The Dutch national day is Queen's Day, the celebration of the birthday of our monarch. Unlike other countries, it is not a openly nationalistic happening. No military parades, no prime-minister with boring speeches or the excessive waving of flags. As a historian recently said on tv, it is a celebration of togetherness and not nationalism. In fact, it is even more a celebration of free trade as the so called 'free market', where everybody is allowed to sell stuff in the street without a permit, is hugely popular.
The togetherness was quite obvious whilst walking to the centre of town. Burqa and headscarf wearing ladies with orange accessories, Somalis with blow-up orange crowns, girls with tiaras being Queen for a day and gays extravagantly dressed in orange being the queens they always are.
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