A Torn Soul: The Dutch Public Discussion on the Colonial Past in 1995

Abstract

The Dutch cherish a comforting self-image that presents the nation as a wellmannered, civilized, and tolerant community of burghers. Dutch history, as it is taught at school, reinforces this assumption. The Eighty Years War against Spain (1568-1648) is described as a struggle for political independence and as the defining conflict that served to establish the Protestant religion as the basis for public life. The rebellion against Spain was accompanied by a great freedom of expression, both in the printed form as well as orally, which attracted many dissenters from other countries to settle in the Dutch Republic.