This strange negativism

Were the old days all that good? Nahed Selim consciously chose to live in the Western world she fervently defends. „No civilization in the history of mankind has brought so many good things to so many people at the same time, as the modern, Western, capitalist society."

Why is it that my contemporaries are so mercilessly critical about themselves and the age in which we live? Hearing them, one would think our society has not even one redeeming quality. Cynicism and discontent prevail. But was life really that much better in the past?

I am a so-called baby boomer, part of the generation born roughly between 1945 and 1955. It benefited like no other from the increasing post-war wealth and could therefore afford to make radical choices. It was a generation that thought it knew everything better than all previous generations. They were going to do everything differently.

I got to experience the last bit of this era when I came to the Netherlands in the 1980s at age 25. And I joined in enthusiastically.

The late Pim Fortuyn, born in 1948, was not impressed with the accomplishments of his contemporaries. In his book ’Babyboomers’ (1998) he reproached them for having dealt irresponsibly with the social institutions they were put in charge of.

Perhaps he was right. But I do not like to complain, not even about the people who complain all the time. I merely observe that I lack the mental attitude of people who remember the past nostalgically, a past when everything was supposedly much better.

I believe there is no point in focusing on the past. Today is the only reality, and we should love this real reality. The past and the future are merely memories or utopias. The only real life is now, here, today. And it is my job and my moral duty to focus on the present. Everything else is childish. Irresponsible escapism.

I personally have an unbridled confidence in our time and at the same time a deep aversion to the current cynicism and the discontent I observe all around me. This cynicism often takes the shape of anti-Western feelings, both in westerners themselves and in people with different cultural backgrounds.

When I came to live in this country, the people I met spoke with disdain about everything that was ’typically Dutch’. At that time, for example, a good Dutch film or band was described as ’un-Dutch’. I heard this not only in Amsterdam – where people feel very superior to the rest of the country, as is usual in a capital city – but also in a city like Nijmegen where I first lived for a while.

I now realize I had little contact with traditional families in my early years in the Netherlands. I was surrounded by individualists. They were cloaked in a strong cosmopolitanism that struck me as both pleasant and bizarre. These were people who felt more connected with humanity in the abstract than with their flesh-and-blood neighbours (whose names they often did not even know). They had traded in every sense of national or regional solidarity for a kind of world citizenship.

This looking down on the Netherlands struck me as bizarre because I didn’t understand it. I could not fathom why they would talk so contemptuously about a culture that had produced world-famous artists. Even though I didn’t know much about the Netherlands when I was still living in Egypt, I had heard the names Rembrandt and Van Gogh, as well as the names of the Dutch dairy products that were available in many shops.

I also didn’t understand how you could feel disdain for a country where everything was taken care of, and so well organized. I thought they were being unreasonable.

In those years there was a kind of cultural rebellion against everything that was ’old-fashioned’ and authentic in the Netherlands. One might call it an exaggerated enthusiasm for the modern capabilities In any case it was totally different from what I was accustomed to in my own Arabic culture where everything modern and new was synonymous with wrong, evil and therefore undesirable.

Yet I felt very happy here. I was also rebellious at the time; I needed that to distance myself from many traditions and cultural conventions. My own attitude facilitated my interaction with Dutch people. Back then they were very open to foreigners and they immediately made you feel you belonged. You even felt an eagerness in the way they embraced you. In England and France, where I had briefly lived before, it took much more effort on my part to make contact with the people. Here I instantly formed close friendships with Dutch women and men. I also fell in love all the time.

This strange negativism about the own Dutch culture still has not disappeared completely. However, a large part of the population is in the middle of a revaluation process. I think that is healthy, nothing to get worked up about.

Patriotism is simply an expression of connectedness with your country. The Netherlands and its aversion to it was an exception. Virtually all over the world you will find patriotism – regardless of how good or bad those countries are – and it is considered completely normal everywhere.

Revaluation of the national identity should not be taken to mean a sign of hate towards migrants. Every civilization has the right to defend itself and safeguard its survival; and you may expect from newcomers that they adjust. This, in my opinion, also explains the immense popularity of the political parties of Geert Wilders and Rita Verdonk. They are erroneously referred to as extreme right-wing parties. What they want has nothing to do with extremism. They want to put a stop to the snobbish disdain for everything indigenous and Dutch.

© Trouw 2010, op dit artikel rust copyright.