The Dutch Experience

The international superb event currently taking place in Germany – World Cup -  made me contemplate a lot of facts about the world. Today, I’ve got an e-mail from a German friend. She’s working in a pub – as a summer job – in one of the WC spots, and she was telling me how brilliant is this event concerning that everybody from all nations are gathering there to have drinks together, despite their races, religions, or color, forgetting all such differences, and just enjoying the tournament atmosphere. Though, we’re experiencing everyday a lot of incidents that show that it’s not that cool between everybody, like the big banner in the bus station near my house, showing a chick wearing the Dutch national team’s jersey sitting over the laid down old fat guy wearing the German national team’s jersey. During the match between Brazil and Japan, I was shocked when I heard the people living in the upper level cheering….well, it wasn’t really cheering, it was a mixture between screams, yells, and shouting, but anyway, this happened when Brazil scored, and my Asian flat mates told me that the Chinese guys are happy because they hate Japan. I think even Brazilians themselves won’t be as happy as them.

All these were some chili between countries, but I was shocked when I read an article about the Ghanaian player who raised the Israeli flag when he scored against Czech. Does it make sense to anybody, when your team scores against another, they raise a third team’s flag, even if they’re not even joining the tournament, specially, with such controversial country as Israel??!!! Well, couple of days after the incident, it was written in no other than Egyptian newspapers that Ghana’s government submitted an official apology to the Arab’s league for that.

When I was thinking about, what can be the motive of doing that, it was obvious that it’s because of Habkouk. Habkouk is a football training camp in Ghana established by an Israeli coach. The camp is such a brilliant idea, as it requires couple of dollars to join in, and it recruits youth who are suffering from poverty and ignorance to develop their football skills and sell them later to European teams. It’s a good business, isn’t it? The young kids in this camp have a very organized schedule for everyday starting by saluting the Israeli flag and listening to the national anthem of Israel. Now, does it make sense for a Ghanaian player to raise Israel’s flag after he scores for GHANA against Czech?

Oh boy…..everyday passes for me here in NL, although, makes me hate the bureaucratic systems more and more, but makes me love the Unsystematic Dutch process. Though that sounds paradoxically…..but for example going through the horrible process of getting visa, residence permit, and all other official unimportant details was so complicated, but seemed like the Dutch don’t want any INTRUDERS represented in any foreigner coming to their country despite their purpose; studying, tourism, or even working.

But though, NS (the Dutch railway), has injustice funny systems, as this has happened to me few time, while travelling from one city, spending some time in another and then going to a third destination, you just need a ticket from the first city, till the final destination, however far the mid-city from the first and last ones!! Once was travelling from Roozendaal (in the south), to Amsterdam (mid-west), spending a day there, and then back to Arnhem (mid-east), with a ticket from Roozendaal to Arnhem, with “via Amsterdam” written on it……as if it makes a difference. While at other time, I’ve got fined on a train, simply, because my ticket had “a weekend return” written on it, instead of a normal return ticket, but that’s was because the ticket machine don’t have this option!!

Another situation from among a whole list, was in the airport going back to EG. I was having extra weight in my luggage, and the girl by the counter instead that the extra 4 Kgs should be paid for, or removed from the bag. But the solution was far way simpler than both. I’ve removed some stuff from my luggage bag and put them in a plastic bag and hold them with me as a cabin bag, though, I already had a hand bag!! Well, it didn’t made sense for me, but was a cheerful solution for her.

Well, actually I was thinking about this issue for very long time, probably started taking a part of my brain 6 years ago during my first launch to a European country. More precisely, during my 2 months stay in Germany, which before I’ve been to, all my friends and intimate people were telling…..HEY!! are you crazy, you want to go to Germany where they’re so racist and will torture you there!! And as being quite young at that time (18 years), I was thinking why shouldn’t I give it a try, I mean I’m as most of Egyptians with high proud and dignity of our origins and would never accept any kind of discrimination…..but actually, when I’ve been there, I’ve thrown all such stereotypes away, as till now, the Germans have one of the most positive impressions on my life!!

So, why the hell I’m talking about racism then!! The last week, I was reading an article in a Dutch NEWSpaper about a poll that has taken place here in NL, and it turned out that 1 out of 10 Dutch is a racist, which is quite high percentage. I was watching few of the world cup games, and I’ve a terrible luxurious option of watching the games with either British, German or Dutch commentary. Actually my Dutch and German are still in the developing stage, but still can get the injusticy of what the commentators are talking about. You might be surprised if you know that the best commentary is the German one, not for something, but that the Dutch commentator is always talking about very random things that has got nothing to do with football, like how magnificent the fans looks like, or how the Germans can’t provide enough control on the international supporters!! Which is part of the Dutch racism against Germans….yes, it’s true….the only couple of times that I’ve got bounced back from going to a club was once companying German friends and the other time were Latin friends!! Anyway, and the British commentator is practicing stupid sarcasm against the nations that he don’t like, France, Italy are among the list…….while the German guy are talking neutrally about all the teams, with extra soccer information about each team and the players of each team, without making fun of other nations, or without praying live for France to get kicked out by Korea, or a lot of other examples.

This may sound a bit stupid, but still you can recognize racism in such very small incidents, represented in the world cup, as while watching the games for African teams, you know that whatever will happened to the African players they’ll never get a penalty kick, or even a free kick outside the 18 yards…..i’ve even read a blog for an African guy who frustratingly written that he’ll support any black players team just because they’re black, which is obviously a furious counter-racism reaction. That’s so bad, when you see how deep and negatively effective racism is effecting people’s lives.

Let’s get back to Dutch racism, well, although the Dutch are one of the most friendly and nice people I’ve dealt with, but I’ve discovered that as long as you’re speaking English and telling them that you’re in NL just for studying or traveling around, so you’re their friend and they can do anything to help you. But you’ll find a different nation if you tried to speak to them in Dutch or if you tell them that you’re working or on a traineeship, which for them means that you’re one of those invaders who want to occupy their land and take over their jobs and leave them in poverty and hunger!! Well, I’m still thinking about the reasons that may lead to racism, but I think from among them should be the feeling of insecurity – can include unstable economy, unqualified jobs, deterioration of services, inadequate education, unavailability of complete infrastructures compared to neighboring countries – beside all that, it can be just sickness. Although, I didn’t had any personal experience with Dutch racism myself, but I’ve seen many examples, specially against Germans and Asians, like once we’ve been playing football with some friends and among them was a nice Dutch friend who was so upset with my Vietnamese flatmate because he cheated in counting the time for the game and started yelling and shouting at him, and told him….are you cheating you Chinese bitch!! Or a lot of stories from some Chinese friends about Dutch kids who can barely speak and start pointing at them saying “China town” in English!!

Is it that a joke in one of those yellow magazines, or is it a real NEWS???!!! Well, I’ve found the whole issue so interesting coming from a homophobic country myself, and I don’t know, although considered as open-minded and tolerant enough, if I should be considered as homophobic as well, but I didn’t had much experiences dealing with homosexuals, and I can’t imagine that I’ll be dealing closely with one. Anyway, that’s not the point now, but reading that heading in the NEWS about the returning of the Dutch ambassador in Estonia, because the country can’t tolerate his black male mate, was quite surprising for me. The article says that the ambassador’s partner was subjected to verbal harassments and threats in the street!!

The article mentioned that the Estonian society is not ready to tolerate a same sex couple, specially if one of them is black, but hold on a second….why such issue isn’t on the top NEWS headlines, the same as non-tolerance of homosexuals in middle-east and Egypt…..just couple of days ago was checking CNN, when I’ve found them showing a whole reportage about the same topic in Egypt, and how horrible are the Egyptians not to accept those people in our society, which make a sense in a way, as even if it would be allowed by law to tolerate them, the society itself will never accept dealing with them. So why shall we legally accept something that culturally won’t??!!

Despite all that, why on earth shall the Netherlands assign one of their ambassadorships to a homosexual if though it’s legally allowed and the Dutch are foreseen as tolerant people, but still not so tolerant toward fully acceptance of them in the society!!