I was watching World Idol and notice that the South African Idol -- a Boer -- did average to good everywhere except the Netherlands, where he was near the bottom? Did the Dutch punish him because they were ashamed that their Boer cousins created apartheid?
Although my Dutch immigrant ancestors were generally not overtly intolerant especially with very outside groups they could be very hard onthemselves, and expect a lot from themselves and fellow Dutch, and would be more reluctant to intermarry. Even in Pella IA in the middle of the last century there was little mixing of the Protestants and the Catholics. This from a teacher who came from outside the area.
I thought the Dutch had to be tough to keep the land from the sea and live at an important crossroads in Europe. My great grandfather considered himself Flemish born about 10 miles inside the Belgian border and he married a "Dutch" woman in Iowa who was born 10 miles the other side of the Zeeland Border. Both were Catholic but the match was not considered comfortable for the Dutch woman's family.
There was a formal reunion of us with the estranged family just a few years ago. Nobody remembered exactly why we were supposed to keep a distance but I knew it from what my Dad said from the time I was little.
My one aunt thought that my Norwegian grandmother made our lives easier than if we had remained all "Dutch". She said The Dutch work incredibly hard but the Norwegians work smart so they don't have to work so hard.
Thx for asking a burning question...of course the funny part is how the American and Brit LOST and some gap-toothed Norwegian who did an impression of Bono won...
People of the older generation were raised on "Pieter Marits" and considered the Boers heroes for standing up to the English.
Apartheid came much later after the circumstances in the country had changed. While some proponents of apartheid may have been biological descendants of Boers, they were not philosphically speaking.
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