Double loyalty

Well Mr. Hiddink, I think it's time for you to hand in your Dutch passport. After the victory of 'your' Russian team last night, it now is time to show where your loyalty stays....with Russia or with your home country!

Strange, I haven't heard anyone saying this. And this whereas not so long ago the debate on whether immigrants should be loyal to one country only dominated the political debate for a long time. Many politicians said that immigrants should hand in the passport of their home country, if they wanted to stay in the Netherlands.

Apparently such policy would not apply for emigrants. Would native Dutch people be able to share their loyalty? In case of Guus Hiddink (whom is the coach of the Russian national football team), this doesn't seem to be important.

To me this discussion is just a sign of a lack of self-confidence. If a government would need to demand loyalty from its citizens, then something is wrong with the country. What would be the next step after handing in your second passport? Would school children need to sing the national anthem in their classes each day? It all makes me think of non-democratic societies, where self-determination slowly becomes inferior to the needs of the nation. These nervous attempts seem to derive from an ignorance that young people increasingly feel that their identities are constructed from European or global symbols. And this development is not something of the past years, globalization simply has led to a redefinition of identities.

I haven't seen as much patriotism in the Netherlands as during the past weeks. During hopeless attempts to win the European Football championship many streets were coloured orange and red/white/blue, our national colours. Something seemed to unite citizens. Next to our national colours the Turkish national colour (red) is still very visible, as Turkey is still in the run to win the Championship. Maybe it makes some of our politicians happy that many Turks have two flags hanging out of their window: the Turkish flag and the Dutch flag. Now that is what I call shared loyalty!

So when I'll visit Istanbul next week and shall try to learn the Turkish anthem by heart, and sing for my fellow-citizens with the red flags!