The Netherlands’ Big Brother Statue
Since the beginning of June, a 13 foot high bronze statue of a sloppily dressed black woman in sweatpants and sneakers towers above Rotterdam’s Central Station. In its short life, it has already managed to sharply divide the people of the Dutch port city and beyond.
Some newspapers and other media wax lyrical about this pean to multiculturalism and diversity in a city totally transformed by extra-European immigration in the space of a few decades.
Others bristle at what they consider a symbol of a state-sponsored ideology aimed at forcing the population to toe the line.
Far be it for us to analogize the controversial statue with examples of art that aggressively drive home the messages of nasty doctrines, like Nazism in the past and Communism to the present day. But it is difficult to completely avoid any comparison whilst crossing Rotterdam’s Station Square, forced to lift one’s gaze to the giant’s head. Big Sista watches over us with a purpose, which is not to impress the crowd at her feet with her beauty or dignified attitude, but to warn us: any form of what I consider to be racism shall not be tolerated.
Say what you will about sculptors like German Arno Breker, much admired by Adolf Hitler, and his Italian and Spanish counterparts during the reigns of Mussolini and Franco, but their creations idealized the proud human species meant to come to fruition under the new order. They were intended to impress the populace with their good looks, vision and willpower.
On that score, the Dutch humanistic variety leaves something to be desired. This creation of the British-Caribbean sculptor Thomas J. Price, titled “Moments Contained,” is dressed in modern-day rags and faces the city around her with an attitude lacking in passion for any noble ideal. Instead, her gaze exudes a certain haughty indifference to the world around her.
These days in Rotterdam, the giant young black girl or lady confronts us with her guilt-inducing presence.
She nonetheless fits seamlessly into the unrelenting stream in mainstream Dutch media hammering home the message that immigration from outside of Europe and the resulting “diversity” are a blessing, that countries like Poland and Hungary who oppose it are at best backward, at worst racist. Hardly ever a day passes without otherwise decently liberal newspapers like NRC or Het Parool highlighting the plight of “people of color” living in the Netherlands, moaning about the ever present sequels to slavery in a country which they claim has not shed its colonial and racist past.
It is deemed inappropriate to argue that many if not most people of color have come to the Netherlands of their own free will. In 1975, inhabitants of the former colony of Surinam in South America fled in droves to the colonial “motherland” rather than enjoying the privilege of being the citizens of a newly independent country, generously supported by the Dutch tax payers.
These days in Rotterdam, the giant young black girl or lady confronts us with her guilt-inducing presence. An art critic of NRC sees this differently, stating: “Rotterdam should consider itself lucky with this statue of a self-assured, modern, black young woman symbolizing the present day, modern, multicultural Netherlands.”
Others rather see her giving a monumental finger to passers-by who do not share her views on multiculturalism. “Embrace diversity or die,” is her unspoken threat. Yet another gushing critic in the Dutch media surmised that the lady has clenched her fists in the pockets of her sagging pants. In the same breath, he warns that she “probably has a short fuse,” which he views positively as the “hallmark of our time.”
At its unveiling, one could be forgiven for asking why multiculturalism still has to be defended and promoted. In Rotterdam, Amsterdam and elsewhere in the Netherlands it has achieved its goals and is on the march to more victories, The mayor of the port city was born in Morocco, next to him stood a radiant Minister of Culture, of Turkish heritage. One of the few elderly white gentlemen in their presence on Station Square that sunny Saturday was the art lover responsible for raking in the funds for the acquisition of the statue.
Young, mainly black dancers accompanied the unveiling with militant gestures copied from Black Lives Matter demonstrations. Which rather obscures the fact that whites in Rotterdam are no longer the majority, immigration and white flight having cut them down to size. Contrary to what the contained rage of the dancers suggested, the much decried enemy is shrinking by the day. A detail lost on yet another Dutch reporter who admitted to tears of joy erasing her notes while covering the event.
From her lofty position “Big Sista” is perhaps able to see the often vandalized statue of politician Pim Fortuyn, assassinated in 2002 for his views on immigration. She may find this tribute to a “racist” and demand it be torn down. Do not light her short fuse with uncomfortable questions about the link between extra-European immigration and crime, a scourge on Rotterdam and other cities. Do not make attempts at irony or humor in “racial“ matters, as she will summon the police and the attorney general who are at her beck and call.
(Related: Another Innocent Victim of Cancel Culture)
The lady’s many friends in the media do not include a columnist in the otherwise über-woke newspaper NRC, Rosanne Hertzberger. She deems the statue “an insult“ to her city, prompting the inevitable accusations of racism. Fear shines through her column bristling with indignation, fear that the doctrine of multiculturalism will use its triumph in Rotterdam to further stifle what is left of dissent.
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