26 Mare April 1st, 2004
Leiden University Weekly Newspaper - ENGLISH PAGES
visit Mare's English Page web forum

News

Democrazy


I have my absentee ballot request here on my desk, but I feel a certain lethargy when it comes to filling the thing in. I’m jaded by the fact that John Kerry, just another Washington insider, has been chosen as my party’s candidate, just as I admit the disheartening truth that I’m more concerned with who can beat Bush than precisely whom I want to see as the US President. But most of all, I think my lack of zeal simply hasn’t recovered from the exhausting experience of the last presidential election, November 2000. I had just returned to Tallahassee, Florida, from a sojourn in Holland and was eager to participate in the pinnacle of amerikanisme.

Following standard practice, I voted in the designated post office. Despite the blend of solemnity and excitement in that place, I dropped my ballot into the slot with Valium calm, and optimistically assumed that that evening I would hear news of Al Gore’s presidential victory. And indeed, around 8:00 p.m., all major broadcasters had estimated that Gore had won the race. But it was just as I began to relax that my Toll House cookie crumbled. I regarded the color-coded map on my TV screen with dismay. Florida, ‘the Sunshine state’, had turned from a Democratic blue to a Republican red to an uncertain white, where it remained until 2:00 am when I went to bed with bloodshot eyes and the naïve assumption that my alarm clock radio would end the agony of anticipation.
But I only awoke to a more serious case of confusion and in the days that followed, there was no escaping the issue - not only was the delayed election the only topic in the news, but the news had come to me. Vans from CNN and NBC had parked along Tallahassee’s canopied roads. Magnolia blossoms blushed from the excess attention and the townspeople suddenly possessed an air of smugness, now that the rest of the world realized Miami wasn’t Florida’s capital city. And a month later, the entire weird experience finally resolved itself in a way I found most unfavorable.
So, can you understand why I still feel tired, uninspired? All of that waiting, watching and hoping – only to lose. That’s why I actually shouldn’t complain about Kerry, as long as he’s the one most likely to win. After all, as a Democrat, I’ve found nothing more exhausting than watching Bush push the world around for the past four years. In fact, I’ll fill in that ballot request form right now – with the rejuvenating thought that my more distressing wait could end!

Elizabeth Kelsey


Selection At Gate

As from the next academic year, secondary school pupils who want to follow a popular course such as Psychology or Law in Leiden will probably have to take an entrance exam. The intention is that a negative result for such an exam will only have actual consequences as from 2006.

Leiden particularly wants to test the students for motivation and skills. Such entrance exams will especially make sense for the larger courses, Van Amerongen thinks. “Although this still has to be worked out in detail, we have the larger alpha and gamma courses in mind, such as Psychology and Law. It is less obvious for the Beta courses and medicine, because these are chosen by a smaller group of pupils who usually already motivated.”
Leiden University has been hoping to experiment with the “selection at the gate” as it is known in officialese, for a long time, but there has never been a majority in The Hague who supported it until now. “However, a new political situation has arisen in the meantime”, spokesman Wim van Amerongen was referring to the Hoger Onderwijs en Onderzoek Plan ((HOOP) Plan for Higher Education and Research) which was published last year, in which state secretary Nijs also advocated the possibility for differentiation in tuition fees as a well as a pilot with the selection of students.

Flemish Against BaMa

A Flemish union of university staff has started a law case to have the introduction of the BaMa system declared unconstitutional. The union feels that, in particular, the uncertain status of the bachelors degrees go against the grain.

Last month, the union UNIVERSITAS! filed a petition to the Court of Arbitration for the annulment of the Bologna Declaration, as it is called. The Court of Arbitration will check whether the legislative bodies have within their competence. That is not the case of this decreet, which is the Flemish translation for the Bologna Declaration, according to the union.
UNIVERSITAS! is an organisation which has been established by people who work for the University of Antwerp and the Vrije Universiteit of Brussels (VUB). This club thinks that the BaMa system, which is to be introduced in Belgium in the next academic year, is in contravention with the Belgium constitution on a number of points.
For instance, the lectures in the BaMa system are to be given in English while the constitution requires that Dutch should be the spoken language for education in Flanders. The Flemish government has also altered the length of the higher education courses although this decision should be taken at a federal level. This means that there is uncertainty about the level of similarity between the new masters degrees and the old university degrees.

Dawkins in Leiden


Richard Dawkins, one of the most important evolution biologists of the twentieth century, will give the Niko Tinbergen lecture in the Pieterskerk on Wednesday 19 May. The Briton Dawkins is particularly well-known for his books, including The Selfish Gene (1976) and The Blind Watchmaker (1986) in which he contends that natural selection only takes place at the level of the gene. In his lecture, Dawkins will speak about the behavioural biologist, Niko Tinbergen, the Dutch Nobel Prize winner, who had a great influence on Dawkins during his studies at Oxford.

The name of the lecture, which was held last year for the first time, was specially changed at Dawkins’ request. Last year it was still named after the evolution biologist Stephen Jay Gould who died in 2002. However, during Gould’s life, the colleagues directly opposed each other with their explanations of Darwinism – in fact, a book has even been published about this scientific conflict.


Cultural gems or sentimental crap?


Eyse van Terwisga

Ever went to a pub on a special occasion and wondered what those Dutch people were singing in unison, drunk and out of tune? Mare investigates the success-story of the smartlap.

The smartlap is hot in Holland right now. The rise of popularity began in 1999, when André Hazes became a cult figure after the documentary film, Zij Gelooft in Mij (She Believes in Me) became a smash hit in the cinemas, revealing the ins and outs of the business and ups and downs of Hazes’ troubled life. The song that gave its name to the movie, was translated to English and is now a hit by Ronan Keating.

Now, Frans Bauer has been crowned the ‘local hero’ (although what’s so heroic about being popular?). Bauer’s fame increases daily, especially after the TV-series ‘De Bauers’ (a rip-off of MTV’s The Osbournes). His songs get lots of air-play and he doesn’t just sell music, but also Frans Bauer T-shirts, mirrors, pedestals and duvet covers. Imagine yourself looking in the mirror and seeing Frans Bauer’s face, or sleeping in a bed, covered with Frans Bauer’s face and autograph!

A smartlap is a simple, sentimental song, sang in Dutch, where melancholy, homesickness and deeply-rooted sorrow are the central themes. The term originates from ‘stoplap’, a cliché, which lost its strength, its trite, due to its excessive use. Stoplappenplay an important role in a smartlap; for instance, ‘weten’ (to know) always rhymes with ‘nooit vergeten’ (never forgotten). A 24-karat-gold smartlap is full of these predictable, clichéd rhymes. André Hazes, for example, uses a rhyming dictionary when he writes his lyrics. The funny part is, this artificiality envisages its sincerity and truthfulness, because it’s not pretentious and it’s heart-felt.

The term levenslied must be introduced, however, because not all smartlap songs are sad (smart means grief). The levenslied is about the good and bad times of life. Frans Bauer, for example, has just had a Number 1 hit with Heb je even voor mij? (Do you have a moment for me?), a happy-tuned song about love. A sub-category is the summer hits, like Zangeres Zonder Naam’s ‘Mexico’, Imca Marina’s Viva España and Grad Damen’s ‘Selina’.

The German variant of the smartlap is the Schlager, which has the same features, except it’s sung in German. Many Dutch smartlap singers are also Schlager singers; for example, Imca Marina, Lass mein Herz nicht weinen (Don’t let my heart weep) and Frans Bauer, Ich traum von dir heute Nacht (I dream of you this night). In the ’70s, child-star Heintje, barely out of his diapers, conquered Germany, Switzerland and Austria with his gentle voice and cute image, singing hits, like Ich bau dir ein Schloss, Heidschi Bumbeidschi (I will build you a castle, little Heidschi Bumbeidschi) and Deine Tränen sind auch meine (Your tears are my tears, too). Jantje Smit did the same in the ’90s with a German translation of a Dutch song to his grandmother, Ik zing dit lied voor jou alleen (I sing this song just for you).

Mare wanted to ask Frans Bauer if he had ambitions to conquer the English-speaking world, too. But he was too busy, having just won the Edison Award for best national, male singer last week. Why won’t the kings and queens of the smartlap sing in English? Probably because it will lose the charm of this cultural-linguistic based music genre.

The smartlap came into existence at the beginning of the 20th century. Eduard Jacobs and Koos Speenhof composed sentimental songs about life and its saddest moments. When the LP and record player became common features of Dutch households in the ’50s and ’60s, the smartlap began its first golden age. Willeke Alberti sang some duets with her father, Willy Alberti, and had a solo-hit with Spiegelbeeld (Reflection). Most of the songs of the ’60s are lost to memory, although some of the smartlappen from the ’70s are still memorized by heart. Vader Abraham’s classic Het kleine café aan de haven (The little café by the harbour), for instance, is still sung at the top of everyone’s voice. Other smartlap-hits written by Vader Abraham are ‘Manuela’ for Jacques Herb, and Huilen is voor jou te laat (It’s too late for you to cry) for Corry en de Rekels. However, Vader Abraham’s image went down the drain when he started singing the Smurfensong for the cartoon series, The Smurfs.

Another hit-factory of the ’70s was Johnny Hoes, who wrote most of his smartlappen for Zangeres Zonder Naam, such as Ach Vaderlief (Oh, Sweet Daddy) and Keetje Tippel (Kate Streetwalker). The early ’80s produced the first smartlap band, Drukwerk. Koos Alberts sang Ik verscheurde je foto (I shredded your picture), before he landed in a wheelchair after a car accident, which made him a national symbol of sadness; and André Hazes first became famous with a Christmas album, and his first hit, Eenzame Kerst (Lonely Christmas) in 1976: “I sit here all alone, celebrating Christmas/I serve the time I deserved/I stole for our family/But there’s no point to that/Because you celebrate Christmas with someone else, now.”

But his greatest classic (and he has many), is ‘De vlieger’ (The kite): “Here I have a letter addressed to my mother/who lives high in Heaven/This letter I will tie on my kite/So she can receive it.”

The popularity of the genre is increasing, even in the new millennium. Still, when you go onto the streets and ask people if they know any smartlappen, about seven out of ten people will pretend they don’t know the lyrics by heart (but they do!). It’s seen as ‘low culture’ and people are ashamed to admit that they know these songs. The fact remains, paradoxically, that if you don’t know the smartlap classics, others will label you as a ‘culture barbarian’. The smartlap and its many varieties are an important heritage in Dutch culture, as Theo Willemze suggests: “We must still be liberated from the Romantic thought that heritage can only be ‘high cultural’ heritage.”