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The Netherlands: Difference between revisions
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{{Useful Notes}}
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* Gay marriage. In fact, it's the first country that legalized it, and there are no legal differences between gay and straight marriages. It should also be noted that this is ''not'' a politically controversial issue. Although some religious political parties are formally opposed to it, it's rarely if ever brought up in debate.
* Sunbathing topless. Most beaches additionally have a nudist section.
* Showing nudity on television.
* Age of consent is 16. Sex education usually starts in elementary school (it depends on the school), and is formally taught around age 13 in high school biology class.
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* Consuming alcohol or drugs on the street, or even visibly holding an open can of beer. (This is, of course, fairly normal in most countries; any American who hasn't heard of someone getting a civil infraction or misdemeanor for "open intox" probably isn't paying attention.)
Oh, and then there's also a gray zone: Things which are officially not allowed but tolerated. The Dutch word is "gedogen". The marijuana sales ''technically'' fall under this. The government doesn't ask where the coffeeshops get their nugs either, in other words.
The claim of "[[Bilingual Bonus|Everybody in the Netherlands speaks English there]]" is very accurate. This is mainly because Dutch and English languages have similar grammatical and word structure (as both English and Dutch are from the Germanic language family) and the fact that early education requires children to learn English and many other European languages makes the Netherlands one of the most [[Omniglot|polyglot]] country in Europe and English as a ''de facto'' language in the Netherlands, with Dutch even throwing English words in the normal Dutch sentences. Most Dutch tend to learn other languages as well, German and French are frequently taught in what would be the American middle/high school. Latin and Greek are included for students that are on the top of the Dutch school system.
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=== History ===
The Low Countries, an area that's roughly the modern Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg, were originally a bunch of counties, duchies and other statelets within the [[Holy Roman Empire]], but were (more or less) united into a single polity by the dukes of Burgundy and emperor Charles V (who was born in Flanders and was a native Dutch speaker, no less). A few decades later, Charles abdicated and the Low Countries fell into the hands of his son Philip II, who succeeded his father as the king of Spain, making the Low Countries part of the Spanish kingdom.
Spanish rule wasn't overly popular in the Low Countries - the problems and political issues in the Low Countries were generally quite different from those in Spain (something which the Spanish king didn't always realize...), the fiercely Catholic Spanish had little tolerance for Protestantism (which was quite popular in the Low Countries - and the popularity of iconoclasm among said Protestants didn't really improve Philip's opinion of them either...), and, in an attempt to finance the many wars they were fighting at the time against enemies like England, France and the Ottoman Empire, the Spanish decided that it would be a good idea to impose a few more taxes in the rich Low Countries.
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The Netherlands used to have a large colonial empire, with the largest and most notable colony being the Dutch East Indies, i.e. Indonesia. Another very important one, even though it was lost to the British in the [[Napoleonic Wars|Wars of the French Revolution]], was the Cape Colony in South Africa. To this day more people speak Dutch-derived Afrikaans as their first or second language in the [[South Africa|Republic of South Africa]] than any other of the eleven official languages of that country.
Large ethnic groups in the Netherlands from the former colonies are Indonesians (for a large part Ambonese), Chinese and Surinams (which consists of descendants of the people who were employed in the colony there).
The Ambonese sided with the Dutch government during the "Politionele Acties" (the euphemism for the Indonesian war of independence) in return for an independent state. The resulting treatment by the government resulted in protests by the Ambonese youth in the 60s and 70s, culminating in several hostage situations. This is still a lingering sore spot among the older generations, the younger people are quite happy to live here and only support the retaking of Ambon in spirit.
The Chinese are a mixed bag of descendants of people who got stuck here during the depression in the 1930s, former workers from the colonies, people who sought political asylum and people who came here seeking their fortune. They are the "great unknowns" despite being here for over 70 years now and having set up a lot of successful businesses. Their number is actually unknown due to their insular nature.
The Surinam people are mostly stereotyped as people from African descent, which is true for the most part, but there's also other ethnic groups. Hindus, Chinese workers and Javanese People were also a common sight in the colony and some of them came over when the colony gained its independence.
A strong Jewish subculture first appeared in Amsterdam in the 1600's, as Holland was one of the first European nations to openly welcome people of different religions, particularly Portuguese Jews and French Huguenots. The modern Dutch Jewish culture can mostly be found in Amsterdam, with Rotterdam as a close second.
The present-day Netherlands has a large Muslim population, though the majority of them are the descendants of Turkish and Moroccan guest workers rather than immigrants from the former colonies. Religious and social tensions are almost exclusively focused on Turkish and Moroccan labour immigrants, who were supposed to just stay a few years and help the ailing textile industry. Of course they didn't need to learn the language, since that would only encourage them to stay. The heavy industries are gone but the low-education labour immigrants are still there.
The Netherlands also have a "homegrown" linguistic minority in the Province of Frisia (also called West Frisia by foreigners<ref>To make things more complicated, there is actually an area called West Frisia, [[wikipedia:West Friesland (region)|that's not in Frisia]]. Try to explain that to the international community.</ref> because East and North Frisia are in Germany). Frisian, which is spoken there and on the North Sea coast and islands of Schleswig-Holstein, is the West Germanic language most closely related to Old English.
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[[Category:Useful Notes/Europe]]
[[Category:The Netherlands]]
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