A Bit More Detail

• Charlie Stross mourns fellow and recently passed Scottish writer Iain (M.) Banks.


• Crooked Timber, Lawyers, Guns and Money, and New APPS all take a look at the disgusting self-justifying behaviour of philosopher Colin McGinn towards a female grad student of his.


• Daniel Drezner wonders about the extent to which ideology will become important in upcoming seasons of Game of Thrones.


• Language Hat wonders if Dutch spelling reforms have cut off contemporary speakers of Dutch from easy access to Dutch literature predating the mid-19th century.


• Marginal Revolution wonders if European Union Internet privacy and security regulations will make things worse for American firms.


• Personal Reflections' Jim Belshaw writes about the continuing mystique of the monarchy in Australia.


• Registan's Reid Standish talks about the marginal improvements in law and order in Kyrgyzstan.


• Strange Maps' Frank Jacobs talks about the recent map reimagining the countries of the world on a reunified Pangaea as a rhetorical ploy.


• Understanding Society's Daniel Little charts the ways in which life for Chinese has improved over the past four decades, asnd the ways in which things are still lacking.


• Window on Eurasia quotes from alarmists worrying about the "de-Russification" of Tatarstan, demographically and otherwise.

nwhyte

People actually start to speak another language the moment you cross this invisible boundary. They don’t do so gradually, like in many other European border regions, but abruptly. One farmer talks to me in Flemish; his neighbour a football field away speaks French. It’s an almost schizophrenic experience as I cross the border for what could be the twentieth time today.

But despite the contrast this is not Yugoslavia. “It’s the politicians”, most people tell me, “they’re the ones who don’t get along.” I can’t help but feel a bit disappointed. I didn’t expect to find a bullet-ridden war zone, but at least a strong opinion, some inciting graffiti, or maybe even a bar brawl. Nothing of the sort. But, the real hotbeds still lie ahead.

[. . .]

One is the municipality of Sint-Genesius-Rode, just south of Brussels. It is historically and officially Flemish, but has grown overwhelmingly Francophone—or non-Dutch-speaking, since it has been discovered by the city’s many diplomats and European Union officials. It is green, safe, and prosperous. Geographically, it borders Brussels in the north—officially bilingual but a de facto Francophone enclave within Flanders—and Wallonia in the south. Francophone politicians, therefore, have had their eyes on it for years, much to the chagrin of the Flemish.

I strike an odd note among the pretty girls in shiny cabriolets, driving to and from the tennis court. One of them points me towards the small city centre, trying her utmost to answer in Dutch. “Bonjour, goeiedag”, is how the people here greet me, which I take to mean as much as “I come in peace”, the salaam aleikum of bigger Brussels. “Goeiedag, bonjour”, seems to be the appropriate reply, aleikum salaam.

One window across the street from the village church announces this year’s “Gordel”, an annual bicycle ride around the Brussels periphery, for the Flemish by the Flemish, to show the world that the land is still theirs. Francophone residents traditionally show their appreciation by changing road signs and throwing nails on bike paths the night before.

The signposts at the local cultural centre have been vandalised. French translations are covered in blue paint. A passing woman isn’t surprised. “Tensions are rising”, she says. Born and bred in Rode, as the Flemish like to call it, she was forced to move because house prices have soared. Her parents still live here, she still comes to visit.

“All the children used to be Flemish”, she tells me, when she was a teacher at the local elementary school where she worked for more than twenty years. “Today, more than half are French-speaking. And their parents don’t even bother to speak Flemish in school.” Rode is lost forever, she regrets, there’s nothing to be done. “But”, she says, “not everyone agrees.” She happens to know a few members of the Taal Aktie Komitee, a militant group for the preservation of the Dutch language. “They’re not planning a second Yugoslavia or anything”, she says, “but if Rode is ever given away, things will get ugly.”

[T]here surely is no one who loves Dutch Americana more than Charles T. Gehring.

How else to describe a man who has spent the past 35 years painstakingly translating 17th-century records that provide groundbreaking insight and renewed appreciation for New Netherland, the colony whose embrace of tolerance and passion for commerce sowed the seeds for New York’s ascendance as one of the world’s great cities.

Toiling from a cramped office in the New York State Library here, Mr. Gehring, as much as anyone, has shed light on New York’s long-neglected Dutch roots, which have been celebrated this year, the 400th anniversary of Henry Hudson’s exploration of the river that bears his name.

Mr. Gehring, by the way, only has about 4,800 pages left of the 12,000 pages of Dutch-era letters, deeds, court rulings, journal entries and other items that have been housed at the State Library for decades. They paint a rich picture of daily life in the colony, which the Dutch surrendered for good in the 1670s.

“Most historians don’t think much of the Dutch; they minimalize the Dutch influence and try to get out of that period as quickly as possible to get into English stuff,” Mr. Gehring said, explaining why he has spent half of his 70 years mining Dutch colonial history. “What you find out is how deeply the Dutch cast roots here and how much of their culture they transmitted to this country.”

Mr. Gehring, whose official title is director of the New Netherland Project, looks as if he has not trimmed his sideburns since he started translating the records in 1974, and he seems like the kind of mirthful man who would make a good Sinterklaas — the Dutch forefather of Santa Claus.

Mr. Gehring’s translations served as raw material for Russell Shorto’s critically acclaimed 2005 book about Manhattan, “The Island at the Center of the World.” The Netherlands of the 17th century, Mr. Shorto said in an interview, was “the melting pot of Europe.”

“It was a place that people fled to in the great age of religious warfare; it was a refuge,” he added. “At the same time, they were known for free trade; they developed a stock market — and those things, free trade and tolerance, are key ingredients of New York City.” Mr. Gehring’s translation work, Mr. Shorto writes in his book, “changes the picture of American beginnings.”

Walk into a government office here and you will be greeted in Dutch, the official language. But in a reflection of the astonishing diversity of this South American nation, Surinamese speak more than 10 other languages, including variants of Chinese, Hindi, Javanese and half a dozen original Creoles.

Making matters more complex, English is also beamed into homes on television and Portuguese is the fastest-growing language since an influx of immigrants from Brazil in recent years. And one language stands above all others as the lingua franca: Sranan Tongo (literally Suriname tongue), a resilient Creole developed by African slaves in the 17th century.

So which language should Suriname’s 470,000 people speak? Therein lies a quandary for this country, which is still fiercely debating its national identity after just three decades of independence from the Netherlands.

“We shook off the chains of Dutch colonialism in the 1970s, but our consciousness remains colonized by the Dutch language,” said Paul Middellijn, 58, a writer who composes poetry in Sranan Tongo.

Nevertheless, Mr. Middellijn said English should be declared Suriname’s national language, a position shared by many Surinamese who want stronger links to the Caribbean and North America. “Sranan will survive because nothing can replace it as the language of the street,” he said.