon has become a good deal less crisp since Britain joined the EU - but rather as a cunning trick by the train companies to cut back a bit on staff and maintenance costs. And that is of course not typically British, but simply human. But not to worry, because there is still always the British addiction to trivia: ‘And when the pound is in danger of being swapped for the euro, the Queen has become a tourist attraction and the uncivilised part of the world now speaks English too, the need for it just becomes greater.’ The Briton finds comfort in knowing who played the leading part in Doctor Who, exactly how many number-one hits the Beatles had or the names of the knights of the Round Table. Little lists of trivial facts make the world manageable and prevent the British paradise being totally lost. Hans Steketee, Eiland tussen de oren. Het Verenigd Koninkrijk achter de schermen. Amsterdam: Prometheus / NRC Handelsblad. 2006. 375 pp. ISBN 9044607499.

The Dutch writer Cees Buddingh' (1918-1985) also had a thing about that British paradise. Right up to the year of his death he travelled to ‘that sceptred isle’ with great regularity to visit the various parts of England, Scotland and Wales. When friends asked him why he didn't sometimes go somewhere else, he would indeed think about it. But only briefly, for the answer was always the same: ‘A: Because there are no English there. B: Because they don't speak English there. C: Because they don't play cricket there.’ And with that the world was manageable for the poet who reckoned that you were ripe for the Yorkshire Dales ‘when you're crazy at once about space and intimacy, / when you feel emptiness as vastness and bustle as emptiness’ (‘Ode to the Yorkshire Dates’). At one time Buddingh' resolved to devote a book to his love for the land of pubs, cricket, whisky, secondhand bookshops and dusty but elegant ‘Ladies and Gentlemen's Outfitters’. He never got further than one short chapter, but his biographer Wim Huijser has now fitted the gap with The England of C. Buddingh' (Het Engeland van C. Buddingh'), a collection of poems, essays and diary entries. How deeply England was engrained in Buddingh' is apparent from an entry he made in his diary on 31

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 July 1985. The writer sits at a table, looks at a bottle of soda water and reads ‘“Schweppes since 1783”: That's a year before Samuel Johnson died! Dear Cod, maybe he drank Schweppes soda water too! It's quite unbelievable!’ Buddingh' also wrote the introduction to the monumental anthology Dutch Interior. Postwar Poetry of the Netherlands and Flanders (1984). The book's editors were William Jay Smith and the translator James S. Holmes, the twentieth anniversary of whose death fell on 6 November 2006. In 1998, with the help of Holmes' partner, the late Hans van Marle, Frits Niessen tracked down close on a thousand publications by Holmes as a translator of Dutch-language poetry.

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There is a brief biography of Holmes in Adrianus alias Hans van Marle (‘Hans’ was van Marle's undercover forename during the German occupation, but he kept it after the Liberation). This is an affectionate book by Constant Boesen about the life and work of a Dutchman who won international fame as a ‘Conradian’. Van Marle not only corresponded extensively with other Conradists throughout his life, he also wrote numerous articles, attended Conrad conferences in Poland, England, France and Italy and was involved in the Cambridge Edition of the Works of Joseph Conrad. In addition he, with James S. Holmes, Ed. Hoornik and others, was in at the birth in 1957 of Delta, a Review of Arts Life and Thought in the Netherlands. When the journal called it a day in 1974 (because the Ministry of Culture, Recreation and Social Work had turned off the funding tap) Van Marle was not only editor but also director of the Delta International Publication Foundation. Adrianus is a sometimes moving portrait of a brilliant but modest man. A man who kept in touch with foreign writers and translators and introduced them to the literature of the Netherlands and Flanders. A man who divided his house into separate libraries: ‘ground floor, front: Dutch and Flemish literature; ground floor, back: Indonesia, genealogy and translation; ground floor, small room: periodicals, cuttings and dynastic; first floor, front: English and American literature; attic: science fiction and Delta; kitchen: Joseph Conrad, work in progress and various’). And that when his mother had written in her diary - he was just 12 at the time - that ‘Addy is only allowed to borrow one book a week from the library and no more. Recently he brought two books back from the library, but then I put that book away for a week. You have to keep a brake on his reading’. Drastic measures, which fortunately had absolutely no effect. Until his death on 7 July 2001 Hans van Marle was a member of the Advisory Committee of this yearbook. As editorial secretary and editor I received a letter from him every year, usually soon after the publication of the latest issue. In it he would invariably inform me that he thought the yearbook a worthy successor to Delta. But of course nothing is ever perfect, and with his charming letters van Maerle always enclosed detailed lists in which he recorded every missing comma, misspelt name and strange word-break. When you love, you don't spare the red ink. Having read Adrianus, I now know that Van Marle had his first heart attack in 1991 after getting rather worked up about his printer, which was no longer doing what a printer is supposed to do. That he was an inspired gentleman scholar who corresponded with foreign scholars, artists and politicians, but at the same time the animal lover who wrote to Holmes, who happened to be in the States, a detailed account of the last hours of the ginger tomcat Meneertje and his burial in the garden of the house Van Marle and Holmes shared on Amsterdam's Weteringschans. That he had played a major part in the production of the 63 splendid issues of Delta was something I had known for a long time, but now I also understand the embarrassment of the sick old man I phoned one day for some information about a translation. For he had to tell me that ‘blue box no. 6’ had temporarily gone missing. It was only a matter of one word in a translation, but it still hurt him not to be able to give me a definite answer. ‘Usually everything stands or falls by one word’, he said. A gentleman of quality, and a builder of bridges between the Low Countries and the British paradise.

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 Wim Huijser, Het Engeland van C. Buddingh'. Soesterberg: Aspekt, 2005. 232 pp. ISBN 9059113810/Constant Boesen, Adrianus alias Hans van Marle. Amsterdam: Marter, 2005. 96 pp.

One can build bridges at home, too. Geert Bourgeois, the Flemish Minister for Administrative Affairs, Foreign Policy, Media and Tourism, wants foreigners living and/or working in Flanders to be better informed. To this end a publisher and the Flemish government are to bring out a new English-language weekly. It will be a free paper, with the working name Flanders Today - by analogy with Catalonia Today, which the minister came across in that Spanish autonomous community. Flanders Today, which

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 312 should appear for the first time at the end of 2007, will have an independent editorial board and as well as cultural and tourist information is to contain mainly news on politics, the economy, science and technology. The new weekly will replace two other Flemish government publications: the glossy Flanders/La Flandre, which is mainly for foreign consumption, and the press review Focus on Flanders, which is circulated in Belgium at embassies and provides an overview of comment and articles from the Flemish press. But according to Bourgeois this is no longer enough: ‘Whether it is for a shorter or longer period, there are thousands of foreign people in Flanders: businessmen, students, tourists, scientists, diplomats, expats and NGO workers, and they can easily be reached through distribution points at airports, railway stations, tourist information centres, international institutions and companies and universities. A similar budget will result in a significantly higher circulation and will help us to establish a much larger presence on the streets’. And now something about another bridge, for on gazettevandetroit.com we read: ‘The Gazette van Detroit is a bridge between Belgium and the United States of America. Its goal is to enhance the social, cultural and commercial ties that exist between the two countries. The Gazette is neutral, i.e. not affiliated with any political or religious organisations.’ The Gazette was established in 1914 by Camille Cools to provide Belgians in America with news of their home country. It was a link between emigré Flemings in America and Canada and their homeland. It appears bi-weekly in an edition of 1,500 copies, of which about a hundred are distributed in Belgium. Each issue provides the reader with six pages filled with Belgian-American news. On 8 July 2006 the revamped Gazette van Detroit hit the streets with colour photos, tabloid format and new features. Here Minister Bourgeois crops up again, and in a remarkably open-handed way. At the end of 2006 it became known that he is giving 12,500 euros to the Gazette van Detroit. Six months earlier Ludwig Vandenbussche, the Gazette's correspondent in Flanders, had already raised the alarm. His paper was in urgent need of new money and fresh blood if it was not to fade quietly away. The editors were old, advertising revenue had fallen dramatically, and the number of subscribers had dwindled to under nine hundred. The paper had already collected some funds itself through a sponsorship campaign. Vandenbussche, a policeman in everyday life, set up the campaign ‘1,000 Flemings X 10 euros’, and that brought in a sum that almost equals Bourgeois' donation. And that when at the start of 2006 it looked very likely that the Gazette van Detroit would not make it to the end of the year. www.flanders.be - gazettevandetroit.com

‘It was really a miserable day, quite miserable. We were lying practically on the bed of the river which had been shelled all to pieces and it was just a marshy bog... our company headquarters got blown to pieces... before we started off ...and the battle hadn't even begun.’ So wrote the Canadian Alex Strachan of the 43rd Battalion in his war diary precisely 90 years ago. The Battle of Passchendaele, or the Third Battle

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 of Ypres, one of the bloodiest battles of all time, was a hell of mud and fire, and not exactly a picnic in Flanders Fields. Shortly before, the German army in Flanders had in fact lost half its fighting strength to hostile artillery fire. The German High Command considered retreating and it was decided not to recapture its recent lines at any cost. The British commander, Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig, in his turn scented victory and staked everything on making a breakthrough before winter. In the second week of October, though, the quiet autumn weather broke and constant torrential rains made the terrain totally impassible. Half the area now consisted of mud where men could only walk by putting down boards; the other half was water with thousands of half-decomposed corpses floating around in it. The wounded men didn't stand a chance; they just sank into the mud. What had begun in late summer and was supposed to last three weeks finally came to an end

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 313 more than three months later with the capture of the ruins of the village of Passchendaele (now Passendale) on 10 November 1917. Half a million British and Germans were dead, wounded or missing, Passchendaele went down in history as the greatest slaughter of World War I and today, even more than the Battle of the Somme, it is regarded as the prime example of a senseless attack. In April 1918 all the ground gained was quickly lost again in the Fourth Battle of Ypres. The district councils of Zonnebeke (Passendale), Heuvelland (Wijtschate) and Mesen have agreed on a unique collaboration to mark the anniversary year 2007. The project is supported by a partnership with the Ministry of Defence. For certain elements they will also work with the commune of Langemark-Poelkapelle and with the town of Ypres, for 2007 is also the 80th anniversary of the inauguration of the Menin Gate. Among other things there will be exhibitions about the mine explosions at Mesen-Wijtschate and about the New Zealanders and Canadians in Passendale, but there will also be events such as a mine walk and, especially for schools, Platoon Experience: The Road to Passchendaele. The pupils will first visit the Memorial Museum, where they will be told the story of the Battle of Passchendaele. After that they will effectively become Australian soldiers, complete with uniform and equipment. After some brief military instruction they enter the terrain of the assault of 4 October 1917, where they very quickly feel the effect of the rising ground. The experience ends at Tyne Cot Cemetery, where they shed their kit and go in search of the grave of ‘their’ soldier. Muddy trenches, devastated villages, and the first gas masks used at the front: all of this passed the neutral Netherlands by. To protect their attack on the Western Front through Belgium the Germans had thought it necessary to occupy the Netherlands. But at the last moment they changed the plan of attack and the Netherlands kept out of it. Not entirely, as it happened; for the dreaded Spanish flu then raging in Europe claimed almost 30,000 Dutch lives. The war also brought shortages, for merchants with Dutch entrepreneurial zest and business sense made huge profits out of selling food. If prices rose too high for the home market they simply sold the food to the Germans while their own population faced increasingty hard times. The Dutch government intervened as early as 3 August 1914, passing a law intended to prevent hoarding and the deliberate pushing up of food prices. The Art of Staying Neutral by Maartje M. Abbenhuis, lectureer in European History at the University of Auckland, provides fascinating insights into the problems and challenges of this Dutch neutrality in a period of ‘total war’. For the Netherlands was not some kind of Switzerland, located comfortably out of the way. The book explains how the Netherlands succeeded in maintaining its neutral status during the First World War despite the constant pressure from neighbours who were themselves at war. Staying neutral was an art which the Netherlands practised by means of crafty diplomacy, careful adherence to international law, extensive mobilisation of armed units, regular patrolling of the frontiers and meticulous surveillance of the citizenry, but also with the aid of a sizeable amount of luck.

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 The Battle of Passchendaele Canadian soldiers watch German prisoners transporting their wounded. 1917.

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The Art of Staying Neutral also looks at the national and international repercussions of the Dutch stance during this drastic period in world history. When the Germans proclaimed an unrestricted submarine war in 1917 Dutch shipping was in extreme danger. Britain accused the Netherlands of helping the Germans. A number of its merchant ships were sequestered as punishment. There was little the Dutch could do about it. After the fall of Antwerp in 1914 many Belgians fled to the Netherlands. The Germans tried to prevent this by erecting an electrified barbed wire barrier along the border between the Netherlands and Belgium. The Dutch government had constantly to chart a course between the demands of the Central Powers and those of the Allies. Even after the war the Netherlands was still in a tricky situation. When the German Kaiser asked for asylum there on 10 November 1918 his request was granted despite Allied protests. But that did nothing to help the Dutch negotiating position at Versailles; especially not when the Allies briefly suggested that perhaps the Dutch provices of Zeeland and Limburg really ought to be transferred to Belgium. Or how a neutral country was almost partially captured despite its neutrality. www.passchendaele.be Maartje M. Abbenhuis, The Art of Staying Neutral. The Netherlands in the First World War, 1914-1918. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2006. 512 pp. ISBN 9053568182.

At last Pieter Jacobsz gets to see his wife again. His portrait by Frans Hals is in the John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art in Sarasota, Florida, but his wife Maritge Vooght Claesdr has her home in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. Now their portraits will hang facing each other for a while for the first time since the nineteenth century. The family reunion begins on 3 June 2007 in the Sterling and Francine Art Institute in the series Dutch Dialogues, which in turn is part of the event entitled NL. ‘Dutch artists to summer in the Berkshires’ was the Boston Globe's headline in this connection in November 2006. From June till the end of August 2007 the Berkshires in the United States will play host to NL: A Season of Dutch Arts in the Berkshires. In NL renowned American cultural institutions will offer the public a wide range of Dutch art spread over three months. Dutch visual artists, designers, dancers, choreographers, musicians, composers, filmmakers and theatrical companies have been invited to present new work and new interpretations of classic works. A series of talks on new perspectives on Dutch art and society will complete the programme. Many of the Dutch artists involved are already established names in the Netherlands and Europe, but are less well-known in the US. NL will offer work by visual artists such as Erik van Lieshout, the musicians of the innovative string quartet Zapp, the Dutch Bach Association, the Orchestra of the 18th Century with Frans Brüggen, composer Robin de Raaff, conductor Edo de Waart, the Nederlandse Dans Theater I, choreographer Beppie Blankert and the theatre company Dood Paard. The American cultural organisations playing host are MASS MoCA, Tanglewood, Jacob's Pillow and the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. The whole thing is being coordinated by the SICA (Service Centre for International Cultural Activities) and the Press and Culture Department of the Dutch Consulate-General in New York.

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 Also on the programme are ‘Dutch Filmshorts’, and it has to be said: although Paul Verhoeven's Black Book didn't even make the final round of the Academy Awards, Dutch film isn't doing badly in foreign parts. For instance, in February 2007 the Dutch production Hit (Raak) won a Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival. Director Hanro Smitsman's production won the prize in the Short Film category. Hit runs for nine minutes and is about a boy who, bored with his life with his single-parent mother, throws a stone from a viaduct with far-reaching consequences. The jury spoke of a brilliant production, which handles great themes like love, rage and doubt with a great deal of humour. At around the same time the director Mark Verkerk also received a prestigious prize for his Buddha's Lost

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Children. This Dutch documentary took the top prize for documentaries at the American Film Institute Fest in Los Angeles. To make his film Verkerk spent a year in the Golden Triangle in Thailand recording the story of monk and former Thai boxer Phra Khru Bah. Under the motto ‘tough love’ this charismatic man has taken it upon himself to help children who have fallen victim to their parents' poverty and drug-addiction. He brings them up to be Buddhist monks and Thai boxers. Another Dutch documentary-maker, Heddy Honigmann, will be celebrated at two North American film festivals. At the 14th Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival, held in Toronto, Canada from the 19th to the 29th April, she will receive an Outstanding Achievement Award, and at the 50th San Francisco International Film Festival (26 April-1 May) she will be given a Golden Gate Persistence of Vision Award. Honigmann filmed J. Bernlef's novel Out of Mind (Hersenschimmen) in 1987, but she made her name chiefly with a number of powerful documentaries such as Forever and O Amor Natural. The American remake of the film Interview by the murdered Theo van Gogh had its world première in mid-January at the Sundance Film Festival. This remake is directed by Steve Buscemi, who also plays the lead character, the journalist Pierre who has to interview the soap-star Katya (Sienna Miller). A psychological game of cat-and-mouse develops between the two of them. According to Buscemi the remake is a homage to the murdered Dutch filmmaker, but is not intended to have any political message. Meanwhile, there are two other remakes of Interview in the pipeline: a German variant and a Bollywood version. ‘I'm the hand up Mona Lisa's skirt’: in The Devil's Advocate Al Pacino never missed a chance of portraying the Horned One (‘“Satan”? I have so many names. You can call me “Dad”.’) in a convincing manner. Soon we shall see how he manages as the Moustached One, for the book Dali and I by Flemish writer Stan Lauryssens is to be filmed in the summer of 2007. The New Zealand director Andrew Niccol is directing and Pacino will play the lead role. The film, to be called Dali and I: the Surreal Story tells how a nice little business in fake artworks is set up around the failing grand master. At the time Lauryssens was Dalí's neighbour in Cadaqués and involved in such goings-on. An English-language version of the book entitled Dali and I; the Real Story will be published to coincide with the launch of the film. Other names being considered for the cast are Faye Dunaway as Dalí's muse Gala and Heath Ledger of Brokeback Mountain fame as Stan Lauryssens. And in Bruges too familiar faces could be seen. From the beginning of February 2007 the city provided the backdrop for the shooting of In Bruges. This film is directed by Martin Mc Donagh, who last year won an Oscar for his short film Six Shooter. Mc Donagh also wrote the story, with Bruges (the town that became a living being in Georges Rodenbach's famous 1892 novel Bruges-la-Morte) in mind as the location. At present the outline of the film is as follows: ‘IN BRUGES is the darkly comedic tale of the fates of hit men Ray (Colin Farrell) and Ken (Brendan Gleeson). After a difficult job in London, the team is ordered by their boss Harry (Ralph Fiennes) to cool their heels in Bruges. Very much out of their comfort zones, the men find themselves drawn into increasingly dangerous entanglements with locals, tourists, and a film shoot. Soon, their perspectives on life and death are violently skewed.’ Because the film is set in the Christmas period, in some parts of the town the

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 Christmas lights stayed in place well into March. So, briefly, time stood still again in Bruges-La-Morte.

NL: www.sica.nl - nl-berkshires.org - [email protected]

‘Treading on snow heretofore untrodden by man is something anyone with a back garden can do in winter’: so wrote the Dutch author Willem Frederik Hermans, recently highly praised by Milan Kundera, in his novel Beyond Sleep. Not exactly an encouragement to head out into the wide world. Better, then, to read Cees Noteboom's Nomad's Hotel, according to one British reviewer ‘a lifetime of travel in one glorious book’ (The

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Guardian, 8 February 2007), an ‘electrifying view of the world (...) free of pretension, full of easy adventure, fresh with childlike wonder for the world’. We travel to be caught by surprise, and that's no less true of reading. André de Vries' Flanders. A Cultural History is just such a book of surprises. Yes, the book is an exploration of Flanders. Yes, you will find chip stalls, beer, waffles, Bruges lace and Antwerp fashion in it. And yes, De Vries visits the area around Ieper, aka Ypres, ‘lush farmland with rows of poplars and maize fields that obscure the view of the battlefield.’ But there is more going on in Flanders' fields, villages and cities. Or there has been. De Vries drops in on his home town of Ghent, where he tells the story of one of the most improbable films ever made: a version of Romeo and Juliet with a cast consisting entirely of cats. Though in fact there is one human actor in this odd movie, made in 1970 by the Spanish-American director Armando Costa; John Hurt was privileged to play the eccentric boatwoman ‘La Dame aux Chats’. And then again, in Sint-Truiden we bump into Aldous Huxley. He had met his future wife Maria Nys in London. He was enchanted by her beauty and wrote to his brother Julian: ‘I have finally met an amusing Belgian. Wonders will never cease’. In April 1919 the writer travelled to Sint-Truiden in Limburg and stayed with relatives of Maria; there he worked on his first novel, Crome Yellow. In a letter written in the ‘Grand’ Place, St Trond' we read: ‘Here I am, settled down in this rather oddly un-English life. A quite Balzacian Ville de Province, where nothing happens and where everybody who is anybody is everbody else's relation’. Sint-Truiden's pig-market did not escape his notice, but the local middle class did not greatly impress him: ‘Few are cultured, the rest not at all’. De Vries also recounts the fascinating secrets of Antwerp's cathedral, and this brings him to ‘the Flemish Marcel Proust’. For Maurice Gilliams, whose poems have now been translated in their entirety in The Bottle at Sea, wrote in his poem ‘Dying in Antwerp’: ‘The stone angel on the Cathedral elevates / his scales at midnight for those who collapse. / The army of lice is cracking. Pissing cats / in draftless winding alleys.’ And again: ‘Here the rosary's beads are futile; / no mystery remains of flesh and bones / where in emptiness emptiness resides.’ There are more things in Flanders than can be dreamt of in your philosophy, dear tourist.

Willem Frederik Hermans, Beyond sleep (Tr. Ina Rilke). London: Harvill Secker, 2006 / Cees Nooteboom, Nomad's Hotel (Tr. Ann Kelland). London: Harvill Secker, 2006 / André de Vries, Flanders. A Cultural History. Oxford: Signal Books, 2007. 296 pp. ISBN 1904955282 / Maurice Gilliams, The Bottle at Sea. The Complete Poems (Tr. Marian de Vooght). Copenhagen/Los Angeles: Green Integer Books, 2006. 219 pp. ISBN 1933382821.

And the same can be said of the Netherlands. A new edition of Low Sky, a book designed to help newcomers to that country, appeared in early 2007. Completely revised, for plenty of space is devoted not only to such phenomena as the Internet and cell phones, but also and chiefly to the much-discussed ‘hardening’ in society as it has surfaced in recent years. So this sixth edition is also an introduction to the Netherlands of Pim Fortuyn and Theo van Gogh and their respective nemeses Vofkert van der Graaf and Mohammed Bouyeri.

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 In his book Return Tickets to the Netherlands (Retourtjes Nederland) the English journalist Simon Kuper is also surprised at the country where he lived for ten years as a child. Kuper currently lives in Paris, but as a self-styled professional foreigner he can be considered a significant Netherlands-watcher. When his book Ajax, the Dutch, the War: Football in Europe During the Second World War was published in 2003 The Independent wrote of it: ‘Kuper's essential theme is the difference between the Dutch self-image and the reality. Proportionally more Jews were murdered in Holland than in any other conquered nation, even Poland, rounded up by the local police without Nazi coercion. Juggling with the concepts of goed and fout - “good” and “bad”, crucial to the Dutch self-image as war victims rather than collaborators - he suggests the very lack of permissiveness in the Dutch psyche led to genocide, as hapless, punctilious “good burghers” simply failed to comprehend the Nazis' true nature. The

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 317 story of a club that unintentionally frustrated the occupiers through strictly legalistic means captures this perfectly.’ So how are things now with that ‘Dutch self-image’? Not too good, according to Kuper, who no longer recognises the tolerant Netherlands of his youth. In a newspaper interview he explained it as follows: the twentieth century passed relatively peacefully for the Dutch, and so the country actually had a holiday from history. The panic and racial prejudice in the wake of the murders of Fortuyn and Van Gogh are in his view quite out of proportion, and the politicians let themselves be seduced into expressing the feelings of the street. Consequently, Kuper believed that at the elections of November 2006 not one party would make a positive approach to the multicultural society the main plank of its programme: ‘I think that the establishment has abandoned the multicultural society.’ But is the Netherlands now really a country ticking like a time-bomb? The leaders of the two main parties - with a little help from the Christian Union - eventually succeeded in forming a government without too much difficulty. After the previous elections in 2003 this combination didn't work. At that time it appeared that Balkenende and Bos couldn't get on with each other on a personal level. This time they they stood smilingly together at the introduction of the new cabinet. And the policy for the coming years will be different. There will be much more money for the environment, much more money for education, and above all a new policy on asylum seekers. The hard tone of the past few years will disappear. Asylum seekers who have been in the Netherlands for more than five years, for instance, will be allowed to stay. Of course, that doesn't mean that everything is peace and harmony. The new right-wing opposition is afraid that the new asylum policy will mean more foreigners coming to the Netherlands. And the economic policy makes the liberals nervous. According to the leader of the liberal VVD, the PvdA and the Christian Union in particular are ‘licking their lips’ as they gaze into the treasury. In his view, they just can't wait to wreck the good economic results of recent years. Meanwhile, the opposition on the left is afraid that the new ministers' Christian principles will assume too great importance. For instance, the new cabinet has already conceded that officials will no longer be obliged to conduct homosexual marriages. Marriage between people of the same sex is permitted by law in the Netherlands. The new government says that officials with conscientious objections must be allowed to refuse to conduct such a marriage. There have been no agreements to change the law on euthanasia and abortion in the Netherlands. The Christian Union is strongly opposed to these laws. But its leader, André Rouvoet, says that the laws can't be changed just like that. There could however be better monitoring of the way they are complied with. And the three ruling parties have agreed on the need for research into the psycho-social consequences of abortion. As regards the diversity within the government, one can hardly speak of a one-sidedly obdurate ‘white’ Netherlands. The CDA and Christian Union ministers and secretaries of state are committed Christians. The PvdA has two secretaries of state from Moslem backgrounds. In addition the party also has a committed atheist who has been appointed Minister for Education: the molecular biologist, columnist and publicist Ronald Plasterk. According to his more God-fearing colleagues in the new cabinet, that poses no problem. ‘Plasterk's reflections are exceptionally interesting. Ideology doesn't need to be a stumbling-block,’ so says the leader of the

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 Christian Union; but he did immediately add that Plasterk too will be bound by the terms of the coalition agreement.1.

Han van der Horst, The Low Sky. Understanding the Dutch (see www.scriptum.nl) / Simon Kuper, Retourtjes Nederland. Amsterdam: Atlas, 2006. ISBN 9045007290.

Filip Matthijs Translated by Tanis Guest

Eindnoten:

1. With thanks to Joris van de Kerkhof, who contributed these paragraphs about the new Dutch cabinet.

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Contributors

Lieven Van den Abeele Art critic Nieuwpoortsesteenweg 197, 8400 Ostend, Belgium

Dirk Van Assche Deputy editor Ons Erfdeel vzw Murissonstraat 260, 8930 Rekkem, Belgium

Maarten Asscher Managing Director Athenaeum Booksellers Spui 14-16, 1012 XA Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Saskia Bak Deputy Director of the Fries Museum, Leeuwarden Radesingel 14 B, 9711 EJ Groningen, The Netherlands

Michel Bakker Archeologist/ Architecture historian Sportparklaan 19, Heemstede, The Netherlands

Herman Balthazar Emeritus Professor of Contemporary History (Ghent University /AMSAB-Institute of Social History) Slachthuisstraat 35M, 9000 Ghent, Belgium

Nanda van den Berg Fashion journalist Haarlemmermeerstraat 36 III, 1058 KA Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Jos Borré Literary critic Vredelaan 8, 2500 Lier, Belgium

Joost Broeren Writer/ Film critic Theemsdreef 302, 3562 EM Utrecht, The Netherlands

Mark Cloostermans Freelance journalist and critic Guido Gezellelaan 23, 2920 Kalmthout, Belgium

Luc Devoldere Chief Editor

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 Ons Erfdeel vzw Murissonstraat 260, 8930 Rekkem, Belgium

Bart Dirks Foreign correspondent de Volkskrant Michel Angelolaan 72, 1000 Brussels, Belgium

Dick Douwes Professor of Non-Western History (Erasmus Universiteit) P.O. Box 1738, 3000 DR Rotterdam, The Netherlands

Marc Dubois Architect/Professor (Dept. Architecture, Sint Lucas Ghent & Brussels) Holstraat 89, 9000 Ghent, Belgium

Erik Durnez Journalist August Van Putlei 37, 2150 Borsbeek, Belgium

Dick van Halsema Emeritus Professor of Modern Dutch Literature (VU - Free University Amsterdam) Van Breestraat 68, 1071 ZR Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Jaap Harskamp Curator Dutch and Flemish Collections British Library 96 Euston Road, London NW1 2DB, United Kingdom

Rob Hartmans Historian/Journalist IJsbloem 19, 1567 BM Assendelft, The Netherlands

Frank Hellemans Lecturer in Communication History (Katholieke Hogeschool Mechelen)/Literary critic (Knack Magazine) Keldermansvest 23, 2800 Mechelen, Belgium

Theo Hermans Professor of Dutch and Comparative Literature (University College London) Gower Street, London WC1E 6BT, United Kingdom

Hans Ibelings Architecture critic Javakade 542, 1019 SE Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Meryem Kanmaz

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 Researcher Centre for Islam in Europe Centre for Third World Studies (Ghent University) Universiteitsstraat 8, 9000 Ghent, Belgium

Joris van de Kerkhof Journalist Vughterstraat 164 A, 5211 GN Den Bosch, The Netherlands

Lucas Ligtenberg Writer and Member of the editorial staff of PropertyNL.com Louise de Colignystraat 37, 2595 SL The Hague, The Netherlands

Erik Martens Film critic/ Chief editor of Royal Film Archive's dvd editions Waterloostraat 40, 2600 Berchem, Belgium

Filip Matthijs Editorial secretary The Low Countries Murissonstraat 260, 8930 Rekkem, Belgium

Chris Méplon Freelance journalist Spaanskwartier 50b, 9170 De Klinge, Belgium

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 319

Translators

Jos Nijhof Theatre critic / Teacher Berkenkade 14, 2351 NB Leiderdorp, The Netherlands

Nic Peeters Art historian Cobdenstraat 11, 2018 Antwerp, Belgium

Ewald Pironet Editor Knack Sint-Hubertusdreef 11, 3150 Haacht, Belgium

André de Poorter Circus author Kerkstraat 62, 9870 Zulte, Belgium

Henk Pröpper Author/Managing Director of the Foundation for the Production and Translation of Dutch Literature Singel 464, 1017 AW Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Kees Ribbens Staff member of the Netherlands Institute for War Documentation (Amsterdam) Basilicumstraat 2, 3544 BZ Utrecht, The Netherlands

Sybe Rispens Science writer Wrangelstrasse 22A, 10997 Berlin, Germany

Marc Ruyfers Chief Editor HArt Koning Albertlei 15, 2650 Edegem, Belgium

Reinier Salverda Director of the Fryske Akademy P.O. Box 54, 8900 AB, Leeuwarden, Fryslan, The Netherlands Professor, Dutch Department, University College London, Gower Street, London WC1E 6BT, United Kingdom

Kees Snoek Professor of Dutch Literature and Civilisation (Sorbonne, Paris) Dorpsweg 144-a, 3083 LJ Rotterdam, The Netherlands

Peter Stabel

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 Professor of Medieval and Urban History (Antwerp University) Prinsstraat 13, 2000 Antwerp, Belgium

Bart Van der Straeten Editorial secretary Ons Erfdeel Murissonstraat 260, 8930 Rekkem, Belgium

David Stroband Art historian. Pelsterstraat 17 G, 9711 KH Groningen, The Netherlands

Guy Tegenbos Journalist De Standaard Bevrijdingsstraat 17, 2200 Herentals, Belgium

Jo Tollebeek Professor of Cultural History (University of Leuven) Blijde Inkomststraat 21/05, 3000 Leuven, Belgium

Margot Vanderstraeten Writer Pyckestraat 50, 2018 Antwerp, Belgium

Ernst Vermeulen Music critic Albrecht Thaerlaan 63 3571 EH Utrecht The Netherlands

Huub Wijfjes Associate Professor in Journalism and History (University of Groningen) P.O. Box 716, 9700 AS Groningen, The Netherlands

Didier Wijnants Jazz reviewer De Morgen Toekomststraat 47, 9040 Ghent, Belgium

Sami Zemni Professor of Political Sciences Centre for Third World Studies Middle East and North Africa Research Group (Ghent University) Universiteitstraat 8, 9000 Ghent, Belgium Gregory Ball Pleuke Boyce

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15 Sheila M. Dale Brian Doyle Lindsay Edwards Chris Emery Peter Flynn Nancy Forest-Flier Tanis Guest John Irons Joy R. Kearney Yvette Mead Elizabeth Mollison-Meijer Alison Mouthaan-Gwillim Julian Ross Paul Vincent Laura Watkinson

ADVISOR ON ENGLISH USAGE

Tanis Guest (UK)

The Low Countries. Jaargang 15