The golden carriage features images deemed racially insensitive
The Dutch King Willem-Alexander has announced that the royals will stop using a historic golden coach which features a controversial image showing colonial subjects offering produce to a white woman, symbolizing the Netherlands.
On Thursday, King Willem-Alexander accepted that the carriage, called De Gouden Koets, was offensive to a large number of people as he announced its retirement.
The carriage has been out of use since 2015 and features an image known as ‘Tribute from the Colonies.’ It depicts black and Asian people, one of whom is kneeling, presenting cocoa and sugarcane to a seated young white woman.
Also featured in the image is a seated man offering a book to a young boy. In 1896, the artist Nicolaas van der Waay said the image intended to portray the Netherlands’ gift of “civilization” to its colonies.
The image has attracted increased criticism in recent years, with critics claiming it glorifies the nation’s colonial past.
Announcing the move in a video, King Willem-Alexander admitted that banning historical objects and symbols is not the solution to dealing with the country’s dubious past, but called on the nation to face up to its colonial history.
“There is no point in condemning and disqualifying what has happened through the lens of our time,” he said.
“As long as there are people living in the Netherlands who feel the pain of discrimination on a daily basis, the past will still cast its shadow over our time,” the king added.
The coach has remained in the Amsterdam Museum following a lengthy restoration process which concluded last year. Traditionally it was used to carry the monarch to the opening of Parliament.
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The man says he is not inoculated, but he follows other other Covid guidelines.
A Canadian judge has temporarily stripped a father of his visitation rights, arguing it is not in the best interest of the child as the parent does not have a Covid-19 vaccination.
Quebec Superior Court Justice Jean-Sebastien Vaillancourt took note of numerous social media posts critical of the vaccine, saying this cast doubt on whether the father is actually following the health guidelines in place.
Vaillaincourt wrote in his decision that the lack of visitation is only temporary and in response to rising Covid cases due to the Omicron variant. The 12-year-old child lives with two half siblings who are too young to receive vaccination doses.
While it would “normally” be in the best interest of the child to see his father, the judge ruled, it is “not in his best interest to have contact with him if he is not vaccinated and is opposed to health measures in the current epidemiological context.”
The visitation rights have been suspended until February unless the father chooses to get vaccinated. The ruling came in response to the parent filing in mid-December for more visitation during the holiday season. However, the father then faced accusations of being an anti-vaccine conspiracy theorist when it was discovered that he was not inoculated against Covid, with the mother filing concerns with the court.
While the father has said in court that he has “reservations” about the vaccine, the child has reportedly received two doses of a vaccine, though the judge claimed this does not provide enough protection against the virus. In his ruling, he said the protection is essentially null and void due to Omicron being so highly contagious.
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