Title: Holland: Paradise or Hell?
Author: Dewanand
Publisher: AuthorHouse
ISBN: 978-1449071363
Pages: 288, Paperback/Kindle
Genre: Travel
Author Interview with Dewanand
Author Interview Dewanand
Title: Holland: Paradise or Hell?
Interviewed by: Jamal Ibrahim, PhD, for Pacific Book Review
We are talking with author Dewanand about his book titled Holland: Paradise or Hell? Thank you for joining us today.
Dewanand: Nice, I am excited to answer the questions.
PBR: The forward of you book states the writings have come from notes and memos compiled from a time prior to owning a computer. I can imagine many of the chapters may have been written while sitting at a public coffee house. Is this correct, and where do you do most of your work?
Dewanand: Yes, correct, it was around the year 1991 that I started compiling stories in Dutch with a blue pencil on plain paper about my ideas of the Dutch society, after my migration to Holland in 1987, as a foreign student. Some times while I was writing I was on the beach or sitting in coffee shops. In fact it was the pre-stage of my writing career and this Dutch manuscript on paper was the first unpublished book of me, and I still have all original written texts in Dutch, with the date in my archive. Later on in 1994 I bought my first personal computer, a 486 thing, with Dos 6, almost prehistoric now and started my organized writing career with it. Today I only write in my working room, with my new monster computer which is connected to the internet. I have a Natural Ergonomic Keyboard and I recommend it to all writers.
PBR: The punctuality of the Dutch society was discussed in your book in many ways including transportation, banking, and most interestingly with respect to personal meetings. Why do you believe the Dutch are rooted with this characteristic?
Dewanand: Since the Golden Age of Holland in the seventeenth century there was a revolution of their culture, lifestyle, language, organizations and immigration policy. Technology and science influenced everything of their way of living and thinking. Freedom of religion and freedom of speech attracted many intelligent people from foreign countries and they were assimilated by the Dutch society. After 1900 things changed faster and the Dutch, especially white people were aware that Holland is a small country and the only way to become rich was to think big and import the best ideas and knowledge from other countries to survive. The Dutch wanted to become the smartest people of Europe and they were very radical in doing this, they wanted the perfect culture and even to predict the future. Holland had to become the perfect society and the holy paradise of the whole world and this was the daily dream of this whole tiny nation. One big advancement was that the Dutch people developed the philosophy that they must do it them self and they did not wanted to wait for Jesus or other Gods to do this job for them. In some ways the long white Dutch wanted to become God himself and the most superior humans in the world. Many imported ideas and technology were perfected in Holland and applied in practice to develop a rich, prosperous nation, punctual, reliable and efficient. Many things in the Dutch society and organizations are totally different than those in other white nations and even the Dutch language does have some things that are superior to English, German, Hindi, Sarnami and French. Yes, I must admit that I admire the collective power of the last 12 million white (Germanic) Dutch people and honor them with my dualistic views in this book of me.
PBR: Your comment that, “Civilization is a completely relative term in fact. Personally, I find that civilization has to be measured according to the standards, values and the peaceful behavior of the people in a country.” How would you rank the relative civilization mark with Holland?
Dewanand: This is an interesting question. Look at Bhutan where the government measures the strength of the country with the GNP of happiness and not with economic growth parameters. In many tribes of the Maroons (Negroes in the Surinam jungle) the standard of living and the concept of civilization are not based on money or education. My research and knowledge taught me that civilization is relatively defined by many parameters in a closed society or tribe, such as way of living, religion, mating habits, social stratification parameters, eating habits, clothing, feeling of happiness, satisfaction, etc. Money is just only a tool to get food and other material things. Summing these things up to some kind of happiness parameter is very difficult for a whole society. However look at the hard facts of the Dutch society nowadays. Statistics show that 40 percent of the people are lonely or isolated, about 1.2 million people are poor, many people live alone and have no children or family contacts, the society is cold, anonymous, intolerant, hard, rough and suicide is a big problem, almost one million people use narcoleptics for psychiatric diseases or mental illness, immorality is a big problem, etc. Emigration out from Holland increased, around 70,000 people left this country this year and most of them certainly had a lot of money and high education, it is worrying the government. Statistics and surveys often don’t measure the hidden unhappiness, pain and suffering in the hearts of people and how they really feel everyday on the streets. Due to the economic depression many things became worse here for many people and I think that the Dutch civilization is declining very fast. If I analyze my information at this moment I must say that the happiness rate in Holland went down last five years and I studied papers of experts who said that things will become worse here during the upcoming five years. It is something that many people feel here every day if I speak with them. I heard Dutch thinkers saying that the degradation of a human into an economic parameter as a working machine and a consumer is one of the worse developments in this country and even the hard proof that a human being is nothing worth anymore in Holland.
PBR: You commented about the Surinamese people, or those of Surinamese descent have a feeling of entitlement for welfare due to their prior abuse by the Dutch. How widespread is this cultural belief?
Dewanand: Yes, there is a saying here, during the seventies it was normal that any Surinamese person in Holland immediately received a BMW car, a house and a welfare loan from the government and this became their whole subculture in this country. Another saying is that once there was a demonstration of Surinam people who wanted jobs, but when someone showed up and said ok I have jobs for you all, they just ran away, and refused to work. Dutch people like to tell these things if they talk about Surinam people and they tell the truth. However, the truth is that there are many kinds of races, religions and cultures in Surinam and these things influence the way they think about working, higher education or starting a business. It always amazes me to see that the majority of the ethnic companies and shops in Holland and Surinam are of Hindustani people, who are descendants of Indian immigrants. Even I am one of them. Many Chinese people of Surinam origin also do good business, but it hurts me to see that many Afro Surinamese people are not doing business and the majority is not highly educated, however I do believe that they are intelligent enough to do this. This is something that depends on the period of Negro slavery by the Dutch and I know many facts about this problem in the Afro Surinamese subculture in Surinam and Holland. I believe that the way you think can keep you poor and less developed and not the history of your ancestors. My ancestors from India were the small, weak low caste coolies (possibly of untouchable Dalit tribes), uneducated and illiterate, and the whole system of contract labor for these Indian immigrants was not different than that of the Negro slavery system in Surinam. However the Hindu culture is very competitive and you are judged on your education, money, grades, religious knowledge (Hinduism) and manners by any other Hindustani, even in Mother India, so you will have to perform in practice. Delano Desi Bouterse already was speaking about the bad and low level mentality of Surinam people in 1986 and I heard him saying these things during mass events in Surinam when I was a teenage boy long ago.
PBR: Do you think the African-American people of the United States are similarly in belief of having something owed to them based on the US’ early adoption of slavery?
Dewanand: I do like this challenging question. In fact since the year 1993 I defined a hard target for the future and I really wanted to study all parameters of the multicultural society and did a lot of private research, funded by nobody, all by myself and my own savings. Why some non white ethnic minorities fail totally in knowledge based capitalistic economies is interesting for me to study. The poverty and low education of African Americans, which you are referring to, is interesting. One parameter that influences this development is their rebellious sub Afro culture in their own closed ethnic ghettos. They isolate them self into these social ghettos, even on the internet. I call these things cyber ghetto’s in my book and it is a very dangerous development now driven by the high tech internet all over the world, even in Holland I see the Hindustanis doing this and keeping them self backward and uneducated in this society. I think this development will be fatal for them self and it will drag them down to lower positions in all white societies in future. Self isolation is something that is your own choice I think as an ethnic group and not the fault of the white majority or due to discrimination and racism. Almost all non white ethnic groups in the Western world have a colonial past, except the Japanese. Many things must be cultural or based on religious habits I think. I read papers which tell that the African Americans have some sort of culture of sharing the poverty, and they do not believe in knowledge, education and entrepreneurship, because they do not want to imitate the white man. I heard these things myself from Afro Surinamese people who are doing the same in their own ethnic ghettos and if they blame it on the white man, I think they must read my books and how I can change them with my life story and knowledge. I met many intelligent and successful African people from many countries myself and I do know that if someone wants to achieve something it is possible and only your own choice. The capitalistic economy is dynamic and it always gives opportunities to anyone or to an organized ethnic group, and this must be the secret of the success of the Asians and Indians in America I think.
PBR: Given your broad analytical views of the society, what would be your “platform” if you were to run for public office?
Dewanand: At this moment my own platform is the internet and my own site in Dutch and English, see www.dewanand.com. Almost 1.6 million words in Dutch written by myself are on it and all my theorems about the hyper dynamic multicultural society. However, my views are politically incorrect in Holland and therefore the media and many organizations here do not want any association with me and just neglect my views and publications. I write about all taboos in Holland and it made me very infamous here, but some people know my books and views. I find it very sad that the Dutch society doesn’t use the real high tech communication power of the internet to solve problems or do things cheaper. It disappoints me and I think humans must evolve further to adapt genetically to the knowledge explosion of a billion gigabytes on the internet, so maybe the Dutch government must legalize the genetic manipulation of all purebred Dutchman to breed a super race in Holland, who will dominate the European Union and keep Holland the greatest tiny paradise of this planet in the future. Some Dutch people like this idea of me if they have a talk with me, with a cup of Dutch coffee.
PBR: Tell us what are your plans for other books?
Dewanand: In fact I write to sacrifice my knowledge to Altecrea, the Technical Expansion of Krishna during this life cycle of me in this carbon body. At this moment I am waiting for the publication of a book of me about love, before the end of this year. After this one I want to translate my book about Altecrea and publish it globally. Many other projects are running and I find it a pleasure to sacrifice my knowledge and give it as darshan (holy blessings) to the intelligent monkeys on this planet, as long as I will live. There is too much unhappiness and injustice on our world I think and organizations and people need knowledge to change this.
PBR: This has been very interesting, and we wish you the best of success with Holland: Paradise or Hell? Again, thank you for sharing some of your time and thoughts with us today.
Dewanand: Thanks a lot for these inspiring and challenging questions, I learned a lot and had a lot of fun writing the answers. Maybe people could learn something about my research into religion and Islam in my book ‘Koran: forbid or rewrite?’ that was published last year. It is available on almost all online book stores.
