The worm has begun to turn, and not a moment too soon. No one ever asked the Dutch if they wanted to be the drugs and prostitution capital of Europe. They do not.
The Netherlands as defended by Geert Wilders and by the late Pim Fortuyn, of rampant drug use and of legal sex at 12, was always an imposition both on the Protestant North and on the Catholic South, as surely as is the more recent but no less virulent Islamisation of Dutch society. It has been fashionable to predict a coming clash between the two. But no such thing need happen.
The tight-knit "pillar" of conservative Protestants, once one sixth the size of the historically Established Church but now numerically equal to it, maintains two political parties, one of which (thankfully, the better one) also has a considerable and growing appeal among African immigrants. In addition to holding the line firmly on moral issues, that better of the two is well to the Left on many economic and international ones, and perfectly capable of seeing the connections. The historically Established Church also has a vibrant orthodox wing, and a general tone of classical Protestantism which still extends out into many communities.
The Christian Democratic Appeal, the historic political vehicle of the Catholic "pillar", is not what it was in terms of moral orthodoxy across the full range of questions from sex and drugs to poverty and wars. But it still there. It might benefit, and the Dutch polity at large would certainly benefit, from the challenge of a Catholic Union mirroring the Christian Union. These days, possibly even co-operating with it, in this age when the Archdiocese of Glasgow and the Free Church of Scotland can issue press releases congratulating each other on fighting the good fight in defence of marriage. (Mercifully, there cannot be a Catholic SGP. A schismatic "traditionalist" one, perhaps. But not a Catholic one.)
The reason why the Netherlands has such low levels of teenage pregnancy and so on is not the extremely low age of consent or the extremely explicit sex education in schools, but the very opposite. The hijacked State can do its worst, but in the home and in the wider community the young are still administered, both by word and by sheer example, the antidote to those toxins.
That is why we must not have those toxins here: by and large, we have forgotten the antidote. If the rising generation found anything superficially like it anywhere, then they would find it in Islam, and a particularly militant Islam at that. For the Dutch, it is not "either/or". As to what it is, that is increasingly apparent when, at long last, the authorities even in Amsterdam have declared that enough really is enough.
That is why we must not have those toxins here: by and large, we have forgotten the antidote. If the rising generation found anything superficially like it anywhere, then they would find it in Islam, and a particularly militant Islam at that. For the Dutch, it is not "either/or". As to what it is, that is increasingly apparent when, at long last, the authorities even in Amsterdam have declared that enough really is enough.
Have you ever been to the Netherlands? I ask because you seem to be confusing the touristy parts of Amsterdam with Dutch life in general – just as some people think all America is like New York (when the majority of Americans don’t even live in large cities) or London is Britain, when it is the exception not the rule. In the main Dutch society is socially conservative – in the nice way of minding one’s own business and take responsibility for one’s own actions.
ReplyDeleteThe above post is just drivel and I suspect springs from that all too familiar ‘Wishful thinking’ that the religiously inclined take as ‘fact’. Whatever, it is true that Northern European, liberal, secular societies, have, in the main, produced far more wholesome societies than centuries of Christian rule. e.g. Victorian Britain may have been outwardly moralising, but in reality in its cities child sex was common (usually middle-class men) STDs rife (even Mrs Beaton died of syphilis!) and the poor and working classes lived in squalor while a tiny elite lived lives of unparalleled luxury on the sweat, toil and subjugation of the masses. There wasn’t fair access to law, suffrage or decent living conditions. Even during WW1 it was noted that officers were in better health and on average 4-5” taller than the Tommies – a good indication of what an unfair and neglectful society Britain was when Christianity held greater sway in Britain.
Yes, some social reforms were enacted by Christians, but in the main these were non-conformists and they often had to work with Humanists in parliament to get legislation through – the bulk of MPs being indifferent (see: Thompson, F.M.L. (ed.) (1990) The Cambridge Social History of Britain 1750-1950 Vol 3 Cambridge: Cambridge University Press for an interesting discussion on this).
As for a Catholic Union – God forbid! A look at Ireland tells us that 50% Mass attendance doesn’t result in a wholesome society! (see: http://www.independent.ie/national-news/oneparent-families-above-eu-average-2919671.html). I got involved in a spat with some reactionary US Catholics last year on the internet and noted how there was a facile belief that if the world became Catholic it would become a better place... There is little evidence for that, either from the past or present! Even in the US, it is often the more liberal states that tend to have the lower divorce, teen pregnancy, lone parent rates (not to mention less violent crime and murder!). As for ‘Catholic Politics’ – well, what is the main religion of the majority of the countries that have needed a financial bail out in the EU? Well, it’s not Protestant, that’s for sure! Faith based politics is a road to social and economic ruin!
I am certainly not a ‘Religion has no part in modern society...’ person, but neither am a person who will read moralistic drivel that is built on little more than wishful thinking and a projection of the insecurities and foibles of the socially inept.
You are confused. You want to agree with me, your first paragraph shows that. But you cannot bring yourself to do so.
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