Our destinies are linked

Toespraak | 11-09-2009

Officiele titel: Our destinies are linked
Gelegenheid: Launch of the celebration of the quadricentennial relationship between the United States and the Netherlands (1609-2009)

Distinguished guests, Mrs Paterson, we are so honoured by your presence. This really gives a jumpstart to this celebration, a celebration which is so important and special to us all.

I want to give a few examples why this is so special. At the launching event just now I said some things about common values, and the tenacity to which we always come to our freedom, which to us is very important. That is why we resisted the Spanish, although they were the world power in those days. We fought for our freedom, and we got our freedom also because we believe that people should be allowed to be who they are in any society. The diversity has always been a fundamental aspect of our society, although sometimes diversity is not easy. We suffered gravely during the Second World War because of the persecution of one of our most important populations, the Jewish population. 110.000 Dutch Jews were exterminated by the Nazis, one of the most horrible events in our history. But we came back to this fundamental idea of diversity. Sometimes we are struggling, as we are struggling today to try to find a way of dealing with a new population, our Muslim population, this is also good for our society. And I am certain we will succeed because we believe in freedom, we believe in diversity and we think everybody should have an equal opportunity to pursue happiness. This is what we have been working for throughout our history.

And this is the fundamental link between us, New York, the United States and The Netherlands. The people who built this great city and this great state, did so because they wanted to build their own lives, be masters of their own destiny. And they had this craving for freedom, which is the fundamental pillar in American society, and for 400 years we have been and I quote Bruce Springsteen, “working on a dream”. This notion that you take your life into your own hands and you work on a dream, is something that we share, something that has been the basis of our friendship, with all the differences between our societies, this is a fundamental issue.

And I want to add a few personal elements to why I am so passionate about this. One of the first stories my mother told me was that she was liberated by American soldiers in September 1944. They had been suffering under German occupation for years in the south of the country; unfortunately the rest of the country had to suffer for one more year. In September 1944 on a starry Sunday evening she was walking with her parents in the city were she was raised, and at some stage she saw some German soldiers fleeing and some others going in another direction, she heard shooting. And all of a sudden she saw a uniform of different colour, a kaki brown colour while she was used to grey uniforms, she was used be shouted at and used to be scared of soldiers. It was that exact moment that they were liberated by American soldiers. And from that moment on she had this fundamental feeling of gratitude, which she transmitted to her children. A feeling with which I was brought up. A part of my being, the gratitude I feel, I try to express also by adopting the grave of the American Soldier who is buried nearby my home, along with 8100 of his fellow soldiers. And we pay tribute to the sacrifice for our freedom. All through our history we have seen that at the most difficult times Americans came to our rescue, and we can only be deeply grateful for that.

Today we have many challenges, global challenges. There is no way we can solve the climate crisis, the global warming without fundamental agreement between Europe and the United States. There is no way we can solve the food crisis if Europe and the United States don’t come to common positions. And there is no way we can solve the energy crisis without agreement between the United States and Europe. So our destinies are linked, and we need to be aware of this.

I shall not avoid painful issues either, I was at a rock concert last year in June with my oldest son who is 19, and at some stage there was the famous American rock band who came on stage, they are called ‘Rage Against the Machine’. And the first thing my son explained to me is that because I am in government, “you are the machine”. The artists came on stage, you could hear the air strike alarm - you know the sound that my mother grew up with during the war - and they came on stage in orange jumpsuits with hoods over their heads. My son said, “Dad, Guantanamo Bay”. So Guantanamo Bay has become an icon for the relationship between us and the United States. It shouldn’t be, and I am not blaming the Americans for this but I am just saying that the fact that we have taken our values to this level, it diminishes the values we stand for. And in the outside world whenever we mention to people all the values we cherish, they say “yeah sure, but what about Guantanamo Bay”? And that doesn’t affect the United States alone. It affects us Europeans just as well, because for the outside world we are all the same. And I am convinced that if we are to tackle all these global problems I mentioned before, we can only reach solutions on the basis of the values we share. We can only be credible on our values if we abide by these values.

And that is why I am such a great admirer of President Obama who said in his inaugural speech exactly these words: we are only credible if the values we stand for are upheld in our own country.

To many Dutch people this is really important to emphasize and people were very emotional about the election of President Obama. People across the world see this as a potential turning point for the worlds’ history and I think it is our duty as Europeans and as Dutch to reach out to President Obama. He has extended his hand to us and we should join hands and cooperate with him on all the issues before us. Afghanistan, Guantanamo Bay, issues without an easy solution, but we are in this together. And the fact in the current state of the world in which everybody is searching for a sense of belonging - who are we, where do we stand? -. This fundamental question needs to be answered, before we can be sure that we know where we are heading. The main theme in all the books I have read written by President Obama - and I think he is a great writer, the first politician since Winston Churchill who is actually a very good writer – the main theme of his books is ‘Who am I?’ ‘Who am I?’ ‘Why am I doing what I am doing?’ ‘Why am I heading in this direction?” And I think that if we are to succeed and meet all these challenges then we have the need to know where we are coming from. We need to know who we are. And New York 400 helps us to understand where we are coming from, helps us to understand who we are, because very few people in the Netherlands actually are aware of our common history. Perhaps they have heard of Peter Stuyvesant, because people think he made cigarettes. But they do not know about our bilateral relationship to the extent that I would want them to know. About how much of our DNA and America’s DNA have in common.

In order to make this wonderful year of celebration of our common history a success, we need to bridge past, present and future. To make sure that we know were we are coming from and we know that we can only achieve things today because our parents, grandparents, great grandparents achieved goals they never thought possible.

Who would have thought that in 1955 when Rosa Parks refused to sit in the back of the bus, that in 2009 we would have an African American President in the White House? It is truly a dream come true.

We continue on working hard to fulfil dreams on both sides of the Atlantic never forgetting who we are and where we are coming from. We are always looking for new opportunities, always recreating our world, to help our children live a better life.

Thank you.