Tijdschrift voor Geschiedenis - Volume 134, Issue 3, 2021

Faithful to Foreign Affairs. Margaret van Kleffens, Anne van Roijen, the Embassy in Washington, and the Significance of the Diplomatic Partnership for Post-War Dutch Foreign Relations

This article argues that more attention for the role of diplomats’ partners, who in the studied period were almost exclusively female, offers new insights into the daily practices of Dutch twentieth-century diplomacy. It begins with a short overview of research on diplomats’ wives from other countries. The authors then examine the state of our knowledge about Dutch diplomats’ wives, discussing why there is so little attention for this subject in the Netherlands. Finally, a case study highlights the activities of the wives of two central figures in Dutch diplomacy at the Washington embassy in 1947-1964: Margaret van Kleffens-Horstmann and Anne van Roijen-Snouck Hurgronje. The study shows that daily diplomatic work was in practice a job for two people, with tasks divided along gendered lines. Wives made women’s networks available to male diplomats and did representative, social, and informal work that was considered crucial to diplomatic success.

Conscientious objectors under fire. Vaccine refusal among orthodox-Protestant soldiers in the Dutch Armed Forces, 1945-1950

During the Indonesian War of Independence (1945-1949), the Dutch government deployed 220,000 soldiers in the Indonesian archipelago. Among them was a group of conservative Christian soldiers who refused vaccinations against smallpox for religious reasons. Initially this caused no problems, but the situation changed after the outbreak of a smallpox epidemic in Indonesia in 1948. The non-vaccinated soldiers could not return to the Netherlands due to international restrictions. Although compulsory vaccination was abolished in 1939, some soldiers were forced to accept vaccination. In the Netherlands, representatives of the Reformed Political Party (SGP) and the conservative churches accused the Army of illegal actions. The central question in the debate was the space for religious minorities and divergent views on vaccination in the Dutch Armed Forces. This article studies the process of negotiation between the Dutch Armed Forces and the political and ecclesiastical representatives of this conservative religious group. Finally, this article argues for more research into religious diversity in the Dutch Armed Forces.

Elephantine. On Judeans in fifth century bce Southern Egypt

In the fifth century bce a group of Judaeans lived as mercenaries in the Persian army on and around the island of Elephantine, as guardians of the southern border of the Persian empire and to shield the Persian trade interests. Documents show that these Judaeans had their own form of Yahwism. For almost 100 years they lived in peaceful coexistence with the Persian administration, the local Egyptian population, and with a dozen other ethnic groups settled on the island. From around 425 this pax persica was disrupted by local discords and the destruction by the priests of Khnum of vital elements of the Persian administration as well as the temple of Yahô. This contribution argues that the increasing urge of Egypt to abandon the Persian yoke and the influx of an extra group of Judeans – with a different form of Yahwism – around 420 created increasing tension between the different groups leading to the breakup of the peaceful cohabitation.

The ‘polder model’ strategy of the nature conservation movement in the Netherlands, 1930-1960

This article analyses the strategies applied by the early nature conservation movement in the Netherlands to exert influence at the political level. Before the 1970s, conservationist civil society organisations preferred informal deals, advisory committees, and negotiated agreements with government departments and state agencies. It is argued that the balance between urging for formal legislation, on the one hand, and agreeing to informal deals, on the other, conformed to specifically Dutch forms of governance known as the ‘polder model’. The nature conservation movement was indeed successful in the period 1930-1960 to secure a place for itself in policy negotiations regarding nature and landscape. The strategy of informal deals and policy consultations was not interrupted by the German occupation during the Second World War, but conservationists discovered its limitations in the 1950s: without formal legislation, they did not have enough leverage in negotiations with other stakeholders.

The development of political citizenship in the Dutch East-Indies in the nineteenth century

This article aims to analyze the political inequality between Dutch subjects in the Dutch East-Indies and the Netherlands based on developments in nineteenth century national citizenship debates and legislation. It argues that the juridization of the idea of political citizenship by J.R. Thorbecke in the 1840s and 1850s, led to the exclusion of the indigenous colonial population on the basis of descent (ius sanguinis). A close inspection of this principle shows how it was legitimized and implemented for the colonial territories on the basis of a ‘Dutch and European civilization criterion’ under which a series of other criteria – such as religion, skin color, education – could be used for political, cultural and economic exclusion. The ‘colonial differences’ that were gradually enshrined in legislation surrounding political citizenship in the nineteenth century would create a new layer of colonial hierarchy in the Dutch East-Indies.