Dutch turn to Bible Belt in search of security
Pastor Dale Morgan
Monday March 12, 3:19 PM Reuters
*Dutch turn to Bible Belt in search of security*
By Alexandra Hudson
STAPHORST, Netherlands (Reuters) - Just 90 minutes' drive from Amsterdam
and its temptations is a village so devout that swearing is banned,
women refuse to wear trousers and the bank machine does not dispense
cash on a Sunday.
The Netherlands, best known abroad for its liberal policies on sex,
drugs and homosexuality, is also home to a Protestant "Bible Belt"
mapped out by villages such as Staphorst.
Now a small political party long associated with the Bible Belt, the
Christen Unie (United Christians or CU), is benefiting from a surge of
support outside its rural heartland triggered by nostalgia for a more
moral, compassionate society.
After almost doubling its vote in last November' general election to 4
percent, the CU has become the kingmaker in the Netherlands' new
centrist coalition government, a feat unthinkable at the time of the
previous election in 2003.
"Society has opted for more traditional values, for principles such as
security and community feeling," said Gerard Vroegindeweij, a political
correspondent with the Reformatorisch Dagblad, a Protestant newspaper.
"There is a sense that these values continued to flourish in the
countryside whereas they vanished in the city."
AUSTERE
In Staphorst, where the council is dominated by the CU and an even more
orthodox Protestant party, the SGP, the well-kept thatched houses,
bright-green doors, and austere mood are seen as the epitome of a rural
Dutch settlement.
It is a world away from big cities like Amsterdam or Rotterdam, where
social and racial tensions simmer.
"People gave me funny looks when I first said I was moving to Staphorst
-- as an outsider you probably think that time has stood still here,"
said Eelke Lap, a local undertaker who brought his family to the village
seven years ago.
"Certainly the social control in a village is much more than in the
cities. I know my neighbours and they know me, but I have to say these
are perfect people here."
Lap says he has been to Amsterdam just twice in his life, and the
Netherlands' permissive policies on drugs, prostitution and euthanasia
make him feel ashamed.
LIBERAL SUSPICION
The rise of the CU, led by fresh-faced father-of-five Andre Rouvoet -- a
model of integrity to some voters -- has alarmed some of those who
support the more liberal Dutch values.
"The farmers have seized the power," a columnist wrote in the national
daily NRC Handelsblad.
"The Netherlands has opted for nostalgia for the past ... for
small-minded bourgeois suspicion, and national pride," he added.
Last November's election -- which has only just yielded a new government
after weeks of coalition talks -- saw a surge in support for the far
left and the far right, as well as for the CU at the expense of the
familiar centrist parties.
"Our base has always traditionally been in the Bible Belt, but recently
it has broadened and we are gaining in the big cities and the Catholic
south," said CU Director Henk van Rhee.
The Protestant faith in the Netherlands is fragmented. Besides the
traditional Protestant church, there is also a strict Reformed
Protestant Church, formed in the 19th century, and a growing evangelical
movement.
According to official figures 41 percent of Dutch have no religion, 30
percent are Catholic, 12 percent Protestant, 6 percent Reformed
Protestant and 6 percent are Muslim.
ORTHODOX, BUT DIVERSE
CU Communications Manager Shahied Badoella, a Christian convert of
Surinamese Indian origin, says he is the product of a new diversity in
the party, driven by new arrivals from Africa and former Dutch
South-American colony Suriname.
"The traditional image of us no longer applies. We are a fresh, modern,
realistic, though orthodox Christian party."
Having courted the Christian immigrant vote, the CU also has more
unexpected sources of potential support.
"There is a huge potential electorate there for them," said Andre
Krouwel, a political scientist at Amsterdam's Free University.
A survey he carried out matching people's political beliefs to the most
appropriate party indicated many voters might find the CU's social
conservatism a natural fit.
If the party shed some policies such as opposition to gay marriage, it
could easily double its representation, taking seats from Labour and the
Christian Democrats, he said.
"Permissive society is over. Now you have a new generation concerned
about what was lost during that age," he added.
Not all the party's new supporters will find common ground.
"There are those who think that the CU should carry on doing what they
have always done up to now -- bearing witness to the word of God in
parliament," said Vroegindeweij.