What to do with the golden carriage
After years of restoration, it has found its place for a good eight months with its exhibition in the Amsterdam Museum of City History.
But the people are now all the more intensely concerned with a smoldering question: Will the magnificent vehicle ever have its annual public appearance again - or does it belong permanently in the museum, as a symbol of traditional colonial glory?
Klaus Max Smolka
Editor in business.
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Traditionally, the golden carriage takes the royal couple to the throne speech on the third Tuesday in September: it rolls from the Noordeinde Palace to the parliament complex, where the head of state reads out the government's most important plans.
It is “Prinsjesdag”, the prelude to the parliamentary session year and also its climax.
In addition, the car is rarely used, for example for the wedding of today's royal couple Willem-Alexander and Máxima in 2002.
Cultural heritage or deportation?
The carriage has not been controversial for a long time. The main reason is an illustration on the left with the title “Homage to the Colonies”, an allegory by the painter Nicolaas van der Waay. Black persons in gestures of humility offer gifts to a white woman on a throne. That is racist and glorifies the colonial past of the Netherlands, say critics, which is why the car should be deported to the museum. Proponents see the carriage as a cultural heritage that should be preserved.
The basic conflict is therefore the same as in the dispute over the buck at the St. Nicholas celebrations, which stirs the country deeper and deeper.
In the meantime, both debates are taking place against the background of identity politics.
However, this is represented less aggressively than in Germany: The tendency to move conservatives into the vicinity of racists or right-wing radicals is less pronounced here - in line with the generally more tolerant culture of debate.
Glass carriage as a replacement
In the past few years, the topic of the “Golden Carriage” has largely been in dormant mode, because the car was extensively restored after its last Prinsjesdag in 2015 for the time being. Since then, the royal couple has been driving up in a second showcase vehicle as an alternative: the almost 200-year-old Glass Carriage, which was recently restored. After being refreshed, the Golden Carriage has now rolled into the Amsterdam Museum for a month-long exhibition. The people of the city had given the vehicle to Queen Wilhelmina in 1898 for her inauguration; the monarch first used it in 1901 for her wedding.
The carriage can now be viewed in the museum until the end of February 2022, so it will be canceled again for Prinsjesdag this September. But what to do in the coming year? The museum illuminates the historical background of the carriage from different perspectives, and visitors are invited to express their opinion. The house stood out in 2019 when it abolished the term “golden century”, the common synonym for the 17th century, when the Netherlands was at the height of its global power and ruled the seas. The museum saw too many negative elements to be carefree to ennoble the era: slave trade, for example, wealth through exploitation.
The king has so far held back publicly. Now a remark that he made after a report by the newspaper AD (formerly Algemeen Dagblad) to the museum director on his tour of the opening of the exhibition on Thursday makes you sit up and take notice: The carriage is where it belongs. That was still puzzled over at the weekend. Did he mean: forever? In the past few days, a few Republicans and other critics of the royal family have spoken out. They reject the carriage for a completely different reason: it is too boastful. The king should go to the throne speech by bicycle or by tram.