Hi Marley,

- Firstly, I read this and learned again:

https://medium.com/an-injustice/why-anti-racism-doesnt-work-in-rural-towns-e681e06705a4

-Secondly, because the matter is so complicated I limited myself to a few examples of similarities between your culture and mine (in both cases it is not exactly our culture but the culture we live in).

-Thirdly, there are many similarities between our countries in the attitude towards the bad sides of our history and coming to terms with the dire effects on the present situation. Not only our countries. All colonialist (and yes, mostly white) and/or warfaring countries struggle with their guesome past. The standard reflex is denial, falsification of history, downplaying, postponing reparations, digging in against criticism. It took 70 years to apologize to the Jewish population for the cooperation with the Germans in the Holocaust and the actions of both citizens and the state after the war. It took 70 years to apologize to the Indonesian people for the atrocities in the Military Expeditions after 1945.

- I fear many Dutch do not love their history. They prefer to forget it as long it doesn't fit patriotic frames.