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IAMSTERDAM

IAMSTERDAM

December 2018 · 3 min read

You have probably seen these letters before when you have visited Amsterdam. There a couple of them throughout the city. The one you see here below I took at Schiphol Airport, but they are also at Museumplein and a couple other locations.



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Now the ones on Museumplein were removed this morning. And why? Because they ‘are a symbol of extreme individualism’ and because of that they have to go.


Well well well, who was the smart ass to think of this measure? Honestly, my first thought that comes to mind when seeing these letters is exactly the opposite. It is that WE are all a piece of Amsterdam because of these letters.


But Dutch government at the moment sometimes seems like they have nothing else to worry about. So they keep themselves occupied with these kind of futilities. ‘Betuttelen’ we call it, the English translated word ‘Patronizing’ doesn’t entirely cover the message I find.





This is something that I have noticed as an outsider looking at the country for the last couple of years. Maybe the experience when you are actually living in the country is different, but from a distance...this seems like 1st world problems while there are actual issues. Or is the economy going THAT well, that there is again room for these kind of problems?


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I remember last year a decision was made to go over to gender neutrality in shops and public services. This would mean that for instance in a train, the speak message would be ‘dear travellers’ instead of ‘ladies and gentlemen’. Also in some stores the girls and boys sections HAD TO be remodelled, because of that some people weren’t sure of if they would belong to the girls OR the boys section, and could potentially be discriminated about this. And because of that insecurity, millions of dollars were spent to change this.


I couldn’t believe what I was hearing! As one of my friends said. ‘For years there hasn’t been an money to improve public restrooms for disabled people (her brother is disabled), but because of this small group of people millions of dollars will be spend to change this? Where are our priorities!’


She was right. Same as with the I AMSTERDAM. At first loads of bucks are spent on designing and making these kinds of things, and once settled in and appreciated by the public, some desk-hero decides to say that it is a bad idea.


I am lost sometimes in these things sometimes. At least we all were Amsterdam for a bit

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