Revolt against art partly caused by museum-less era?

More than a decade without national pride does a lot to a country. Could it be true that the simultaneous closure of Stedelijk Museum and Rijksmuseum contributed to the VVD and PVV's frontal attack on art? In art pubs, this thought regularly crosses the bar, and really, why shouldn't it?

Amsterdam's museums had just closed - or were about to close - when calls were heard in the ranks of populist parties for a National History Museum and a real Canon of Dutch History. It was the beginning of a lot of lashing and fussing, political and local ego-boosting and peddling of collections, plans and grant money.

Meanwhile, Utrecht came up with an obscure festival about a Peace that nobody knew about and that would not be celebrated for another 10 years. Millions would be spent on something that could not be explained, and was in unclear connection with its ambition to become Europe's Capital of Culture, another five years later.

In those days, art could not for a while count as a carrier of identity, national or personal. From the beginning of the new century, art was something in need of renovation, and then cause for bureaucratic rumblings, angry bicycle tunnel fetishists and multi-million-dollar procedures. In that zeitgeist, the Amsterdam metro and the Betuwe line were child's play compared to what was tinkering around Stedelijk Museum, Rijksmuseum and Treaty of Utrecht.

None of the guardians of those cultural identity determinants could point to a living example of that national pride at that time. There was nothing. No basis, no example, just construction pits and unclear official processes. To boot, there was a princess who said that The Dutchman did not exist.

Five years into that museum-less era, the economic crisis erupted. A crisis that seemed to bypass art building pits and obscure long-term projects.

Opponents of subsidised art could not think of a better time to open the attack: the defences were vulnerable, ammunition was lacking among the defenders. The dissatisfaction that had been dormant for years anyway, justified or not, and whether or not partly caused by an art and media world that congratulated itself a little too often, found an eruption thanks to the PVV's conspiracy theories and the VVD's neoconservative thinking.

This month, everything seems to be turning around. Everyone is proud of the New Rijks. The bathtub of the Stedelijk is taken to heart by more and more people, although they still have to get rid of that weird director there, and the starting shots for the Treaty of Utrecht show not only that city, but also the rest of the Netherlands, that something big was done outside Amsterdam once in a while.

In a year or two, the VVD will also call for more investment in young Dutch culture to safeguard the great history of this small country for the future.

And all because we finally got our museums back.