What part of the history of your people/country are you most Ashamed/proud of?

A big cause for Texas Independence was because the Mexican government had banned slavery. Ask the Mexicans how they felt about that period and you'll get a different account.

The biggest thing I'm proud of is that my people's history still exists....

 

both. he's schwissen-fach (sp?)

 

Deck there are some interesting but unsubstantiated stories about the relationship between Andrew Jackson and Sam Houston ( his subordinate in the Creek Indian Wars) and the possibility of a covert plan to annex Texas from Mexico.

Yes, the anglo settlers of Texas had a vested financial interest in maintaining slave labor to keep their cotton plantations profitable.

(but we have had this discussion)

 

Your list is interesting to me. From the outside, I think the thing that the Dutch should be most proud of was the way that they were basically the only country in the middle ages that actually was good to and accepting of the Jews while the inquisition was happening. The Dutch were letting Jews be Jews openly when even in places where it wasn't illegal, they were spit on and widly percieved as the steriotype.

I find it difficult to fault the Dutch for WWII. While it's easy in retrospect to say that they should have been able to resist, it is much more difficult than when you have SS-Tottenkopf troops kicking in your door, and when much less was done in other occupied countries.

Similarly, when the entire world was accepting of slavery and colonialism, it's hard to be too hard on them for the way things went. If you look at the countries that used to have colonies, the areas that were former Dutch colonies are in the world today much better places than the places that were French, which are almost all total disasters.

Even the Dutch spinoff Belgum managed to screw things up. In Rawanda the Tutsi and Hutu split is entirely superficial. It was an arbitrary process by which Belgum sought to make some of their minorities into an artifical overclass so that they could be made to suppress the general populace.

In general, everybody who reaches the "world power" state as the Dutch did will end up doing things that are not nice to remember, but honestly, if you were to force me to pick a country or culture to be the "benign dictators" for humanity, The Dutch and the Swedish would be #'s 1 & 2.

 

Yes, I'm dubious of a "plot" between two friends to grab Texas for the US, but you are right, we've had this discussion before. I'll let it go. Where I disagree with JV is the implication that this should fall into something the United States should be ashamed of. Because I believe the US had no significant direct, or even indirect involvement, Texas Independence, in my opinion, just doesn't fit the parameters of this discussion.

Heck, guess I said something anyway!
Just skip it.



Keep D&D Civil!!

 

I mentioned in another thread that a Dutch relative of my wife ended up in a Nazi concentration camp, in the Netherlands, because he attempted to escape German tyranny, and was caught at the Swiss border. He saw, with his own eyes, Jews being lined up and shot, and showed us the embankment they were stood in front of, along with the rest of the site of the camp, which no one who didn't know of it's existance would be able to find. There are no signs worth mentioning, and the forest has reclaimed most of it, except for a single watch tower the Dutch chose to keep.

I don't think the Dutch should be ashamed of their experience re the Jews in WWII. Some Dutch people, certainly, but not the Dutch as a whole. For every person who turned in a Dutch Jewish family, for whatever the reason, there were those who risked everything to save who they could, and some died doing so. One must remember that the Germans were brutally efficient.

The Netherlands has far more to be ashamed of regarding their former colonies, but they would have to stand in line with almost all the other colonial powers in that regard.

I am having a much easier time mentioning other things that other countries might be ashamed of. So far, I can't bring myself to list those which our own country committed.



Keep D&D Civil!!

 

I don't think the Dutch were that good at colonialism. Their prize possession Indonesia wasn't run all that great and as noted they screwed the Mollukans and had to rely on the British a few times to handle things there when they couldn't cut it. At the same time the Dutch also had a hard time holding onto many of their other colonies. They lost Malacca and to quote They Might be Giants

If I'm not mistaken wasn't New Zealand once Dutch and also lost to the Brits?

 

What makes me proud to be an American:

Movies, music, baseball, the Civil Rights Movement, the space program, the Constitution, Edgar Allen Poe, the Marshall Plan, D-Day, Abraham Lincoln, Robert E. Lee, Malcom X, MLK, Woody Guthrie, Bob Dylan, Mark Twain, the Ramones, the Brooklyn Bridge, Empire State Building, the Golden Gate Bridge, Selma, Freedom Riders, Jackie Robinson, the Marx Brothers, "Casablanca," seperation of Church and State, a nation of immigrants

What makes me ashamed:

Treatment of indians to this day, slavery, the governemt and big business sanctioned massacres in the Phillipinnes, Central and South America, Iran and Iraq, the My Lai Massacre, bombing Cambodia, the Pinkerton union busters, Jim Crow, race baiting politics, violent society

 

Hey! We stayed at his hotel in Amsterdam. It was quite nice (particularly since we had just escaped the moldy dump that we stayed in the night before). http://www.hotelpiethein.nl/

 

If I remember my Asian history correctly didn't the Dutch get the better of the Portugese a few times? I believe the Dutch kicked the Portugese out of Malacca and a lot of what is now Indonesia and took over the Portugese concession in Nagasaki.

 

arno_ed,

What about the artists? The Dutch and Flemmish masters are my favorite style of painting ever. My favorite individual is H. Bosch though. Even though he is a different style he's still Dutch! He's from Hertogenbosch.

That is something to be proud of.

 

arno-ed;

Just curious. What do the Dutch think of Rik Smits?

 

I'm neither proud nor ashamed of anything I had nothing to do with.

For the most part.

Except for the Houston Rockets losing to the Dallas Mavericks. It's hard to see a computer screen through a paper bag's eyeholes. I should have cut them bigger.

 

I'm Irish. We were oppressed by everyone. But we can drink you under the table, you sissies.

p.s. not real keen on the whole Christians killing Christians in the name of Jesus Christ thing.

but we did save civilization: