In 2006 a committee led by Dutch scholar Frits van Oostrom presented the canon of Dutch history. Fifty "windows" everyone should know about our history. Now, seven years later, historian Chris van der Heijden believes that this canon is far too positive. In response, he recently wrote 'The black canon.'
The lines between right and wrong in history are always shadowy. History is subjective and by definition an interpretation of the historian. The past is not black and white but a gray mass; it is a succession of beautiful and less beautiful moments. The historian's task is not to judge, but to present a balanced picture of this past. In short, that is what Chris van der Heijden's work is always about.
Based on this reasoning, Van der Heijden does not agree with the way in which the canon of Dutch history was drawn up seven years ago. Of the fifty windows in the canon, only two are markedly negative – slavery and Srebrenica. That is logical, if the government subsidizes a canon with the explicit aim of making the Dutch feel positive about their country again.
But first, Van der Heijden explains that every national historiography again and again "tends to take its own as a starting point and to place it in a favorable light." Spain, France, England, the US. Everywhere there is a struggle with the less beautiful sides of history.
And everywhere national governments, as well as public opinion, are doing their best to brush away the dark sides of the past and highlight the beautiful sides. Not illogical either, that's just how human inclination works. Certainly in times when nationalism is rampant, such as the nineteenth century and the first three quarters of the twentieth century.
According to van der Heijde, the canon of Dutch history stems from this kind of, fortunately largely outdated thinking. And in that case, it's actually a step back. ‘A step that should not have been taken.’ So time for a black canon, which, in response to all the sweetness, now describes the sour.
Van der Heijden places less attractive passages from history in the black canon; inevitably slavery, the execution of Johan van Oldenbarnevelt, child labor (not only resistance to child labour, as the 'white' canon does) collaboration with the persecution of the Jews. Things that everyone knows, but which the canon pays (too) little attention to.
Is that needed? From a theoretical point of view, Van der Heijden is right. To name only the good in history is unbalanced. The Dutch past does not only consist of highlights. No sour, no sweet, all true. But after countless TV series about slavery and the war, everyone knows that by now. Van der Heijden's work is above all a typical outgrowth of the Dutch numeral culture. We Dutch have to be modest. We don't do big monuments, pride or even big thinking here.
The canon is now seven years old and is hardly used in Dutch history education. The question is therefore what is the purpose of reviving the discussion about our national collective sense of guilt. Honest historiography? Still? After all the commemorations, debates and TV series? Perhaps this plea should have been made a little earlier.