About our queen

Today is Queen's Day in the Netherlands. It's not a celebration of being queer; it's a national holiday. Granted, those two need not be mutually exclusive, but in this case, they are unrelated.

On Queen's Day, we celebrate the birthday of our queen, Beatrix. Never mind that she was born on Januari 31. April 30 is (or rather, was) in fact the birthday of her now deceased mother, Juliana. Since it is decreed by law that it nearly always rains in the Netherlands, although slightly less so in April than in January, it was decided to hold on to April 30. Don't believe it when someone tells you that Beatrix made this decision to honour her mother.

Since I am a proponent of a Dutch republic, I don't really fancy writing a long analysis about Beatrix. Fortunately, Pieter has already done so in this excellent article, although I think he's too mild on her when it comes to her actions after Van Gogh's death (i.e. virtually non-existent, except for some orchestrated 'let's-cuddle-Moroccans-whilst-ignoring-the-parents-of-Van-Gogh' charade in a youth house in Amsterdam).

If you're not so much into the heavy stuff, you can read here how the Dutch tend to celebrate her majesty's birthday. (Scroll to item 26.)

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