“Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.”

James Baldwin’s

As Much Truth As One Can Bear, published in

The New York Times Book Review on January 14, 1962

The two capitals, one political and other financial, The Hague and Amsterdam, an hour apart by train, were at the centre of the global media attention. They became stages for two distinct yet interlinked dramas that expose the fragile underpinnings of Dutch society.

In The Hague, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, former defence minister Yoav Gallant and leaders of Hamas, signalling a rare attempt to address the asymmetrical atrocities of the Israel-Hamas conflict, leading to a genocide.

Meanwhile, Amsterdam saw the city’s tensions spill into violence when supporters of Israeli football club Maccabi Tel Aviv clashed with Ajax fans. The incidents, tied by their proximity to the ongoing Gaza war, reveal fractures in the Netherlands’ civic fabric while exposing how Western media sanitises or skews narratives to sustain entrenched hierarchies.

Parallels to historical epochs are abundant. Just as 16th Century Dutch society was rocked by the Reformation and the rise of mercantilism, today’s Netherlands grapples with the complexities of globalisation, migration and deep-seated divisions over identity. The challenges of the Reformation - intense polarisation, ideological suppression and the establishment of a new social order - resonate in contemporary Dutch society, where the politics of exclusion holds sway.

The Hague: a theatre

of justice

The ICC’s decision to issue arrest warrants for Israeli and Hamas leaders marks a historic intervention in international law. By targeting both state and non-state actors, the court sought to disrupt the cycle of impunity that perpetuates the violence engulfing Gaza.

Yet, Western media framed this effort as symbolic at best, casting doubt on the ICC’s credibility while amplifying Israeli security narrative. Palestinian suffering, encapsulated by blockades, displacement and relentless bombardments, was relegated to footnotes in the global discourse. In the meanwhile, Republican blowhard, Lindsay Graham, has threatened economic sanctions against any country that carries out the ICC arrest warrants while others offered calibrated response.

This selective framing brings to mind the work of Erasmus of Rotterdam, whose satirical treatise In Praise of Folly (1511) exposed the hypocrisy of the powerful in an era marked by religious dogmatism and corruption. Erasmus, writing at the dawn of the Reformation, highlighted how those in authority twisted narratives to obscure their exploitation of the vulnerable. Similarly, today’s media, echoing official Israeli statements, undermines the ICC’s actions by portraying them as politically motivated, diverting attention from the systematic targeting of civilians in Gaza.

The incidents at The Hague and Amsterdam demand more than superficial analysis. They require journalism that prioritises truth over expedience and governance that embraces inclusion over division. The media’s role is not merely to report events but also to contextualise them, amplifying marginalised voices and challenging entrenched power structures.

Like Goya’s The Third of May 1808, which illuminates the moral horror of state-sanctioned violence, the ICC’s warrants attempt to spotlight the human cost of conflict. Yet, this light is dimmed in the cacophony of justifications for military aggression. The parallels to the Reformation-era struggle for truth amid entrenched power structures resonate here.

Amsterdam: violence and its reverberations

The Amsterdam riots after the Europa League football match between Ajax and Maccabi Tel Aviv offer a visceral display of societal tension. The provocations by Maccabi fans, tearing down Palestinian flags and chanting anti-Arab slogans, fuelled anger that culminated in clashes between supporters, property destruction and confrontations with police.

Yet, media outlets like Sky News, The New York Times and the BBC initially framed the riots as anti-Semitic attacks, absolving Israeli fans of their instigating actions and erasing the broader context of Gaza’s devastation. Others followed suit. The attempt to ‘sanitise’ the behaviour of Maccabi fans amounted to blatant disinformation.

Amsterdam’s acting mayor, Femke Halsema, added to the distortion by softening her critique of the riots, adopting a politically neutral stance under apparent pressure in her 12-page letter, the most comprehensive account yet of the racist hate that has engulfed Amsterdam for almost a week. This narrative management recalls the ideological suppression of dissent during the Reformation when voices challenging hegemonic power were either co-opted or silenced. In this case, the media and political apparatus have prioritised the narrative of Israeli victimhood, echoing the broader Western reluctance to hold Israel accountable for its role in the Gaza genocide.

Fractures in Dutch

society

The riots reveal deeper fractures within Dutch society, where debates over identity, integration and belonging mirror those of Reformation-era Europe. Much as 16th-Century Europe struggled with the fragmentation of Christendom, today’s Netherlands grapples with its colonial legacy and the tensions of multiculturalism. The Dutch Golden Age, a period of great prosperity and cultural development in the 17th Century, was fuelled by global trade and colonial exploitation, which created wealth that masked growing inequalities, a dynamic mirrored in contemporary Dutch society.

Geert Wilders, leader of the far-right Freedom Party and a key figure in the Netherlands’ current coalition government, has weaponised these fractures. His invocation of the term ‘pogrom’ to describe the riots frames Dutch Muslims as an existential threat to democracy and echoes the exclusionary rhetoric of Reformation-era Calvinists, who sought to marginalise Catholics and Anabaptists. Wilders’ comments are part of a broad trend of using historical trauma, selectively remembered, to justify contemporary exclusion.

This rhetoric finds a grim counterpart in Heinrich Heine’s observation in Religion and Philosophy in Germany (1835): “Where they burn books, they will also burn people.” The symbolic erasure of Palestinian flags in Amsterdam reflects the erasure of Palestinian identity on a global scale. At the same time, the political demonisation of Dutch Muslims recalls the Reformation’s scapegoating of religious minorities.

The tensions of the Reformation revolved around the question of who belonged within society’s moral and social fabric, a question that echoes in contemporary debates over immigration and integration. The persistent framing of Dutch citizens of Moroccan and North African descent as perpetual outsiders resembles the struggles of Anabaptists and Catholics, who were deemed incompatible with the emerging Protestant-led order. This comparison underscores the urgent need for moral introspection in our current societal context.

…the media and political apparatus have prioritised the narrative of Israeli victimhood, echoing the broader Western reluctance to hold Israel accountable for its role in the Gaza genocide.

Geert Wilders and his coalition ally Caroline van der Plas have targeted young people of Moroccan or North African descent, calling for the deportation of dual nationals accused of anti-Semitism. The BBC reported that Nadia Bouras, a Dutch historian of Moroccan descent, told Amsterdam’s Het Parool newspaper that using the term ‘integration’ for people who had already lived in the Netherlands for four generations was like ‘holding them hostage.’

The shadow of Gaza and its global spillover

The violence in Amsterdam cannot be disentangled from the Gaza genocide. Israel’s actions have drawn widespread condemnation yet continue with impunity. The riots are a microcosm of the global spillover of colonial violence, where the dispossession of Palestinians reverberates in cities far removed from the site of genocide. This ‘global spillover’ refers to the way in which the consequences of the Gaza genocide and the displacement and suffering of Palestinians are felt and reacted to in other parts of the world, often mediated through the bodies of its diaspora. In Amsterdam, the act of tearing down a Palestinian flag becomes emblematic of a larger struggle over narrative control and historical erasure.

Dutch society, much like 16th-Century Europe, finds itself at a crossroads. Just as the Reformation fractured Christendom and led to the Thirty Yearss War, the polarisation evident in Amsterdam threatens to deepen societal divisions. The Netherlands’ ‘Netherlands’ coalition government, led by Wilders and his far-right allies, exemplifies the dangers of exclusionary politics, where marginalised communities are scapegoated for systemic failures.

Imperatives of moral imagination

The media’s failure to critically engage with these events mirrors the moral blindness captured in Pieter Bruegel the Elder’s The Blind Leading the Blind (1568). Bruegel’s painting, depicting a procession of blind men stumbling into a ditch, is an allegory for societal ignorance. Much as their shared vulnerability tethers the blind in Bruegel’s work, contemporary Dutch society is bound by its inability to confront its colonial past and present inequities.

Erasmus, whose humanist writings challenged the dogmatism of his age, emphasised the need for moral introspection. His call for self-awareness resonates with today’s need for a more nuanced engagement with issues of justice and identity. Spinoza, a 17th-Century Dutch philosopher excommunicated for his radical ideas, argued for the importance of reason and empathy in understanding the human condition. His writings remind us of the potential for societal transformation through intellectual and moral courage.

Goya’s The Third of May 1808 and Bruegel’s The Blind Leading the Blind both underscore the importance of confronting power structures and their dehumanising effect. These artistic works, like the ICC’s actions in The Hague, attempt to shed light on uncomfortable truths, urging us to reckon with the moral costs of our actions — or inaction.

The fragility of Dutch civic discourse

The riots in Amsterdam expose the fragility of Dutch civic discourse, where deep-seated divisions over migration and identity remain unresolved. Wilders’ coalition government, the most right-wing in Dutch history, has exacerbated these tensions by normalising exclusionary rhetoric. Much as the Reformation-era Netherlands wrestled with competing visions of religious and political order, today’s society struggles to reconcile its multicultural reality with a growing nationalist backlash.

During the Reformation (16th–17th Centuries), the Netherlands became a battleground of religious division, as Protestantism challenged the Catholic Church’s dominance. This period saw the fracturing of societal norms, with individuals and groups polarised by competing ideologies. Similarly, today’s Netherlands grapples with polarisation, not over religion but over multiculturalism and migration. Right-wing rhetoric, represented by people like Geert Wilders, echoes the exclusionary tactics of Reformation-era Calvinists, who sought to define society along rigid, divisive lines.

Goya’s The Third of May 1808 and Bruegel’s The Blind Leading the Blind underscore the importance of confronting power structures and their dehumanising effects. These artistic works, like the ICC’s actions in The Hague, attempt to shed light on uncomfortable truths, urging us to reckon with the moral costs of our actions — or inaction.

The Netherlands eventually became a symbol of tolerance during the Dutch Golden Age, embracing religious and cultural diversity for economic and political stability. This tolerance often masked contradictions, as the prosperity of the era relied heavily on colonial exploitation and the exclusion of marginalised groups. Similarly, modern Dutch society, celebrated for its liberalism, faces scrutiny for failing to address systemic inequalities, particularly for immigrants and minority communities. The enduring narrative of tolerance often conflicts with the reality of exclusion, mirroring the selective inclusivity of the Reformation era.

These schallenges are common in the Netherlands. Across Europe, the resurgence of right-wing populism reflects a broader failure to address the legacies of colonialism and the inequities of globalisation. The ICC’s ruling and Amsterdam’s unrest are not isolated incidents but part of a larger narrative of global polarisation and the erosion of democratic norms.

Learning from

the parable

The incidents at The Hague and Amsterdam demand more than superficial analysis. They require journalism that prioritises truth over expedience and governance that embraces inclusion over division. The media’s role is not merely to report events but also to contextualise those, amplifying marginalised voices and challenging entrenched power structures.

The Netherlands must confront its historical and structural inequities. This includes addressing the systemic racism that perpetuates the exclusion of immigrant communities and reimagining Dutch identity as inherently pluralistic. The lessons of the Reformation, its upheavals and eventual reconciliation, offer a roadmap for navigating these challenges.

As Bruegel’s blind men stumble towards disaster, they remind us of the dangers of ignorance and complicity. While seemingly disparate, the events in The Hague and Amsterdam are linked by their reflection of a world struggling with justice, power and accountability. To avoid the pitfalls of Bruegel’s parable, we must embrace a more nuanced understanding of the forces shaping our societies.

This requires a media landscape that illuminates rather than obscures; a governance that fosters unity rather than division; and a collective willingness to confront uncomfortable truths. Only then can we navigate the moral and civic challenges of our times, charting a more just and equitable future.

Narendra Pachkhédé is a critic, essayist and writer. He splits his time between Toronto, London and Geneva.