YoIn an interview with the weekly magazine EW Pieter Omtzigt argues for further limiting the role of the royal family. I had to go over the article several times, because somehow my eye always slides over the lines when I read Omtzigt’s texts without actually reading them, but I think he thinks this: It’s good that someone like Princess Laurentien, a victim of the benefits affair, is a victim of the benefits affair, but it will be much better if my own NSC State Secretary for Benefits can soon take all the credit.
Omtzigt therefore believes it is more prudent for members of the royal family to limit themselves from now on to “their royal, mainly ceremonial, duties.” The king can therefore continue to cut ribbons, as long as he does not decide which ribbon to cut.
Politicians who advocate limiting the power of the Oranges are, of course, a constant in our history. Indeed, it is a small miracle that the Netherlands is one of the last countries in the world to be ruled by a king. If there is a deep-rooted desire for social levelling anywhere, it is here. According to Godfried Bomans, this has something to do with our landscape. Anyone who looks out over the plain every day will naturally find it difficult to tolerate peaks and valleys.
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Jarl van der Ploeg is a journalist and columnist for of Volkskrant. Previously he worked as a correspondent in Italy. Columnists are free to express their opinions and do not have to adhere to journalistic rules of objectivity. Read our guidelines here.
Add to this the fact that we are anti-authority – uniforms make us nervous and noble titles make us laugh – and you can understand why the Dutch are only willing to tolerate a king who costs little, keeps his mouth shut on important matters and only sits on steps and shows up in an ordinary jacket.
Personally, I see it a little differently. Not because I believe that God has chosen the Oranges to rule this wet corner of the world. Well, because I am horrified by a future in which the presidential elections are won after a hard campaign by some populist who, unlike the king, frees himself from the restraints that good breeding imposes on actions and so decides as his first act to become a bitter leftist by abolishing the celebration of Ketikoti and instead turning the annual trekking in Hooghalen into a national holiday.
Especially now, but perhaps at any time in history, the last shred of apolitical solidarity that unites us must be handled with care.
That is why I fervently hope that Amalia ignores the desire to move up a level in the next academic year and become a member of the Amsterdam student body. Then I hope that she will move with some members of the fraternity to the palace on Dam Square and from there send the golden carriage to the society on Warmoesstraat every Wednesday and not leave it until she has hooked another new crown prince.
It would be a blessing for the Netherlands. Since the advent of social media and the six-hour screen time, we have lost the art of silence. This has important consequences. After all, anyone who spends all day voicing their opinion on repopulation, the housing crisis or the coronavirus vaccine will sooner or later be overcome by anxiety.
However, thanks to a flamboyant royal family, our conversations would contain far fewer white holes that need to be filled with polarising material. And every debate that isn’t held about labour migration or surplus manure means that an extra amount of zest for life is released.
Therefore: long live the king!
