When populist candidates started to win national elections in the 2010s, panicked establishmentarians on both sides of the Atlantic warned that they could consolidate their power and destroy democracy. On both counts, these misgivings were misplaced. From Donald Trump to …
Are the Dutch farmers heading for power?
“Sweet Caroline…” bellows the crowd. “Good times never seemed so good!”
Times are indeed pretty good for Caroline van der Plas. Surrounded by the thousands of blooms that adorn the Royal FloraHolland Trade Fair, the leader of the BoerBurgerBeweging (BBB), …
Geert Wilders sees his chance
“We will ensure that money is for normal people, normal families, hard-working Nederlanders,” calls out the two-metre tall, platinum blonde man. Free beer is flowing in De Blauw Trap bar in Venlo, the hometown of the old face of the …
Legal prostitution is a gift to pimps
“Do you have what it takes to become a Brothel Tester?” Unsurprisingly, this sentence caught my eye while I was researching the latest atrocities in the sex market in Germany. Legalisation of all aspects of prostitution in what I call …
The Great Food Reset has begun
France is in flames. Israel is erupting. America is facing a second January 6. In the Netherlands, however, the political establishment is reeling from an entirely different type of protest — one that, perhaps more than any other raging today, …
How Antwerp became Europe’s drug gateway
Antwerp
Antwerp harbour leads up the River Scheldt and into the heart of Europe, a port the size of 16,600 football fields, sucking in 240,000,000 tonnes of freight each year. From the giant aerial photograph spread out on the floor …
The drug trade has wrecked Amsterdam
Amsterdam
“It’s fine on the other side, it’s fine on the other side!” sing five rowdy, dancing Brits, to the tune of the Pet Shop Boys’ “Go West”. On the other side of the 14th century Oudezijds Achterburgwal canal, a …
Corruption plagues the Dutch gas wars
Nestled in the green countryside far from the power and bustle of The Hague sits a bright, pink farmhouse. This 157-year-old Grade-A-listed building in Drieborg is not allowed to be Barbie pink. Painting it was a protest, a sign that …
Europe’s empty promises to Ukraine
Every war has a photograph that captures its horrors. Vietnam had Napalm Girl; Spain had The Falling Soldier. How will the war in Ukraine be remembered? Thanks to Vladimir Putin’s ruthlessness, an image of a heavily pregnant woman being stretchered …
Who betrayed Anne Frank?
Embedded in the cobbled pavements of the Netherlands are thousands of brass memorial plaques dedicated to victims of the Nazi genocide: stumbling stones, or Stolplersteine. “As you stumble over them, you stumble over the past,” writes Rosemary Sullivan. “It is …
The anti-racist who shames the Dutch
When we speak about black history, we tend to conjure up a familiar gallery of intellectuals and freedom fighters. Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela, Malcolm X, CLR James, Frantz Fanon: the legacies of these leaders are celebrated worldwide. Less well …