April 11, 2008...10:04 pm
Dutch Tolerance
It’s early evening. We’re sitting outside an Amsterdam eetcafé, somewhere between a pub and an informal restaurant, waiting for our order. We haven’t paid yet but are already enjoying our drinks. “I trust you”, said the barman. It’s the first bit of proper Dutch tolerance we’ve encountered.
When you’re born in a place and then don’t spend a great deal of time in it, it’s easy to see it through rose-tinted glasses. The Netherlands was supposed to be America the way America was intended, a nation of respect, understanding, compromise and true democracy. Drugs are regulated in a common-sense way and prostitutes have their own union. Everything goes and yet the crime rate keeps sliding down. That’s how I advertised the place to friends. But really, I’m as much of a tourist here as anyone else. And though I understand the language, I don’t entirely comprehend the place as it is now. Within a few years of us moving to New Zealand the centre-left government fell and a conservative Christian one took its place, led by Jan-Peter Balkenende, a nerdy, pasty small-town pastor type who looks like a gangly Harry Potter. Two high profile murders, those of extremist politician Pim Fortuyn and controversial filmmaker Theo Van Gogh (yes, related to the Van Gogh) shocked the country and facilitated a general swing to the right of the public mindset.
I woke relatively well this morning, bundling up and taking care with what I eat my only concessions to my ever-strengthening health. We’re staying at my grandmother’s for one night, in a flat outside the centre. After dropping off our bags we headed back around one. We were going to take the metro from the Centraal Station at the northern edge of the centre and then walk back down to the Rijksmuseum in the south, seeing the city in the process, but at Waterlooplein two rather authorative-looking police officers in day-glo yellow pulled us off the train and nearly fined us 60 Euros for putting our feet on the seats. They were waiting for us specifically, so one wonders if a person on the train reported us, and if such a person goes to the Anne Frank House and doesn’t see what all the fuss is about. In the end it was our foreign home that saved us - the coppers didn’t want to deal with the paperwork and let us off with a warning.
An utterly ridiculous situation, of course. All the same, I was chastened and walked hurriedly as I took a shortcut over grass a little bit later, and not brave enough to sneak a few snaps once in the Rijksmuseum. This Dutch version of the National Gallery is currently under reconstruction. So are the Modern Art and Maritime museums, incidentally - you’d think Amsterdam is preparing for the Olympics with all these public facilities being polished. But the tourists can’t be denied their Night Watch, so they’ve set up a Greatest Hits collection in a side wing. It hardly needs saying that you still have to pay full price, and there’s no student discount.
The experience itself was enjoyable, mostly because of a rather excentric man who was cataloguing every ship that took part in the first war against the English through studying the paintings of the era, and insisted on giving me an enthusiastic and at times mind-numbingly thorough private tour. It also perfectly illustrated the Dutch penchant for both personality and vulgarity. In the propaganda-filled naval warfare scenes, English sailors are blown sky-high in poses and with facial expressions that wouldn’t be amiss in a Wil. E. Coyote cartoon. In paintings of winter landscapes characters are caught with their britches down doing their business through a crack in the ice, while young lovers and aged married folk skate by. We may be renowned for being good at it, but that doesn’t mean the Dutch take painting very seriously. Even Rembrandt’s Nachtwacht is worth a smile once you know that the militia officers had to pay to be included in the group portrait. Presumably the ones with only half a face visible couldn’t afford as much as the captain of the guard.
After dinner, which we don’t skip out on paying for, we head back to the metro. Paul and I sit across from each other to avoid temptation. And it’s a good thing too, because there are two more cops sitting next to us. On, as it turns out when they leave, seats meant for invalids.
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