Queen Beatrix, Current Events 3 (June 2006 - May 2007)


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TOKIO - In a declaration issued on Friday, the Japanese Crown Prince Naruhito and his spouse Princess Masako have expressed their gratitude towards the Netherlands royal family for the hospitality they enjoyed during their vacation in the Netherlands.

They spoke about a 'heartwarming interaction' with Queen Beatrix and Prince Willem-Alexander and his family, so stated the Japanese Press Agency Kyodo today. The Japanese Crown Princely family spent their vacation at the Queen's weekend retreat, Het Oude Loo in Apeldoorn in the east of the Netherlands. For Princess Masako the vacation was also meant as a therapy for the depressivity she suffers since years.

"Again it has become clear to us that the contacts we maintain with the Netherlands royal family are based on mutual friendship and trust." so stated the declaration. The Crown Prince and his spouse also have expressed their pleasure with all the new experiences during their vacation.

Source: http://www.telegraaf.nl/buitenland/49271111/Japanse_kroonprins_bedankt_koningin_Beatrix.html
 
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Her_Majesty said:
Thanks for the pictures!
I love this one :lol: http://i50.photobucket.com/albums/f341/Mims111/pre-SEEGER00165931.jpg .
Very funny expression on her face!
She looks lovely- always seems to connect well with children. I hope she remains Queen for a few more years. We are all used to our European queens regnant- who do great jobs- but do we want them replaced by kings- could we imagine a king reacting in that way to a little one:rolleyes:.
 
There are not pictures of the banquet deprived in the one that several real members went, among them the Duke Henri and the Grand Duchess María Teresa?
 
HM the Queen is present at the opening of the Building House, which is the office of Building the Netherlands, the largest employers association in the building.

from seeger

 
Another stunning hat of Queen Beatrix!
She looks nice. :king:
 
Funny pictures of Queen Beatrix doing a huge puzzle:


Queen Beatris: Hmmm, I wonder where this piece goes?


Queen Beatrix: Look! I did it!

Credit: Bruno Press
 
lucien said:
Even though the SP is absolutely not my party,I still find it charming that Jan Marijnissen is the only party leader at the Binnenhof who takes a bouquet of flowers along upon each visit to HM
He does?! Good for him!! Wouldn't be surprised if those two got along quite swimmingly, both are deep thinkers, very intellectual, charming, down to earth, long-term planners. Both seem to be original characters and independent thinkers without being obnoxious. I can totally see where he's coming from: after all, who wouldn't want to spend quality time with this intelligent woman who's regarded as one of the world's most impressive leaders?!
 
23-09-2006 Linnaeushof Queen Beatrix has visited the playground the Linnaeushof in Bennebroek for the national jubileefestivities of the Organization of Playground and Youthrecreation NUSO.
PPE

 
Thanks for the latest photos. I love the third one of her talking to the little boy!
 
September 30
Her Majesty the Queen is present in the evening at the official opening of the Theatre De in Zwolle

from anp

 
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Thanks fanletizia. She seems to be wearring her turquise earrings.

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On a different note, this weekend HM received praise for socialist alderman Achmed Aboutaleb (PvdA/Labour, Amsterdam) during the labour congress. He praised HM for the way she handled the situation after the murder on theo van Gogh. Of course he did so not without a political reason: he compared it to the reaction of Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende (CDA/Christain Democrats) and blamed him for lack of leadership (the PM stayed in Brussels).
 
Today HM handed out awards to 6 young and promising painters in The Hague (usually done in Amsterdam but the Royal Palace is closed for restauration).

-

And today it is also 4 years ago that Prince Claus died, on 6 october 2002. As Avi Primor said on ZDF: HM still cries when she talks about him, so it must be a very difficult day for her.
 
Marengo said:
Today HM handed out awards to 6 young and promising painters in The Hague (usually done in Amsterdam but the Royal Palace is closed for restauration).

pictures from ppe

 
more pictures from ppe

 
Thanks for posting them ZZZ. I haven't seen the Queen even on the news today (though they had an item about the painters). It is no coinsidence that she is mainly dressed in black, even wearing her black pearls.
 
Marengo said:
Today HM handed out awards to 6 young and promising painters in The Hague (usually done in Amsterdam but the Royal Palace is closed for restauration).

-

And today it is also 4 years ago that Prince Claus died, on 6 october 2002. As Avi Primor said on ZDF: HM still cries when she talks about him, so it must be a very difficult day for her.
I'm glad for her she has a job she loves to distract her. Claus was truly a one-of-a-kind kind of person, if they ever did, they surely don't make 'em like that any more nowadays. :sad:

I do increasingly though, get the sense that their sons try to emulate him, try to exceed the expectations he might have had of them, and that's a good thing.

Back to Beatrix, she looks really great in grey/black actually--you can tell by these pictures she really is in her element surrounded by fellow artists--for those of you who may not know, she is an accomplished sculptor in her own right!
 
Marengo said:
And today it is also 4 years ago that Prince Claus died, on 6 october 2002. As Avi Primor said on ZDF: HM still cries when she talks about him, so it must be a very difficult day for her.
Poor Queen Beatrix! :sad:
Pardon my ignorance, but who is Avi Primor? :blush:

Thanks in advance :flowers:
 
Marengo said:
Thanks fanletizia. She seems to be wearring her turquise earrings.

-

On a different note, this weekend HM received praise for socialist alderman Achmed Aboutaleb (PvdA/Labour, Amsterdam) during the labour congress. He praised HM for the way she handled the situation after the murder on theo van Gogh.
Whether or not he said this for his own political gain, I totally agree with this.

I've said it before, but the way she stepped up to the plate and showed real leadership, acting as a real unifiying force when various social groups in her country were on the verge of escalating their hatred for one another, SHE actually prevented that!!

By stepping up immediately, visiting various groups and instigating & propagating dialogue right after the murder of filmmaker Theo van Gogh. I don't know honestly whether this was a cleverly thought-out move by her PR advisers, or even the Prime Minister, but it doesn't matter: whatever she did, it was supereffective. I'm serious: without her taking that step, the country could have descended into a very nasty situation.

It didn't, and the kudo's for that go to this intelligent queen. I have refrained before to comparing her in this regard with other monarchs, but I will do it now, why not: the way Margarethe of Denmark threw oil on the fire during the scandal with the Mohammed cartoons a while back, she actually helped <escalate> the problem, a divider of faiths and nations that cost Danish society millions of euros. Instead of being unifying, Margarethe acted in a polarizing way. If I ever admired that queen, no longer. What an idiot she was to do this!

Compare that to Beatrix: the picture of intelligence versus idiocy, in my opinion. Beatrix showed what a <real> monarch is about: showing the way, unifying your people. That's what she did, and does, in her own trademark unassuming, almost <modest> way. No wonder Nelson Mandela holds her in such high esteem.
As for me, I was already a fan, but since that incident with the van Gogh murder, my admiration for this woman is pretty endless.
 
...JuAnItA... said:
Poor Queen Beatrix! :sad:
Pardon my ignorance, but who is Avi Primor? :blush:

Thanks in advance :flowers:

A personal friend of the late Prince Claus and Queen Beatrix. I believe mr Primor (an Israeli diplomat) met Prince Claus before his marriage to Beatrix, when they were both on diplomatic service in Africa (forgot the exact country). In a dutch television programme on Claus, they interviewed Avi Primor to and he said he was immediately was impressed by Prince Claus as it was Claus himself who started about the subject of the holocaust, when he visited the Israeli diplomat and his wife & they could immediately talk quite openly about it.

Here a link with the resume of mr. Primor (he was Israels ambassador in Germany, among other things: http://www.biu.ac.il/soc/iasei/cv/aviprimor.html
 
princess olga said:
Whether or not he said this for his own political gain, I totally agree with this.

I've said it before, but the way she stepped up to the plate and showed real leadership, acting as a real unifiying force when various social groups in her country were on the verge of escalating their hatred for one another, SHE actually prevented that!!

By stepping up immediately, visiting various groups and instigating & propagating dialogue right after the murder of filmmaker Theo van Gogh. I don't know honestly whether this was a cleverly thought-out move by her PR advisers, or even the Prime Minister, but it doesn't matter: whatever she did, it was supereffective. I'm serious: without her taking that step, the country could have descended into a very nasty situation.

It didn't, and the kudo's for that go to this intelligent queen. I have refrained before to comparing her in this regard with other monarchs, but I will do it now, why not: the way Margarethe of Denmark threw oil on the fire during the scandal with the Mohammed cartoons a while back, she actually helped <escalate> the problem, a divider of faiths and nations that cost Danish society millions of euros. Instead of being unifying, Margarethe acted in a polarizing way. If I ever admired that queen, no longer. What an idiot she was to do this!

Compare that to Beatrix: the picture of intelligence versus idiocy, in my opinion. Beatrix showed what a <real> monarch is about: showing the way, unifying your people. That's what she did, and does, in her own trademark unassuming, almost <modest> way. No wonder Nelson Mandela holds her in such high esteem.
As for me, I was already a fan, but since that incident with the van Gogh murder, my admiration for this woman is pretty endless.

I agree completely with you Olga, and I must add that what the Queen did was mostly against the general public opinion (she was critisized for it). So she put her neck out & showed how a monarch can show moral leadership IMO.
 
princess olga said:
It didn't, and the kudo's for that go to this intelligent queen. I have refrained before to comparing her in this regard with other monarchs, but I will do it now, why not: the way Margarethe of Denmark threw oil on the fire during the scandal with the Mohammed cartoons a while back, she actually helped <escalate> the problem, a divider of faiths and nations that cost Danish society millions of euros. Instead of being unifying, Margarethe acted in a polarizing way. If I ever admired that queen, no longer. What an idiot she was to do this!

I forget now so a refresher would be much appreciated: What did Queen Margrethe do that only worstened the situation in Denmark regarding the cartoons? I just remember the burnings of the Danish flag but I don't remember that that was directly connected to anything said by Margrethe or anyone else, just anger as a result of the cartoons being published, period.

princess olga said:
Compare that to Beatrix: the picture of intelligence versus idiocy, in my opinion. Beatrix showed what a <real> monarch is about: showing the way, unifying your people. That's what she did, and does, in her own trademark unassuming, almost <modest> way. No wonder Nelson Mandela holds her in such high esteem.
As for me, I was already a fan, but since that incident with the van Gogh murder, my admiration for this woman is pretty endless.

I agree that at this time Beatrix really put her neck on the line, and took a firm stance without shoving it down anyone's throat or gloating in anyone's face, but in a subtle, lead by example manner. And I think that speaks volumes about the kind of leader she is and the kind of respect that she is given is well deserved from leaders around the world.
 
Alexandria said:
I forget now so a refresher would be much appreciated: What did Queen Margrethe do that only worstened the situation in Denmark regarding the cartoons? I just remember the burnings of the Danish flag but I don't remember that that was directly connected to anything said by Margrethe or anyone else, just anger as a result of the cartoons being published, period.
That's a great question, Alexandria, I should have explained. Let me start by going back in time to I think 2003, when the Danish paper Jylland Posten was offered a set of offending cartoons re. Mohammed the moslim profet. That paper, at that time, refused publication and even stated that their reason to do so was because religious people would be offended by these cartoons.

Fast forward to 2005. In April of that year, Queen Margrethe herself wrote an article (or perhaps it was a speech) that was published in the British Telegraph, a large, centre-right British daily. In that article (or speech) she was quoted as saying that "the Danes have to show their opposition to Islam."

Hardly a year later, the infamous cartoons depicting the profet were published in Danish papers and all hell broke loose with large parts of the Moslim world boycotting Danish products costing Danish society billions of euros. The Danish government refused to apologise. And what did Margrethe the monarch? Absolutely nothing. Not a word from this queen. Because of her earlier comments on the moslim faith, people assumed she agreed with the insulting cartoons.

By not saying anything, by not coming out and making the kinds of gestures her colleague Beatrix would have made, Margrethe helped make the situation worse than it otherwise might have been. Instead of being a unifying force, as Beatrix has turned out to be, Margrethe jumped on the anti-moslim wagon and escalated the fire.

If her brave father, who used to walk through German-occupied Copenhagen with a yellow star on his coat, knew this, he'd be turning in his grave I'm afraid. Bad judgment on Margarethe's side. I know this is off topic, but put this in contrast to how Beatrix has acted, has stepped up to the plate. It isn't difficult to spot the difference, imo.
 
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Marengo said:
I agree completely with you Olga, and I must add that what the Queen did was mostly against the general public opinion (she was critisized for it). So she put her neck out & showed how a monarch can show moral leadership IMO.
That's so true, I forgot about the criticism. Goes to show that Beatrix has her moral compass intact even in the face of criticism. I sometimes wonder how she does it!
 
princess olga said:
That's a great question, Alexandria, I should have explained. Let me start by going back in time to I think 2003, when the Danish paper Jylland Posten was offered a set of offending cartoons re. Mohammed the moslim profet. That paper, at that time, refused publication and even stated that their reason to do so was because religious people would be offended by these cartoons.

Fast forward to 2005. In April of that year, Queen Margrethe herself wrote an article (or perhaps it was a speech) that was published in the British Telegraph, a large, centre-right British daily. In that article (or speech) she was quoted as saying that "the Danes have to show their opposition to Islam."

Hardly a year later, the infamous cartoons depicting the profet were published in Danish papers and all hell broke loose with large parts of the Moslim world boycotting Danish products costing Danish society billions of euros. The Danish government refused to apologise. And what did Margrethe the monarch? Absolutely nothing. Not a word from this queen. Because of her earlier comments on the moslim faith, people assumed she agreed with the insulting cartoons.

By not saying anything, by not coming out and making the kinds of gestures her colleague Beatrix would have made, Margrethe helped make the situation worse than it otherwise might have been. Instead of being a unifying force, as Beatrix has turned out to be, Margrethe jumped on the anti-moslim wagon and escalated the fire.

If her brave father, who used to walk through German-occupied Copenhagen with a yellow star on his coat, knew this, he'd be turning in his grave I'm afraid. Bad judgment on Margarethe's side. I know this is off topic, but put this in contrast to how Beatrix has acted, has stepped up to the plate. It isn't difficult to spot the difference, imo.

Princess Olga, allow me to say that when you make these kinds of statements, the first thing would be to at least try to get your facts right.
If her brave father, who used to walk through German-occupied Copenhagen with a yellow star on his coat, knew this, he'd be turning in his grave I'm afraid.
Are you by this wrong reference trying to refer to King Christian X - QMII's grandfather? And he didn't walk - he rode a horse - and many historians by the way say that the story about wearing the yellow star is not true but a subsequent embellishment.
In April of that year, Queen Margrethe herself wrote an article (or perhaps it was a speech) that was published in the British Telegraph, a large, centre-right British daily. In that article (or speech) she was quoted as saying that "the Danes have to show their opposition to Islam."

No - she was wrongly translated as having said that!:wacko: The offensive word here is 'modspil' which has wrongly been translated to 'opposition'; modspil may be the interaction between equally strong parties, it may be response or even opposition but not in a negative way.

And no, she didn't write an article or speech about it:wacko: (wouldn't it have been great to check something like this out before making claims?)
As to the book by Annelise Bistrup about Queen Margrethe II, excerpts from this book can be found eg. here: http://jeppesn.dk/kongerige/citater-annelise-bistrup.html

I disse år udfordres vi af islam. Både globalt og lokalt. Der er noget imponerende ved mennesker, for hvem religioner gennemsyrer tilværelsen fra morgen til aften, fra vugge til grav. Der er også kristne, der har det sådan.
Men det er en udfordring, vi er nødt til at tage alvorligt. Vi har
ganske givet ladet det flagre i alt for lang tid. Fordi vi er
tolerante - og temmelig dovne. Jeg synes virkelig ikke, det er
nemt. Og heller ikke så rart.


My translation:
"In these years we are challenged by islam, globally and locally. There is something impressive about human beings for whom religion pervades their life from morning till night, from cradle to grave. There are Christians who feel the same way"
But it is a challenge we have to take seriously. We have certainly let it blow in the wind for far too long time. Because we are tolerant - and rather lazy. I really do not think it is easy. And not very pleasant either"

Other quotations from the book:
»Der må vises et modspil, og man må en gang imellem løbe den risiko at få en mindre flatterende etiket hæftet på sig. For der er visse ting, man ikke skal være tolerant over for. Når man er tolerant, skal man lige mærke efter, om det er af bekvemmelighed eller overbevisning.«
My translation:"One has to show a response ['modspil'] and sometime one has to run the risk of being labelled something less flattering. Because there are certain things one should not tolerate. When you are tolerant you have to check out whether you are so because of convenience or conviction"

And what did Margrethe the monarch? Absolutely nothing. Not a word from this queen. Because of her earlier comments on the moslim faith, people assumed she agreed with the insulting cartoons.
Funny, I would assume that a person making this sort of statement would have at least a figment of knowledge of the monarch's role in Denmark. The monarch in Denmark is non-political - FULL STOP. Had QMII transgressed that the political scene would have had her head on a platter.

By not saying anything, by not coming out and making the kinds of gestures her colleague Beatrix would have made, Margrethe helped make the situation worse than it otherwise might have been. Instead of being a unifying force, as Beatrix has turned out to be, Margrethe jumped on the anti-moslim wagon and escalated the fire.
Utter speculation and nonsense IMO. YOu have no way of knowing what would have happened, had QMII exceeded her powers and interferred in a firehot political matter. Do you know what e.g. QMII and Fogh Rasmussen, who is the Danish Prime Minister' discussed about this?

'jumping on the anti-moslim wagon...' - I really don't know how to respond to a comment of this nature without being extremely offensive - so I won't.

Twisting comments to serve a specific agenda is nothing new. QMII is an active Christian, she believes in the Christian values and she appears proud of them. IMO she is saying that she respects other religions [see translation above] but she reserves herself the right to stand up for her own religion, her own views and she - IMO - does not want to let her own faith take second seat in the name of politeness and political correctness. And that is exactly how a queen and prominent member of the Christian church should react.

----
Admins, sorry for taking up this much space about a Danish issue in a Dutch thread; but had to react to a post so filled with misinformation.
 
For now this slighty OT-part is not a problem, but it is best to stop the discussion on Queen Marrethe II here. If any future poster feels the urge to react to the posts above, we request them to take the discussion to the Danish forum.


Marengo
Dutch forum moderator
 
Do you recognise the photo behind the queen? I think it is a picture of John F. Kennedy, isn't it?
 
Yes, anirac it is a picture of John F Kennedy
 
Yes, I noticed the same thing when I enlarged the picture. And since it says the Queen gave an audience, is it to be thought that this is the Queen's private office we are seeing in the photo?
 
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