5/14 was such a bittersweet day because it was our last one in the Netherlands. Goodbye, stroopwafels and walkable cities, you will be missed!
The Hague, while not the official capital of the Netherlands, is where the government is located. This division of influence and power was done intentionally to prevent the interests of Amsterdam from overpowering the needs and influence of the rest of the country. This stuck out to me because it reminded me of the concept of federalism in American governance where each region of the US has representation in our government, and how our capital is not located in any state to prevent any one area from becoming overly represented.
On our tour today, we learned a good bit about how Dutch politics work as well as the history of how Dutch governance came to be. The Netherlands is a kingdom, although it is not a very old one by European standards. The Kingdom of the Netherlands as we know it actually only came to be in the year 1815 following the defeat of Napoleon Bonaparte, and the only reason it has a kingdom at all is due to the pressure of nearby monarchies who had the military power to overtake the Netherlands. Thus, the Dutch constitutional monarchy was born. I think this is such an interesting piece of Dutch history because it represents such an odd combination of a free choice made by the people to represent themselves, and a choice forced upon them for survival. The juxtaposition of such conflicting ideals in the same governing body was striking to me, especially because this system has worked for so long even with that contrast.
Also situated in The Hague are a lot of functions of the UN related to international peace and justice. After living in Pittsburgh for a year, it was quite striking to see none other than Andrew Carnegie having funded the Peace Palace here in The Hague (pictured)!
Today’s sustainability connection is going to be a little different than the ones I have made on the other days of this trip because it is much more deeply rooted in societal sustainability than anything else. War is never, ever sustainable. It takes astronomical amounts of energy to rebuild societies from scratch and removes resources from the Earth to do so far faster than they could ever hope to be replenished by natural processes. Not to mention that war, which intentionally creates large-scale human suffering and seeks to destroy communities, goes against every single one of the UN Sustainable Development Goals because it fundamentally sets quality of life for everyone involved to zero. By having these international organizations, imperfect as they are, we fight for a more sustainable world every day they are open. If they are able to prevent even one war from happening, then they have created a brighter future for the next generation who are unencumbered by the burden of simply rebuilding what once was with fewer resources than there were before. By every definition, peace is sustainable.