Does hating tourists make me far-right?
Does hating tourists make me far-right?
Considering anti-immigrant sentiment after Geert Wilders' landslide
Last week scaffolding came down on the Leidseplein and revealed the ugliest building ever constructed in human history. To the woe of many Amsterdammers and activists, the Diamond replaced a café where iconic Heineken-ad beer glasses had been on the roof since 1979. The Diamond would fit right into many midwestern American cities and UK airport hotel zones, not remarkable enough to hate. In Amsterdam, my loathing mostly has to do with it building being a hotel. A hotel means tourists, and I hate tourists.
As I cycle through Amsterdam going about my daily business, I silently swear at groups of English, Germans, French, Chinese, whoever, standing in the middle of the f’ing bridges taking f’ing selfies, and not looking where they’re going as they cross the goddamn f’ing road.
I hate that I feel this way. Snarling at tourists is so out of proportion with their wrongdoing, so lacking in empathy, I can only hope it’s generally out of character. And I should have empathy! Not only is everyone a tourist somewhere sometime if they’re lucky, I originally came to Amsterdam as a tourist. On an EasyJet flight from Berlin, no less. To hate tourists is to subconsciously hate who I was then, I suppose, but on a less therapy-obsessed level, I hate them because they get in my f’ing way. Because I live here, and they don’t.
Until a few months ago I lived on the Singel, the center-most canal close to Central Station, an area packed with tourists. Everyday the Spanish, the Australians, whoever, would stare at me as I came and went, trying to get a look inside my place. Becoming a spectacle for no reason except putting a key in the door of an old building amplified my aggravation at tourists, and also clarified it; I felt alienated. I lived among a rotating cast of strangers, not in a community, and this felt wrong in a fundamental way.
I attempted to assuage my hatred by forcing myself to think: the Amsterdam canals are a UNESCO World Heritage Site! A wonder of the world! Let foreigners take selfies, look at the flowers! This place is not really yours, anyway! Is it!
Tucked up into this manic line of thinking lies the key to my hatred: a sense of scarcity. I seem to believe that if I grant an English girl selfie-taking space on the Corsgenbrug, there will be less space for me. Space that I am entitled to. Because I live here.
The developer behind the Diamond insists that the building is not finished yet, and will be beautiful when the final glass panels are installed. Per the architects:
The glass, diamond-shaped exterior facade of the new design refers to the famous Koh-I-Noor diamond. Persian for: “Mountain of Light.” This diamond was cut by Mr. Voorzang, one of the renowned diamond cutters from the past, on behalf of the British Royal Family in Amsterdam. In the evening, the inside of the facade is subtly illuminated by energy-efficient LED lighting.
What is this, Las Vegas?
Anyway, maybe the finished project will exceed expectations, and regardless, whether or not the building is up to my or anyone else’s taste will not resolve the dissonance of the competition of yet another splashy hotel project while the municipality runs failing advertising campaigns to keep tourists away.
A “hotel stop” has been in effect in Amsterdam since 2017, but twenty (!) hotels are still unstoppably in the pipeline, including a Rosewood, the crown douche of all luxury hotel chains, and even they aren't slapping LED glass panels up on the walls of the former Palace of Justice.
In the Netherlands today there is a real sense of limited resources. Not having enough space to navigate around the tourists on Amsterdam’s bridges might be a ridiculous (privileged) example of scarcity, but the mass-tourism overcrowding can feel oppressive to the point that something like the Diamond starts looking like next-level trolling.
I see a connection, that I would rather not, between my territorial attitude about tourists and last week’s elections results. Limiting immigration was one of the major issues that drove voters to Geert Wilders’ far-right PVV party. Tourists aren’t immigrants, but they are foreigners who piss you off for taking what you think is yours.
One way to look at the election results may be that some people who turned to the PVV sensed they were losing control over their resources. They wanted cheaper healthcare, higher wages, affordable housing, and for these benefits not to be handed over to foreigners for nothing.
The number one foreigner-enemy in the Netherlands is not the tourist: it is the asylum seeker. It doesn’t matter that people granted asylum make up a tiny proportion of annual immigrants (ten percent) compared to expats, labor migrants, students, and others (ninety percent). The “asylum influx” is a better story, and comes with scarier pictures.
One of the ways Wilders attracted voters was with a promise of an “asylum stop,” the fantastical idea of magically shutting down the asylum process.
Amsterdam's “hotel stop” is a perfect example of why something like this will never happen. Despite some apparent 2016-era political will, the hotel construction system simply couldn't be “stopped” with the flip of one legal switch: un-cancellable contracts were in place; developers quickly identified a zoning loophole that was not closed until 2021; and the lead time for hotel construction is five to ten years. New hotels will still be constructed at least fifteen years after the “stop.”
The immigration issue at the national level is no different, and even more difficult to change because so many immigration regulations come from the EU. The Dutch bureaucratic state is enormous, and constantly operating in the background. This week, the same week that enormous political energy was expended on the idea of “stopping” asylum, the Council of State granted asylum seekers even more rights: they ruled on Wednesday that asylum seekers are now allowed to work indefinitely, and that the previous 24-week limit was unlawful.
Not that systemic immovability will stop Wilders from changing anything. He wants Nexit; he attacks the institutions of democracy by calling judges D66 party members and journalists “scum”; he wants to ban Islam. Or he wanted these things for twenty years, and now that he needs to collaborate to form a government, he says he doesn’t. He will again, later, the next time he sees a payoff.
Democracy’s edges being chipped of, rather than a high-drama “asylum stop,” is the truly scary thing to watch out for next in the Netherlands.
Whatever might happen with the formation of a coalition, anti-immigrant sentiment isn’t going anywhere. When the reality is that we live amongst tourists, refugees, students, labor migrants, expats, dual-citizens (that’s me), and lots of other types of foreigners in this densely packed country. That what we deem to be the perfect arrangement of community members does not always greet us on our doorsteps might sometimes be alienating, but it is a fact of life here.
The opportunity now for the left (or even the center, at this point!) is to propose an alternative to Wilders in terms of moral leadership, to make an argument for why the country looks the way it does today day, and propose a cohesive plan for where we are going. And probably more than anything else: to make the present abundant, and promise a future even more so.
🔥 Hot Linkjes
Politics
How Wilders’ Indonesian roots might have influenced his hate of Islam, and how the cynicism of European center-right parties opened the door for the far right. (Ian Buruma / Project Syndicate)
“This completely unnecessary political crisis is the work of the VVD.” (Maarten van Rossem / maarten.nl)
“While right-wing politicians from Scandinavia to Italy have won big over the past year, this is the first time a party openly calling for an end to the green transition has won a national election in the European Union.” (Zia Weise / POLITICO)
Culture
Gen-Z is afraid of getting old. The Tiktoks she links to are very depressing. (Pippi de Nijs / Elle NL)
The Netherlands is the seventh-largest market for the world's most popular vibrator. The HEMA sold 150,000 last year! (Julien Althuisius and Angela Wals / Volkskrant Magazine)
Books
Here’s a stupid scandal: the Dutch version of the English book Endgame by Omid Scobie was pulled from shelves after it was found to reveal the name of the “royal racist,” the family member who questioned Harry and Megan baby’s skin tone. Harry and Megan broke this bit of gossip themselves on Oprah, but refused to name names? And it’s totally unclear how the name ended up in the Dutch edition? This is dumb, and I only include it here because I love the idea of a random Dutch publisher ruffling British royal feathers to this extent. It made Page Six!
How Migration Really Works by University of Amsterdam professor Hein de Hass is getting a lot of press these days. He argues that as immigration policies are becoming more liberal, border defenses have become more conservative, a paradox that arises due to conditions of the markets, human rights, and political concerns. The book sounds much more interesting that my very boring summary suggests! (Daniel Trilling / The Guardian)
🥳 Leuke Dingetjes
American math.
A new track from Paceshifters
New music from a long-running Dutch indie rock band. They have a show at Paradiso to celebrate their 15th anniversary coming up.
*all typos in this post are on purpose