Photo from Amsterdam Museum.

Amsterdam Museum ditches the term ‘Golden Age’

The Amsterdam Museum, which chronicles the history of the city, has decided to ditch the term Gouden Eeuw [Golden Age] because the term is not politically correct.

Published: September 14, 2019, 9:08 am

    Read more

    Amsterdam

    The term Gouden Eeuw, denotes the rise of economic and military might in the Netherlands, and has long been a source of immense national pride, associated with peace, prosperity and innocence.

    The museum announced on its website that the term was no longer “representative enough” of the 17th century.  According to the museum “the term denies the negative of the period, such as forced labour, poverty, war and the slave trade. It is history told from the perspective of the powerful.”

    Curator Tom van der Molen said many stories have not been told and that each generation and each person has to be able to contribute their stories. “The dialogue about this needs space and the term Golden Age is restricting that space,” he said.

    From now on everything to do with the Golden Age will be labelled “17th century”, including the museum’s permanent display of portraits which will now be called “group portraits from the 17th century”.

    In 1602, the Dutch East India Company [Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie or VOC] was founded. It was the first-ever multinational corporation, financed by shares that established the first modern stock exchange. The Company received a Dutch monopoly on Asian trade, which it would keep for two centuries, becoming the world’s largest commercial enterprise of the 17th century.

    Economists Ronald Findlay and Kevin H. O’Rourke attributed the rise of the Netherlands to its Protestant work ethic based on Calvinism, which promoted thrift and education. This contributed to “the lowest interest rates and the highest literacy rates in Europe”.

    The museum’s decision has received largely negative responses so far, with VVD MP Zohair El Yassimi saying the musem “lost the plot completely”.

    “First we had to change the street signs, then the statues had to go and now the whole Golden Age is for the scrapheap? It’s a bit cowardly to want to rewrite history,” he told Dutch daily the Telegraaf.

    CDA MP Michel Rog said the name change is “a hyper-correct idea by the Amsterdam elite and too ridiculous for words,” adding that “Erasing the past is nonsense”. Rog noted: “Simply explain that the Golden Age also had its negative sides, there’s nothing wrong with that. And there is nothing wrong with a bit of national pride either.”

    The Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam said it will keep using the term. “It refers to a period in history of great prosperity,” director Taco Dibbets told national broadcaster NOS. “But we do recognise there are dark sides. The Rijksmuseum approaches history from different perspectives. Next year we are mounting an exhibition on slavery.”

    Meanwhile another controversy about history has erupted involving the Museum of ‘s-Hertogenbosch. It is being criticised for exhibiting Nazi artifacts. But the museaum said the exhibition of the Third Reich has a didactic aim.

    Since September 8 and for five months, the design museum of ‘s-Hertogenbosch welcomed “Design of the Third Reich”. This exhibition of Nazi artifacts, from the Volkswagen ladybug to the 1936 Olympic Games, to the swastikas and Leni Riefenstahl’s propaganda films, aims to show “the contribution of design to the development of evil ideology”.

    In view of the controversy, the design museum has taken precautions. Visitors are not allowed to take pictures. In addition, it is now mandatory to book the time slot of a visit by buying a ticket on the Internet, a way to filter visitors.

    In opposition to the controversy, the newspaper De Volkskrant published an article entitled “How to put together an exhibition on Nazi design without glorifying fascism”.

    Consider donating to support our work

    Help us to produce more articles like this. FreeWestMedia is depending on donations from our readers to keep going. With your help, we expose the mainstream fake news agenda.

    Keep ​your language polite​. Readers from many different countries visit and contribute to Free West Media and we must therefore obey the rules in​,​ for example​, ​Germany. Illegal content will be deleted.

    If you have been approved to post comments without preview from FWM, you are responsible for violation​s​ of​ any​ law. This means that FWM may be forced to cooperate with authorities in a possible crime investigation.

    If your comments are subject to preview ​by FWM, please be patient. We continually review comments but depending on the time of day it can take up to several hours before your comment is reviewed.

    We reserve the right to del​ete​ comments that are offensive, contain slander or foul language, or are irrelevant to the discussion.

    No comments.

    By submitting a comment you grant Free West Media a perpetual license to reproduce your words and name/web site in attribution. Inappropriate and irrelevant comments will be removed at an admin’s discretion. Your email is used for verification purposes only, it will never be shared.

    Europe

    New App Helps Locate Sweden’s Historic Runestones

    A new app called Swedish Runestones will help locate historical gems.

    Swedish military wants to remilitarize the Åland Islands

    The demilitarized autonomy has previously been known as 'the islands of peace.

    DESTRUCTIVE HAILSTORMS will become more frequent and violent with increasingly larger hail, predicted solar researcher Valentina Zharkova back in 2019 when she stated that it's one of many signs of an impending Grand Solar Minimum. This is exactly what we have witnessed this year in both Europe and the world. Here is the German town of Benediktbeuern in Bavaria after a hailstorm on August 26th. Almost all rooftops and cars were damaged. The centuries-old church and monastery were damaged for the first time ever. Interestingly, the monastery was rebuilt in 1699 during the Maunder Minimum. Combined with heavy rainfall, extreme weather will devastate a significant portion of our food production. For instance, heavy rainfall destroyed a quarter of all crops in Greece in just two days in September. However, mainstream media remains silent. Photo: X @safe0007/Sandor Feher

    NOAA Predicts Zero Sunspots for Almost the Whole 2030s

    CLIMATEThe United States' government scientific organization, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), predicts zero sunspots from 2031 to 2040. This is an extreme situation that has not occurred in as long as humanity has been counting sunspots, and it leads us into uncharted territory in terms of our solar system. However, this prediction aligns with the warnings of the world-renowned solar researcher Valentina Zharkova for many years, who indicated in 2019 various signs of this catastrophic phenomenon, including the extreme hailstorms we have seen in Europe and the world this summer. The forecast and various observations this year give cause for very significant concern. In this unique analysis, Free West Media explains why.

    NATIONALIST COLLABORATION TAKES SHAPE. Six parties met in Budapest on August 26th to sign a joint declaration confirming the friendship and political unity among the parties. The goal is to either form a new group in the European Parliament after the EU elections in June next year or to reconstitute the existing Identity and Democracy (ID) group with the new parties. Pictured from left to right: Mikael Jansson (Alternative for Sweden), Thierry Baudet (Forum for Democracy, Netherlands), László Toroczkai (Mi Hazánk, Hungary), Kostadin Kostadinov (Vazrazhdane, Bulgaria), and Josef Nerušil (Svoboda a přímá demokracie, Czech Republic). Also included is Mass-Voll from the non-EU country Switzerland (inset image). Photo: Free West Media

    European Nationalist Parties Forge Cooperation Ahead of EU Elections

    EUROPEAN ELECTIONSOn Saturday, August 26, representatives of six European nationalist parties gathered in Budapest. The meeting was initiated by the Hungarian party Mi Hazánk and took place in the national parliament. Representatives of the parties signed a joint declaration that not only reaffirms the parties' friendship but also their unity on a range of complex political issues. A surprisingly clear and radical manifesto was established. The hope is that this cooperation will lead to success in the EU elections and eventually result in the formation of a group in the European Parliament. For Swedish nationalism, this meeting marks a success as Sweden, for the first time, has a party represented in a leading nationalist cooperation in Europe. Free West Media was present at this historic event.

    Sweden's Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson participated in the Pride parade in Stockholm where Erdogan was ridiculed, something that Turkey took particularly badly. Photo: Nya Tider

    Turkey Believes Sweden Hasn’t Done Enough

    Sweden will have to wait a bit longer for NATO membership, according to Turkey's Justice Minister Jilmaz Tunc. First, Sweden must extradite the "terrorists" Turkey wants and stop the desecration of the Quran.

    Ka-52 crashes after being hit by a Swedish RBS 70. Russian sources report that one of the two pilots died in the crash. Image: Telegram

    Swedish Weapon Takes Down Russia’s Best Attack Helicopter

    The Russian attack helicopter Ka-52 is considered one of the world's best and has struck fear in Ukraine, where it has hunted down tanks and other armored vehicles, often beyond the range of many light anti-aircraft systems. However, it has met its match in the Swedish air defense missile system RBS 70, which has quickly led to significant losses for the Russian helicopter forces.

    The Sun has been found to be the main driver behind Earth's cliamte - and it's getting colder. Photo: iStockPhoto

    The Sun Drives Earth’s Climate, Not Carbon Dioxide

    Top Researchers Push Back Against Climate Lies."The correlation is as clear as day," explained the Israeli astrophysicist Nir Shaviv, who was hailed by the establishment, before his interview with Forbes was hastily deleted. What he says contradicts the climate narrative, which points to humans as responsible for Earth's climate. Shaviv firmly asserts that it is the sun that controls the climate, something that can be scientifically proven in many ways. Contrary to the popular belief, the sun's influence on Earth has, in recent years, caused unusually cold and rainy weather, a trend that solar researchers warn will worsen significantly in the coming decades. The sun has exhibited an unusually low activity since 2016, during Solar Cycle 24, which was the weakest in a century.

    Alternative for Germany held its conference during the last weekend of July in the thousand-year-old city of Magdeburg, located by the Elbe River in the eastern German state of Saxony. The first of the two conference days began with a strong program speech by the party's male spokesperson. Subsequently, party officials were elected and motions were addressed. The second day was entirely devoted to candidate selection and positioning for the EU election in June next year. Screenshot: AfD on Facebook

    Strong Confidence in German AfD

    Alternative for Germany (AfD) held a party conference on July 29-30 to select candidates for the upcoming EU election next year. EU Parliament member Maximilian Krah, belonging to the party's more radical, ethnonationalist faction, was appointed as the top candidate. The party's two spokespersons delivered powerful speeches criticizing the EU's failed migration policy and trade sanctions that isolate Europe and Germany from the rest of the world. They argued that it's time for the EU to return a significant portion of its power to national parliaments. However, they have dropped the demand for Germany to exit the EU.

    Maximilian Krah is one of the AfD politicians who is singled out as an ethnonationalist, as he has stated that there is a distinction between ethnic Germans and immigrants who have obtained German citizenship. Krah is a Member of the European Parliament and AfD's top candidate for the upcoming European Union election next year. Still image: AfD on Facebook

    The Establishment Wants to Ban Germany’s Second Largest Party – for the Sake of Democracy

    The rising popularity of AfD has raised strong concerns within the establishment. Despite lies and demonization in the media and isolation from the overall political establishment, the party continues to grow. Certain representatives of the party are accused of becoming increasingly "extreme," and in an unusual move, the influential weekly newspaper Der Spiegel demanded that AfD be "banned."

    FvD was quick to support the protests against covid restrictions. Today, the party also stands behind the farmers protests against the governments’ plans to close a big portion of the farms in the country for the sake of “climate”. The picture is from a protest against covid restrictions in Amsterdam in January of last year. Photo: Wion

    Dutch FvD break through the media blockade

    What is happening in the Netherlands? It is often difficult to follow events in other countries, especially when distorted by system media. We give Forum for Democracy (FvD) the opportunity to speak out on the political situation in the Netherlands and the staunch resistance they face in trying to save the country.

    Go to archive