A Queen, a nazi, and a Whole Bunch of Unanswered Questions

The allure of royal attention has been captivating the unwashed commoners for as long as the institution has been in existence. Today I got to witness first hand what sort of effect the presence of a Queen can have on a room full of equally (if not more so) influential individuals. 

This term I am in a class entitled "Techniques of Futuring" in which there are about 20 students and an equal number of "practitioners" (people who work in all kinds of areas such banking, policymaking, the arts, private consultancies, you name it-- all with an interest in our class subject). Our goal for the term is to simulate the start of a movement focused on justice in the energy transition, utilizing the idea of imagining a just future (futuring) as our guiding method. As students we are in charge of coming up with the foundations of the movement, (e.g. mission statement, focus areas, target audience, and what our action or protests will consist of) and the practitioners advise us in terms of what the current situation is in each of the sectors they are involved. I will talk more about this class in a future blog (you can do some imaginings about it in the meantime).

This class got invited to the 20th anniversary of the Prince Claus Chair. A bit of backstory: The chair was established after the death of Prince Claus of the Netherlands in 2002 in order to continue his work in development and equity by appointing an "outstanding academic from a developing country to the chair" each year. It is not clear to me what exactly being appointed the chair entails, but it seems to come with a good bit of prestige. The current chairholders are very inspiring people, a focus on just energy transitions (the reason for our class invite). 

This all seemed well and good, but what they failed to mention at the celebration (or anywhere on their website, funnily enough) is that this apparently equity minded Prince Claus was in fact a Nazi. A quick look at Wikipedia will tell you that he was part of the hitler youth for four years during World War 2. A bit ironic to now have this social-equity focused award be in his name. 

Never in my life have I witnessed so much bootlicking of a deceased ex-nazi, than I did at this event celebrating the achievements and ideas of academics from developing countries. It was also the most diversity I've encountered since leaving the US. It was actually a bit ridiculous. The format of the celebration was a series of talkshow-style panel discussions with former/current chairs and other relevant smartypants. Every time one of these prestigious, published academics took to the stage, they would do a whole lot of oral bowing and scraping, praising the name and memory of Prince Claus, the nazi. Perhaps this was mostly for the benefit of the Dutch Queen Maxima, seated in the front row. 

It has been a bit of a revelation being Jewish in this country. I'm not saying Oregon is the most inclusive place in the world, but for christ's sake, I haven't caught a glimpse of a dreidel, much less a menorah for Hannukah (which starts tomorrow). Now to have this celebration of a nazi shoved down my throat is kind of a lot. I will say that I only discovered his nazism after the fact so it wasn't quite as offensive to me to hear all of this at the time, but with hindsight a little clearer... it seems a bit strange to me.

As I mentioned, the Queen was there. Now, this was my first time being in such close proximity to royalty (ten seats down to be exact), and it was a bit humorous. We were all seated in the church where the celebration was taking place, then we were instructed to stand and they started playing the Birdy cover of "Skinny Love". Apparently this is her walk out song because out she came, followed by a hoard of around 15 photographers. I had a really hard time not bursting out laughing, but I kept it together which is good because she walked past so close to me that the brim of her (actually gargantuan) hat nearly brushed the tip of my nose. Nobody knew when we were allowed to sit so there was about 60 seconds of everyone awkwardly waiting for some signal to sit. Silly commoners. 

Queen Maxima (and her hat) with the smartypants gang
(image from Mischa Schoemaker)

Other than the Queen being there, the main message of all the speakers was that they want to hear more voices of the younger generations and those of people from the global south on their perspectives and ideas of a just energy transition. At first it was very inspiring, but it soon became clear that this was more of a publicity stunt than anything. During the panel discussions, they had a handful of opportunities for members of the audience to ask questions to the experts on stage. They spent a lot of time saying that they'd like to see more young people and minority groups have a "seat at the table" to "hear their voices" so I asked what this would actually look like. These words sound nice, but they're a bit abstract about what that would actually entail. None of the panelists even attempted to answer the question that I asked. Instead they answered something completely random which was an answer in itself. How can you say you want to hear our voices, and then completely ignore what we are saying? The two other students who asked questions had a similar non-response. Incredibly ironic. 

I wrote a poem about this irony while I was waiting for the speakers to stop patting themselves on the back so I could leave. Here it is:

Hearing, but not Listening

Envisioning empowerment of the voiceless, and inclusion of the marginalized

at an invite-only, royalty attended event.

Students asking: How can our voices be heard?

You say you're ready to listen,

then answer a question that never left our lips.

She's here, the Queen.

To learn what we have to say.

But the hat she toutes obscures the view of those behind,

and clouds the vision of those before.

They preach engagement over entertainment,

yet the voices they heard are the ones with rhyme and rhythm,

lulling those with power into a blissful imagining of action.

When the reality is that 

it all remains a dream,

trapped in the minds of those who remain unheard.