Dutch minister opens new Museum of Broken Dreams and Kneecaps

Bron: The Belfast Post

The reader has probably heard of the Netherlands, a small country at the other side of the Canal. The well informed reader might even know that Holland – as the Netherlands is also called – always had a tendency to conduct its own idiosyncratic policy. In June 2005, f.e., the Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe (TCE) was rejected in a referendum making the TCE's future and the implementation of its provisions highly uncertain, provoking a crisis of confidence in the project which has resulted in a degree of strategic paralysis.
This week the Minister van Gedane Zaken (‘Matters Done’) visited Northern Ireland. The Netherlands is the only country in the world with a ‘Ministry of Matters Done’ (MinMD). The MinMD was created in order to support the so-called Vintage Policy of the Dutch Government. In accordance with the cradle to cradle philosophy, policy is no longer seen as a chain of ‘production-use-disposal’. Different Staff Units of the MinMD decide how to deal with accomplished policy measurements: archive them, re-use them or – in exceptional cases – install them in a dedicated ‘Wunderkammer’. In July of this year the LPF-Wunderkammer was opened to the public, after the disbandment of the LPF, the political party of the assassinated, controversial and populistic right-wing politician Pim Fortuyn.
The Dutch minister had a meeting with the new Irish Commissioner for Victims and Survivors who will be responsible for developing 'a strategy to deliver practical help and services to victims of the conflict in Northern Ireland’. The main topic was to investigate in how far the Dutch experience can be re-used for specific Irish matters. Yesterday, the Dutch minister, together with First Minister Ian Paisley and Gerry Adams, President of Sinn Féin, opened the new Museum of Broken Dreams & Kneecaps in Londonderry. The minister was impressed by the serene way the violent legacy of Northern Ireland was represented.