WORK|OUT European Students’ Review

ATTRACTIVE CONTRADICTIONS

A student’s love prose to the city of Amsterdam

| Kati Voigt (AMSTERDAM). Oh Amsterdam, city of contrasts, you impossible incorporation of both Atlantis and Gomorrah, oh Amsterdam, my beautiful! You are home of Europe’s bohemian elite, subject to the dreams of many unlucky and restless searchers of their own fate and object of desire of many who want to settle down for good. But why? Every city, especially every major city, has it’s very own special personality, and even though naming Paris la grand dame and Berlin the “no future!” screaming teenage-punk among Europe’s capitals means breaking down the uniqueness of a city into a few dogmatic clichés — there is some truth behind it. So why is it that Amsterdam attracts, fascinates and keeps so many different people? Well, speaking of clichés, there is of course the infamous tolerance: in the good four hundred year old tradition of enlightened openness the city of Amsterdam tolerates the use of soft drugs, prostitution is exercised openly in the oldest and most central part of the city, and homosexuals can not only marry but are celebrating once every year with the rest of Amsterdam’s inhabitants and many tourists at the big gay parade in August. Then there is the beauty. Amsterdam is extraordinarily beautiful with its canals and bridges, the architecture ranges from 17th century canal houses via 1920’s “Amsterdamse school”, to modern variations of the traditional canal houses in the posh and yuppie quarter of Zeeburg. It is international and multicultural — it is very easy to get by with only English as almost every Dutchman speaks the language fluently, the university offers a lot of programs in English and many international companies have an office in Amsterdam.
So much for the clichés. But all that glistens is not gold. On a closer look this city has a lot of problems and some might wonder whether Amsterdam is being torn apart by the blatant contradictions that it is trying to reconcile. The reputation of the blessed city is considered a curse by many of its inhabitants — there is undeniably a lot of drug and sex tourism, the smell of marihuana is omnipresent, the junkies who live here make a living on stealing bikes and selling them to tourists, and the pragmatic amongst Amsterdam’s inhabitants have given up on fighting against it. The rich and beautiful on the other hand who come to Amsterdam and buy houses let the prices for real estate in this crowed city boom to an all-time record, students live in containers and still pay ridiculous rents. And the open approach to immigration and multiculturalism is under fierce attack since the political murders of homosexual right wing politician Pim Fortuyn and Islam-critical director Theo van Gogh in 2002 and 2005. Discussions in parliament and the media show that Amsterdam and its inhabitants are in need to redefine the image of their city, and that they might want to reconsider some of the policies. Amsterdam needs a plan, a change, to be able to cope with the problems of the post 9/11 era. But then again — which city doesn’t? This one at least has always been and will always be a special and very dense pool of creativity and unconventionality and will manage to bear the changes with a smile and a blink and sneak the Amsterdam spirit back in. It is this laidback craziness that makes Amsterdam one of the best places to live.