Netherlands, Country Characteristics 2004

Country characteristics, the Dutch could be described as a down to earth population they are practical, businesslike who prefer to get on with things rather than trumpet for accomplishments. The Netherlands is very crowded place to live; only Japan has a higher density per square meters.
Everything is small, crowded and cramped. This fact has an immediate impact on the country and the citizen’s mentality and opinions. The Dutch are masters in expressing an opinion and to constantly criticize matters even if there is no direct experience with the object of critics! After many years living abroad it becomes very evident how the small geographical scale of the Netherlands has had an impact into today’s perspective of the world. Every night there are talk shows and discussion panels on the Dutch television and they are reasonably well viewed. However if one looks at the way opinions about very relevant subjects are being expressed one realises that we are dealing with a small country! Like a soccer player makes his warm up, he does all the exercises sidelines and he is watching the game but he is not, yet, part of the main event!

Like everywhere else there is a significant difference between Urban and Rural communities. Values and opinions have an immediate impact because of where we live. Although the interest for religion is declining in the rural areas it is still very present. Nation-wide a slight majority is protestant whilst in the Southern part of the country the main religion is Roman Catholic. Over the years the community characteristics has shifted because of the integration of the autochthones and every major town has now its own mosque. Islam is nowadays a growing religion in Holland with over 800.000 Moslems and 300 mosques.

In general the Dutch are usually confident about themselves, their background and their sources of information, this is mostly received form colleagues, friends and press. As a result the Dutch could give an over assured impression, which could be perceived as arrogance. The Dutch on the contrary have the capability to take themselves never to seriously! They are somewhat more than average tolerant versus large topics such as drugs, sex and euthanasia. However I feel that the tolerance image is not applicable within its own social class society. This is a misperception. If one belongs to a certain social class as defined among distinguishing factors such as education and profession it is very uncommon that this social community will cross over to other classes. We see these examples in practicality in many sport and social clubs. The Netherlands could be characterized as incredibly well structured and organized, from office and production areas, to big or small town government structures. Everything has a logical, maybe clinical, approach and most of the streets and town centers are lacking a sense of free creativity but they are extremely neat and clean! In private family there is still a traditional pattern in place since decades. A regular day could look like breakfast at 7am, lunch at noon, dinner at 6pm and at 8pm watching the news with a kopje koffie.