Agreed. I've learned a lot about Europe and The Netherlands after moving abroad. Though Canada has its own dark past and problems with racism, it was interesting to see things from a different perspective. I even learned Canada fought the Dutch in the Boer wars in South Africa (from the exhibits in the Ottawa war museum) while South Africa was never mentioned in the history lessons I got in the Netherlands. I learned a lot more about European and Dutch history while flying around the world in FS2020, looking up local memorials and struggles all over the world, than I ever learned in school.

This morning I read this
“Dutch Racism is not Like Anywhere Else”: Refusing Color-Blind Myths in Black Feminist Otherwise Spaces
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/08912432221075098
It's so full of truth and is a lot like "Stamped from the beginning" while also very different and even more ingrained / systemic.

Nexit surprises me. Although there were already plenty people blaming the rise of prices on the transition to the Euro, as well as blaming Southern European countries for not pulling their weight...

This explains it more. For context I left the Netherlands a few months after the assassination of Pim Fortyun and have been watching things only get worse and worse from a distance.

https://www.ft.com/content/cb03d60d-1175-36fb-a277-1b13fd0ed311

The Netherlands was one of the EU’s six founder-members in the 1950s, and one of the eurozone’s founder-members in 1999, but Dutch society’s support for ever-deepening European unity started to fracture 15 to 20 years ago. One reason was the feeling that this most prosperous of European nations was paying too much into the EU and not getting enough back – a sentiment intensified by the accession of less well-off former communist countries in central and Eastern Europe from 2004 on.

But the deeper cause of Dutch disillusion is bound up with the transformation of society that came with mass immigration from Morocco, Turkey and other countries with no connection to the era of Dutch imperialism. Small, flat and ultra-urban, the Netherlands is one of the world’s most densely populated nations. So many native Dutch people started to feel “strangers in their homeland” that mainstream politicians felt compelled, despite the grand traditions of Dutch tolerance and liberalism, to declare in 2004 that “multi-culturalism” had been a failure. The murder in that year of Theo van Gogh, a controversial film-maker, by a Dutch-Moroccan immigrant paved the way for Wilders to capitalise on anti-Islamic attitudes already encouraged by Pim Fortuyn – a populist politician assassinated in 2002.

And yes, it's always been the go to in The Netherlands to point the finger at the US for being racist while refusing to look in the mirror. And there was always this 'moral superiority feeling' in The Netherlands compared to other European countries already. Sarajevo / Dutchbat put a bit of a damper on that but of course largely deflected onto the UN.
https://balkaninsight.com/2019/08/08/it-was-hell-dutch-troops-recall-failure-to-stop-srebrenica-deaths/
No wonder NATO is hesitant to put boots on the ground in Ukraine. They couldn't even stop genocide in central Europe.


Racism is a world wide issue and so easily used to get people to rally behind wars and oppression. Are there any non racist countries?
According to this The Netherlands and Canada are the least racist countries in the world...
https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/least-racist-countries
If that's the best, ugh, I'm not seeing it. Surveys aren't a good measure anyway, words don't mean much and the biggest problem with racism in The Netherlands is its self delusional color blindness. With Geert Wilders, that, which was always there, is at least getting out in the open. You can't address a problem until you allow yourself to see the problem.


Sorry for the sidetrack. Really hope Ukraine can get back to normal. Just pisses me off the main driving force to 'help' Ukraine seems to be not wanting more immigrants / refugees. Hence being fine with extending the status quo instead of making it possible to end this conflict.

Today marks Day 645 of this war.

Bit more.

Insane country, there is no hope left for Russia.

Sorry, but you guys have a different definition of racist then. I'm not going to debate this.

Anyway it's simple. People didn't vote for Wilders because of his stance on islam. The government messed up. All the 'traditional parties' did. Badly. Lies, deceit, failures, petty infighting, mud-slinging and backstabbing, blaming everything and everyone except themselves, meddling, coming up with stupid or useless policies (or both), shoving stuff down people's throats, not treating everyone equally... The list goes on and on. People stopped trusting the government is actually 'there' for their interests and does something to help with their problems and situations. Or is actually there for the country itself instead of for themselves. They don't listen, they have no idea, absolutely no idea, what's going on with average people. They've brought this result unto themselves. People have no faith in government anymore, and they don't trust politicians. To many, the government and a lot of politicians have become an 'enemy' to their continued welfare. This is the same reason as last year when everyone voted for the farmer's party in the 'Provincial States' election (which is for the regional government in each province, who will in turn nominate members for the First Chamber (more or less equivalent to the US's Senate)), just to make sure the cabinet can't continue with their policies. People are just really, really fed up, and 'done'. That's why they massively voted Wilders now, just to get someone else in there finally. New parties, new government. Governments in other European countries be warned.

I didn't vote PVV myself by the way.

Oh look, another delay, how fucking predictable.

Ukraine equipment delay #2000. West is seriously slow as fuck.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov seemed to make an implied threat against Moldova amid his country's ongoing war against Ukraine, which the Kremlin continues to claim was perpetrated by the West.

Lavrov said on Thursday that Moldova, an Eastern European country and former Soviet republic, is putting itself in harm's way in its desire to join the European Union. He made the remarks during a ministerial conference held by the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), the world's largest regional security organization.

Russia Issues Ominous Warning About 'Next Victim'

Sorry, putting full effort in to help Ukraine stop Russia at Ukraine is mildly uncomfortable for us. I've no doubt Moldova will be next and Georgia if Russia succeeds at Ukraine. Russia is a modern day Nazi Germany who doesn't even hide the fact they want to invade more countries. "Never Again" doesn't mean shit if we don't take our fingers out of our asses and get serious about supporting Ukraine to stop Russia now.

Ukrainian intelligence was behind the explosion of a freight train in Russia’s Far East, according to an official familiar with the operation, an attack that would extend the agency’s reach deep into Siberia.

Ukraine Behind Rail Explosion in Russian Far East, Official Says - Bloomberg

ISTANBUL—The Biden administration’s sanctions chief warned Turkish officials that the country is fueling violence across two continents by serving as a financing haven for Hamas and a trade hub for Russia’s war machine.

Despite U.S. sanctions targeting Hamas financiers over the past decade, Turkey has allowed the group’s investment firms, holding companies, real-estate brokerages and a host of other businesses to operate out of Istanbul, U.S. officials say.

On Russia, Turkish companies and individuals risk a battery of sanctions for providing Russia with goods and services prohibited under Western export controls, according to U.S. officials.

"We're committed to [doing] everything we can to cut off all of those things and want to do that in partnership with Turkey, but are prepared to act unilaterally as well," Nelson said.

U.S. officials say Turkish ports are being used to service sanctioned Russian tankers and facilitate arms smuggling, and Russian shell companies and Turkish firms have fueled a sixfold increase in the export of so-called dual-use goods the Kremlin's military needs to prosecute a prolonged war.

Turkey has responded to European threats by cutting off flows of dual-use goods to Russia that run through the country's free-trade zones, U.S. officials say. But shippers have instead fully imported the products as ostensibly Turkish purchases and then re-exported them to Russia.

Turkey is already on a so-called gray list of countries that have lax anti-money-laundering and terrorism finance standards maintained by the global financial watchdog, the Financial Action Task Force.

U.S. Leans on Turkey to Stop Supporting Hamas and Russia - WSJ

Interesting weblink, an scary Australia is 10th lol.

However this may explain some of the results from the website:

The Challenge of Measuring Racism

Measuring the racial tolerance of a country is difficult to do accurately. Racism is not a simple number, such as population or average income. Racism has many forms, and it is entirely possible for a person, social group, culture, or country to be at peace with one race or situation, but completely intolerant of another. For example, a caucasian person who has no problem living next to an Asian neighbor could have major objections to a black person marrying into their family. Moreover, because most survey respondents are generally aware that racism is not particularly admired in today's society, the truthfulness and honesty of survey responses can be difficult to verify. As a result of these complications, researchers typically rely upon surveys to collect information about the public consciousness. They then combine multiple questions, surveys, or studies to determine a country's true level of racial tolerance.

The World Values Survey is an international research program that studies "social, political, economic, religious and cultural values" including racial tolerance and racism. The WVS survey asks respondents from more than 80 countries dozens of questions, including one that asked respondents to identify types of people they would not want as neighbors. The more people of a particular country responded that they would be happy to have a neighbor of a different race, the more racially tolerant the respondents' country would be considered. The annual Best Countries report, a joint effort of U.S. News and World Report, the BAV Group, and the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, added specific questions about racial tolerance for its 2021 report, which surveyed more than 17,000 people across 78 countries.

"Rheinmetall wants to build the first tank in Ukraine as early as 2024. First up are the wheel-driven Fuchs and the Lynx."

-

"He talks about defense, about the need for Ukraine to prepare. Because, I believe, he understands much better than those experts who suggest surrendering already, that the Western military industrial complex needs three to six months to scale up to greater capacities than they currently have," explained Musienko.

NATO Secretary General Urges Ukraine to Prepare for Defence

Give the Kremlin an Inch and it Will Take Half of Europe - CEPA

The West is supplying Ukraine with too few weapons, while Russia always manages to adapt to changing conditions on the battlefield, warns Colonel Reisner of the Austrian army. He calls for a tough decision from Europe.

Ukraine is about to lose the war if the West does not provide Ukraine with the necessary support. This is a war of attrition - and it will be decided primarily by resources, not morality.

Reisner: Europe does not seem to have realised the seriousness of the situation. Why? Because that would have to be connected with actually significant war economic efforts. NATO itself says: the barrel is slowly empty, that's all we have. Ramping up production capacity takes years, not months.

War in Ukraine: "This Wretched Purgatory Brings No Result" | Tagesschau.de