Party Vibe

BTW a good English description of Dutch political parties can be found here..

Political Quirks – Party profiles

@process 403516 wrote:

should think it will go the same way as the uk mushroom shop thing, no consultation, no democracy involved and no common sense. just there closed. we’ve decided there bad basing it on nothing and we’re not gonna ask for any ones opinion on it.

NL is not England, they have a different way of dealing with politics. For instance they have had proportional representation in their elections for years. Their politics is also a lot more based on consenus rather than one major party calling the shots.

There is an open and honest and fair discussion about drugs. There has been for about 40 years. Its just the bulk of this discussion has been conducted in Dutch 😉 its what led to the tolerance in the first place.

One thing that has been widely misunderstood is the concept of “gedoogbeleid” is not tolerance and acceptance of the drugs culture. Its tolerance of drugs as a “harm reduction” policy with the intention of eventually removing the problem (i.e drugs).

Dutch people begrudgingly accept(ed) the coffeshops in better economic times as they didn’t cause many problems. Cannabis was never made legal, as this would break UN laws. The Dutch authorities chose not to enforce laws against small scale cultivation.

When this was genuine small scale cultivation by hippies it wasn’t a problem. nowadays, it appears to have been overtaken by larges scale gangs of illegal immigrants with links to organised crime – same as in UK, foreigners without work permit being worked like slaves to grow drugs in inner city areas, and also bypassing electric etc. There have then been the same fires and turf wars as there have been in the UK. The political right have also unearthed other links between the coffeeshops and organised crime. Worse, these shops attract a fuckload of sketchy foreign drugs tourists what don’t even spend a lot of money in the country other than the money the cofeeshops were evading taxes on!

To make things worse, Hashish comes from Islamic countries. As we know, For a variety of reasons the Dutch are very paranoid about Islam at the moment. Then there is a democratic election and even young folk decide to vote for the right wing – so the mood has shifted against the tolerance. basically the political left still want tolerance but the right don’t want it, and the right wing have a slight majority. I’m not a nationalist by any means but I do believe every country has the right to choose its own soverignty and culture, and if thats what the Dutch people want its their decision and they and Europe have to live with it.

a similar thing happened in Sweden in the 1970s and they went to hardline zero tolerance within the space of a few years.

true but its the price of democracy (though Sweden now has a worse drugs problem than the UK)

that said someone on Bluelight from NL was berating drugs tourists – and from what I’ve read elsewhere there is a lot of prejudice against local Dutch drug users as it is (its seen as an activity for “losers and foreigners”) and in particular “badly behaved English, French and Germans” “make things worse”.

Sweden’s and some other Scandinavian countries laws are interesting, they give someone 5 years inside but they also get all their rehab sorted out, a prison cell as nice as a flat and the probation officers speak to their boss to try and make sure they keep their job! OK better than someone having their life totally fucked up but it is still govt showing their total control over someone, not surprising there is high suicide rate and occasional people losing it with violent crime..

@barnzy001 403534 wrote:

this might happen one day but they been saying this for years since the first coffee shop opened they been saying this i dont think they could afford to loose that much tourism

the first coffeeshop opened the year I was born, 1972. and there was argument against them even then (even with Europe still full of hippies) but it was a different era, a more optimistic Europe with less issues over resources or migration (many people were still behind the iron curtain or couldn’t afford to travel!)

The Netherlands has changed a lot since then and doesn’t depend that much on hedonistic tourism, it makes most of its money from business and finance and people doing brainy stuff with computers same as the UK…. and in any case they want middle class rich tourists, not people who spend a few euros on drugs and whores in businesses what often evade taxes.

When I read the VVD article the politician mentioned he’d worked out how much money would be “lost” and it argued it would not cost the council much and would be offset by not having to bust as many criminals. they didn’t even seem naïve enough to think that it would stop all drug use, but it would still reduce demand. The issue with some coffeeshops evading taxes doesn’t help either. (OK this is Den Haag rather than Amsterdam but they are close together as London and Surrey).

in any case its the choice of the Dutch citizens to decide.

maybe in 2-3 years time.

I’m not actually interested one bit in the drugs/counterculture aspect of NL – I can do that in England but other things like architecture, design and engineering and would be avoiding the big cities and tourist traps.

I reckon also this way I will avoid any racism as aside from ignorant football hooligan types most racial tension comes from local people feeling “pushed out” by visitors, the same tension exists in London TBH! This is also why I am learning Dutch, as even if many people do speak good English everywhere I would not expect them to feel they have to do so…

I hope that they rediscover the trends of genuine social democracy, tolerance and communities in the next few years (its a shame to see a decent country so divided by the political issues)

@process 403580 wrote:

both things are linked apparently…

the right wing politicians are linking both issues as “crime which should no longer be tolerated”.

however, some of the the left wing anarchist/activist communities are actually trying to distance the squat culture from drugs and coffeeshops.

I’ve read a few papers (since the 1980s!) from various activist groups (only in English unfortunately as my Dutch does not yet stretch to reading intellectual lefties’ debates) – they claim that amongst some left-wing / anarchist groups drugs are equally contentious an issue.

Whilst they of course support personal liberty, the excessive use of recreational drugs is demotivating to the individual and can make them self-seeking/selfish, and even in NL, the trade itself is ultra-capitalistic and backed up by crime and violence! They also have the same issues regarding vandalism and violence in squats as you get in England.

There was a big article on indymedia and other such places about this which I have been trying to find, however its mysteriously disappeared just before the protests, does make you wonder about spin coming from both sides!

And as much as I disagree with policies of the VVD and certainly the PVV they have been elected by a majority consensus decision. There are plenty of socialist and green parties the Dutch could have voted for (although I think the result is almost divided down the middle similar to the UK). in view of this, what gives any minority group the right to dictate to them what should happen, especially after they have had as many years as I have been on this earth to fight their corner and lost the argument?

its not even that all the squats are being evicted straight away, they are “normalising” them into student houses/social housing like in England. Not all Council areas agree with the ban, and for those which disagree it is now their job to put euros towards providing housing for the people who are displaced!

Of course if the rental price is set way too high and places stay empty there would be more of a moral ground to squat them once more – but in reality even with the economic depression most people still seem to be able to afford a place to live even in the UK or can get one via social benefits.

Amsterdam and Den Haag are not the entire Netherlands any more than London or Brighton are England. Here in Ipswich squatting is really rare and tends to be only desparate drug addicts doing it, most young people can either afford rent or get benefits, and though there have been squats in Stowmarket, they have resulted in the buildings being trashed.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not against the principle of squatting when there is no alternative, but it doesn’t absolve people of their normal social responsibilities…