‘The Netherlands commemorates Japan’

Toespraak | 31-05-2011

Your Royal Highnesses, Your Excellency,

Friends from Japan,

Ladies and gentlemen,

‘Each day is a journey, and the journey itself home.’

These are the words that Matsuo Basho wrote more than 300 years ago in the first entry of his masterpiece, The Narrow Road to the Deep North. In the course of 156 days, poet travelled, among many places, to Sendai, where nature struck with such devastating force on March 11th.

Is it the same spirit that kept Basho walking and writing which is now helping the people of the north-east to pick themselves up and move on? People who have lost family and friends, jobs and homes? Many of whom do not know whether they will ever be able to return to their communities?

All the words that have been written and spoken in the last 81 days cannot begin to express our admiration for the Japanese people. For their courage and resilience, their sense of community, their ability to start anew.

I have come here tonight, on behalf of the Dutch government and the Dutch people, to express our solidarity with the Japanese people and pay tribute to their exceptional spirit. We cherish our 400-year-old bonds with Japan – bonds rooted in history, which have grown stronger as our cultural and economic ties have. Today, we are proud to be home to the third-largest Japanese community in Europe and to over 400 Japanese companies.

In the days and weeks since March 11th, what has struck me in the media coverage and in the reactions of ordinary people here in the Netherlands is the deeply felt empathy with the people of Japan. Never before have I had such a clear sense of how close our peoples have grown.

Ladies and gentlemen, after all that has been said already, it is fitting that today we express our solidarity with Japan in a language that knows no barriers, the language of music and poetry.

Basho’s Narrow Road to the Deep North was published in 1702, twenty-one years before Vivaldi wrote his Four Seasons. They were almost contemporaries. Separated by wild seas and diverging cultures, yet kindred spirits who drew their inspiration from nature.

Friends from Japan,

We realise that your distance from your home country must have been unbearable at times in the past few months.

There is a saying in Dutch that goes: ‘It is in difficult times that people truly get to know their friends.’

Now it is time for you to rebuild. Your lives, your companies, your homes. As friends, we stand ready to make this journey together. As each day is a journey, and the journey itself is home.

Thank you.