Provocation? Red-White-Blue: Integrating the Colonial Past in the Present

Provocations in this volume are short opinionated interventions. According to the Dutch dictionary, however, a provocation is likely to cause anger, or to induce a violent reaction. This chapter starts from this understanding of the term. Playful provocations play with common values in order to test reactions. In our polarizing, or rather polarized world, however, provocations too often lead to 'real' violence, whereas even without physical violence, they can radiate violence through feelings of unsafety for those implied at the receiving end of the provocation. Focusing on the major provocation in the summer of 2022 of the Dutch national flag turned upside down by farmers all over the Dutch countryside, this chapter tries to relate environmental degradation in the Netherlands to the future of the colonial past in museums. How playful can museums contribute to an urgent dialogical transformation of common values in order to help solve this major controversy; would invoking the colonial past help?.