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When the North is the South: Life in the Netherlands

When the North is the South: Life in the Netherlands ESSAY When the North is the South Life in the Netherlands by Edward L Ayers fter years of watching colleagues fly to Paris, Johannesburg, Beijing, or Bogotá for research trips and speaking engagements, I decided to apply for a posting abroad. Holding only die vaguest and most stereotyped visions, I chose die Netherlands. My application stressed, perhaps impolitely, the direct Dutch involve- ment in the slave trade and their indirect connection to South African apartheid. Such commonalities widi white southerners, I suggested, might serve as the basis for interesting discussions of race and region. The Fulbright Commission accepted the application and told our family we would be stationed in the city of Groningen. Though on the map it looked a bit far removed from Amsterdam and Leiden, tucked away near the North Sea, the former Fulbright scholar in Groningen allayed our worries with his enthusiasm for the place and the people. Driving to Groningen in early March we predictably commented on the tidiness of the small towns we passed dirough and admired the stone churches that dominated tiieir centers. No tulips yet, and no one wear- ing wooden shoes, but it was early in the visit. Things were http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Southern Cultures University of North Carolina Press

When the North is the South: Life in the Netherlands

Ayers, Edward L.
Southern Cultures , Volume 4 (4) – Jan 4, 1998
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Publisher
University of North Carolina Press
Copyright
Copyright © Center for the Study of the American South.
ISSN
1534-1488
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Abstract

ESSAY When the North is the South Life in the Netherlands by Edward L Ayers fter years of watching colleagues fly to Paris, Johannesburg, Beijing, or Bogotá for research trips and speaking engagements, I decided to apply for a posting abroad. Holding only die vaguest and most stereotyped visions, I chose die Netherlands. My application stressed, perhaps impolitely, the direct Dutch involve- ment in the slave trade and their indirect connection to South African apartheid. Such commonalities widi white southerners, I suggested, might serve as the basis for interesting discussions of race and region. The Fulbright Commission accepted the application and told our family we would be stationed in the city of Groningen. Though on the map it looked a bit far removed from Amsterdam and Leiden, tucked away near the North Sea, the former Fulbright scholar in Groningen allayed our worries with his enthusiasm for the place and the people. Driving to Groningen in early March we predictably commented on the tidiness of the small towns we passed dirough and admired the stone churches that dominated tiieir centers. No tulips yet, and no one wear- ing wooden shoes, but it was early in the visit. Things were

Journal

Southern Cultures – University of North Carolina Press

Published: Jan 4, 1998

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