The Dutch Constitution: Article 1. All who reside in The Netherlands, are treated similarly in similar cases. Discrimination on account of religion, life principles, political persuasion, race, gender or any other basis, is not allowed.

Article 1 of the Dutch constitution has been one of the most discussed over laws in the past years. The rise of the use of the concept of 'nationality' (literally absent from Article 1) within the political discourse, as well as the debate on the manifestations of religion in the public sphere have forced both civilians and politicians to rethink the precise nature of our society, and therefore the constitution. Several politicians — the first of which was populist frontman Pim Fortuyn — have pleaded in favor of the abandonment of the anti-discrimination principle, since it would hinder a 'real' debate on, for example, immiigration issues. In fact, Article 1 is de facto already suspended for 'abject' groups such as illegal immigrant, Maroccan unemployed youth or female members of the orthodox protestant SGP party.

Simultaneously, the attitude towards Article 1 can generally be described as sympathetic. However, civilians, media and NGOs do only sympathize with the content of Article 1, they also foster feelings of empathy for it. These feelings are sublimated in the ‘market surrounding empathy’ in the shape of 'racism-free school', the 'day against discrimination' and the 'Equal Opportunity Committee'. This unbridled growth of institutions which somehow personify an abstraction causes the Article itself to become more and more opaque and unaccessible.

Therefore, on one hand Article 1 of the Dutch constitution seems to be liquidated as a right for certain groups and communities in the Netherlands, or even should be abolished officially altogether in order to 'open up' the discussion on immigration policies. On the other hand, this article gets more and more elevated as the central Right in our society, as the base, the plinth of the monument of our 'age-old' culture of tolerance. These two motions in relation to Article 1 do not conflict, on the contrary: they illustrate the antagonism that this article of the constitution constitutes, the origin, the typology of the constitution: the tension of the 'market surrounding empathy' and the gap that is called the 'name of the law', the unattainable literal, 'true' interpretation of the text. It is the literality, the name of the law, that allows us transform Article 1 from an abstract Right into a seemingly coherent morality.

This name of the law, this immense monumental form that the anti-discrimination principle has obtained within our communal history is aptly illustrated by the monument for democracy, informally named 'The Bench', situated near the parliament in The Hague. The text of Article 1, engraved in marble, is barely readable and the monument itself has fallen prey to icecream consuming tourists and skating youth. A monument, that has ceased to be a monument, rather a supplement to the new architecture of the parliament (which uses a similar marble): an article of a law, that has been reduced by the law itself to a 1%-appendix, an obligatory state investment into public 'art' with each new building.

Plastering of the Dutch Constitution (Art. 1) aims to indicate this complex problematic on the momument itself. By filling the engraved letters with white plaster, at once the letters - the literality of the article - become prominent, the actual text becomes 'silted up', loaded with the many representations this article has acquired in everyone's experience, and is also effectively 'erased'.