SENTENCING THE ELDERLY – AN ACT OF MERCY OR DISCRIMINATION? S v Phillips (unreported, DCLD), case no CC141/08

In 2008, the authors’ note on advanced age as a mitigating factor in the South African criminal courts set out the Roman-Dutch history and the South African case law with regard to this issue. Brief reference was made to the position of the elderly offender in the Zimbabwean, English and Australian jurisdictions. The aim of this note is not to repeat what was said before, but to provide a wider perspective on the pertinent issues relating to sentencing the elderly (a contested term, but for present purposes referring to offenders over the age of 60), especially the concept of mercy. It should be reiterated that old age does not exclude criminal liability, but it can serve as one of many mitigating factors during sentencing although it is not a bar to imprisonment. The case of S v Phillips is no exception. The structure of this note is the following: it commences with a discussion of the Phillips judgment and to place it within a general problematic sentencing framework vis-a-vis the elderly. The concept of mercy is then examined in light of recent Commonwealth jurisprudence; whereafter parallels are drawn between the sentencing of a battered wife and the sentencing of a battered geriatric. The note concludes with a brief mention of the post-sentencing options available to an offender in the form of mercy and as well as parole.

Floods as shapers of Dutch cultural identity: media, theories and practices

This article offers a theoretical framework which can be used to study processes of national identity formation through the lens of nature-induced disasters, such as floods. Firstly, it discusses the current state of affairs in historical disaster studies and shows how this field may be enriched by adapting the concept of the ‘imagined community’ developed in nationalism studies. It furthermore combines insights and concepts from literary studies, cultural studies and memory studies. Secondly, it applies this framework to Dutch history, by discussing the role of flood narratives in shaping a national identity. Studying the Dutch representations of flood disasters illustrates how the nation’s identity was shaped by the cultural media that communicated these events. They made use of a recurrent set of tropes, which linked the emergence of national identity to the capacity for coping with floods. This was articulated in a narrative framework, which consisted of standard ingredients, such as the such as the highlighting of horrific events, miraculous rescues, and God’s providence. Furthermore, authors foregrounded the involvement of Dutch kings and queens during flood disasters, and framed of the Dutch as being charitable by nature. The analysis of a wide range of media (stories, poems, treatises) shows how processes of national identity formation were shaped in cultural discourses in the aftermath of disasters, a process that is still going on.

‘Hier woont men in de wereld’

In Dutch history the years between 1945 and 1965 are regarded as the period of post-war recovery and reconstruction (wederopbouw). One of the main issues of this period was the urgent need to house the rapidly rising Dutch population. High-rise dwellings were seen as one of the answers and, according to many, desirable. However, after the war, and even into the early 1960s, the construction of high-rise apartment towers was considered suitable for only a small, relatively well-to-do, part of the Dutch population. It was thought that most people would not be interested in living in tall buildings unless there was an element of luxury in both the buildings and the apartments themselves. Most architects and city planners labelled high-rise as unfit for the working class and for families with children. Consequently, most high-rise construction in the 1950s and early 1960s was aimed at a small group of ‘modern’ people, well-educated and perhaps slightly bohemian. Seven of these buildings are studied in this article. They vary in size, height and architectural appearance, but still form a distinct architectural type. As the article points out, these buildings were, and are to this day, very successful. Their success is analysed through a close reading of the buildings themselves and of their location in the urban context. The success of the luxury apartment building is attributed to the following conditions. The buildings were built for a small group of independently-minded people, keen to live a modern and comfortable life. They were even prepared to pay far more for their apartment than most terraced houses would have cost. Secondly, the developers invested in a wide variety of luxury features such as central heating, elevators, roof terraces, a housekeeper, ‘American’ kitchens, lock-up garages and the like. Thirdly, renowned architects were hired to design these luxury buildings. Since it did not concern social housing, the building budgets were rather generous. The architects could therefore design rather stylish buildings with well thought-out floor plans and airy and spacious rooms. Costly and decorative materials were used lavishly. As these buildings were unique, architects could meet the requirements of the building plot as well as of the intended inhabitants. Furthermore, the buildings were invariably built on highly desirable sites. They either overlook a city park, a large pond or a canal, or are in an already established residential area, but always within easy reach of urban amenities. Unlike a considerable part of the social high-rise buildings in Dutch cities built from the early 1960s onwards, many of the luxury apartment buildings are still considered highly desirable places to live, even sixty years after their construction.

‘Waer vriendenmin gaet, hand aen hand, met liefde voor het Vaderland’ : Het zingen van politieke liederen als verbindende praktijk in het Nederlandse revolutietijdvak (1780-1815)

Singing Politics. Political song and collective singing practices during the Dutch revolutionary period (1780-1815)In the Dutch revolutionary period of the late eighteenth century, song was often used as a political tool to construct communities that shared interests, ideologies, and feelings. Abstract feelings of unity were made concrete through the experience of collective singing. Despite being continuously employed as a unifying practice, the ways of singing and the feelings that were involved nevertheless changed in accordance with the turbulent circumstances of the time ‐ from the emergence of the Patriots, to the Batavian Revolution, throughout the Napoleonic years, and towards the establishment of a Dutch monarchy. This essay goes beyond analysing songs as textual sources and investigates when, where, and by whom these songs were sung. By approaching the collective singing of political communities as emotional practices, we can develop a new perspective on this episode of Dutch history, in which we acknowledge the feelings and experiences of the historical actors that shaped the developments of that time.

Krajobraz w turystyce kulturowej – przykład osadnictwa olęderskiego w Wielkopolsce

The rural cultural landscape is more and more often a target of tourist interest. Not only are material heritage monuments discovered, but other aspects, until recently unknown, as well. These include traces of a former settlement under Olęder law. Vast meadows, canals overgrown with willows and poplars, or lonely farms are often the only traces of the Olęder presence. Together with the rural architecture with its Mennonite-Dutch history, they are the tourist attraction which Żuławy is famous for. Olęder villages in the region of Toruń, Bydgoszcz, Warsaw and Sławatycze are also visited. In Wielkopolska efforts have been made to promote the post-Olęder cultural landscape (over 900 villages) and the vicinity of Nekla and the lonely settlements of the Pyzdry Forest play a special role here. Until recently, the rural parts of these areas were considered unattractive (with the exception of the backwaters of the Nadwarciański Landscape Park) but the discovery of „Olęder history” has given these areas a new, and extremely interesting, meaning.

From Turks and Renegades to Citizens and Radicals : The Historical Trajectories of ‘Good’ and ‘Bad’ Muslims in the Netherlands

In contemporary debates on religion and multiculturalism in the Netherlands, Islam is hypervisible as a ‘problem' originating from outside Europe ‐ the discussion of which draws a clear distinction between the ‘good’ and ‘bad’ Muslims. Yet, at the same time, almost no reference is made to the Dutch history of Islam and Muslims prior to World War II. Based on a study of the literature on the history of Islam and the Netherlands during the 16th and 17th centuries and covering the colonial rule of Indonesia and the rise of Indonesian communities in the Netherlands during the interwar period, I trace how the distinction between ‘good’ and ‘bad’ Muslims resonates throughout Dutch history. I show how the trope of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ Muslims can be found in different, and sometimes contradictory ways and was determined by the local and global interests of the ruling elites and their desire to maintain peace and order to prevent politically dissenting Islamic ideas and transnational movements from influencing local Muslims.

K.H. Miskotte, Bijbels ABC

In the perspective of the forthcoming English translation of K.H. Miskotte’s Biblical ABC’s and therewith its foreseeable renewed appropriation, some aspects of this classical document in the Dutch history of theology deserve reconsideration. These aspects are successively: 1. Its genesis in a course for leaders of biblical reading groups in neighbourhoods all over the city of Amsterdam (1941), of which Miskotte himself afterwards didn’t have a correct recollection; 2. Its background both in the method of the discovery of the Leitwortstil (M. Buber) or the Formgeheimnis of Biblical narratives (F. Rosenzweig) and in the, at least in Miskotte’s perception, ‘Israelitish’ tendency of K. Barth’s doctrine of the divine perfections (1940); 3. Its earliest reception, in which J. Koopmans remarkably noticed, that ‘now’ (i.e. under the German occupation of the Netherlands) ‘we don’t have a Church anymore, apart from the form, in which she can be found in the Bible’; 4. Some characteristics of its post-war edition of 1966, revised by Miskotte himself, added utterances on new frontiers (e.g. questioning all authority, the ‘death of God’). With such a multi-layered text as its result, one can understand why the English translators return to the more unequivocal edition of 1941.

Ten voordeele van …

In favor of … Charity publications in the nineteenth century In Dutch history, charity publications were almost entirely a 19th century phenomenon. In this article I provide an overview of this phenomenon. The first publication that I have been able to trace is from 1784, the most recent one from 1930. However there are some predecessors of charity publications. The few studies that have been published about charity literature emphasize their national message. Occasions for charity publications were many and varied. Even so, flood disasters prevail. The most varied genres could be employed for the purpose: theater plays, poetry, sermons, essays, etc. However, poems are in the majority, and it is they in the first place that become the object of criticism. From mid-century onward critical comments become ever fiercer, in particular concerning their quantity and their countless platitudes. What makes the phenomenon typically nineteenth century is the shared mentality behind it. To help out in the case of disasters or poverty was not yet a public matter but rested with privately undertaken initiatives.

Huiselijke relieken

On January 12, 1807 part of Leiden’s inner city was devastated by the explosion of an inland boat loaded with gunpowder. About 160 people – mostly women and children – were killed, some 2000 injured. Survivors kept mementoes of their loved ones and of the event itself. Over time, many of these ‘secular relics’ were acquired by museums, others are still with the heirs of their original owners. The article discusses how the Dutch word ‘relic’ lost its religious connotation and how the private provenance of objects relating to the gunpowder disaster differs from the public veneration for national relics of Dutch history and art. The term ‘homely relics’ is proposed as a new subcategory of the ‘secular relics’ defined by Wim Vroom in 1997