Augmented Journalism

The Dutch military approach, where victory was the only goal, was sustained for seven ugly World Cup matches. Understanding that this method was needed to reach the finals of the tournament, Dutch soccer fans were hopeful that their national team would eventually start playing the real football again. In vain.

In the end the Dutch team became the metaphor for a pale tournament, with hardly any highlights. Hope was cherished for over a month, but it didn’t last after all – justice was done by Spanish goal getter Iniesta and what was left was one big pool of disappointment.

Dutch newspapers this morning don’t focus on the ugly game that was played by their national team, nor on the un-Dutch approach (at moments the fans thought they were watching German, Italian or Argentine players instead), but only on the disappointing grand finale.  There even is some anger against the English referee, although this man obviously could have given the Dutch one or two extra red cards. And of course there is pride. “We fought like lions”, De Telegraaf writes.

In the mean time, the rest of the world (including the non-Spanish part of it) concludes that it would have been much better if the Dutch wouldn’t have reached the finals at all. That won’t stop the Dutch authorities – and fans – from giving their heroes a warm welcome when the return home. An “almost victory”-tour in the canals of Amsterdam will be held on Tuesday, next to a bunch of other celebrations.

1988, the national Dutch soccer team celebrates their European title in the canals of Amsterdam. (C) NOS

Not only in case of a Dutch victory in tonight’s Soccer World Cup Final, the city of Amsterdam is preparing “strong crowd management” for the next couple of days. “When we will become world champions, or even when we lose after a heroic battle, we consider asking non-residents to stay away from the city”, a spokesperson told city newspaper Het Parool.

Amsterdam expects at least 1.5 million visitors in case of a victory. Measures like closing highways or not allowing trains to travel to Central Station will be discussed on Monday morning. Buses and trams will be free of charge, but won’t ride in the city centre. Official celebrations are planned for Tuesday afternoon. In the World Cup scenario a canal tour will be the highlight of the celebrations. The 30+ generation has strong memories of the national team’s canal tour after winning the European Cup in 1988.

The city has already advised car owners not to park their vehicles alongside the canals in any case for the next days. Inhabitants of floating “housboats”, which are found in almost every Amsterdam canal, have already been working on reinforcement of their property. In 1988, many of them were severely damaged by the fans who climbed on every one of them, just to get a glimpse of the national players. “Chances are high that the fans again will use anything, including cars and houseboats, as a platform”, the spokesperson said.

Some smaller bridges will be closed in order to prevent their collapse should the crowds swarm over them. Starting Monday morning, the same “strong crowd management”-measures will be taken as on Queen’s Day. Which means that not only security guards but also speakers and information panels will lead the crowds into the right directions.

UPDATE: Hours before the beginning of the World Cup Final (and even days before an eventual celebration), the mayor of Amsterdam has declared his city “full”. He strongly calls upon all non-residents not to come to Amsterdam anymore today.

Anti- Semitic incidents in Germany and the Netherlands have brought up different solutions. Some well known, some much more creative.

The German police last saturday chose not to act at all against a group of Muslim youngsters, afraid that any action on their behalf would only cause more violence. During an outdoor performance of a Jewish dance company in the city of Hannover, the Muslims had thrown a rain of stones on the group, shouting “Juden raus“.

The performance was immediately aborted and a day later two teenagers were arrested. They were part of a group of Libanese, Iranian en Palestinian Germans. According to the police, the violence is strongly related to the tensions in the middle East, especially between Israel and its neighbouring countries.

On several occasions, German Muslims  have used the very same anti-Semitic slogans the country remembers from the 1930’s. German politicians have expressed their concern, but no new solutions have been brought up.

That’s different in the small neighbour country the Netherlands, where the same kind of problems have arisen recently. To cope with them, Dutch parliament has asked for the deployment of nothing less than decoy Jews.

The rather unorthodox measure was asked for after a hidden-camera video showing Jews being harassed on the street in a Moroccan neighborhood of Amsterdam, had been broadcasted on public television. Undercover police officers wearing yarmulkes would have to provoke hate crimes against Jews.

Although discussion is still going on whether this would really help solving the problem, it is not the first time this kind of measure is considered in the Netherlands. Not long ago ago decoy gays were used to take care of violence against homosexuals.

The Netherlands is still a patient, waiting for recovery. Although most things seem to have gone back to normal in this tiny European country that was so devastated by the killings of Theo van Gogh and Pim Fortuyn at the beginning of this century, beneath the surface the fear is still very strong.

Today’s 65th Remembrance Day was proof of it. At the end of the traditional two minutes silence in front of the national war monument in Amsterdam, a tiny incident was enough for a lot of panic.

Strange sounds were heard in the audience, a man shouted something, people started running away, some fences fell down and a wave of panic spread through the hundreds of people around it. Kids fell over, queen Beatrix was rapidly brought into safety. More than 60 people got injured.

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Only five days ago, Beatrix had wholeheartedly thanked her people that they had returned Queen’s Day to the Netherlands. It was a huge relief for her that no incidents like the year before had occurred during this national day of celebration on April 30.

The relief turned out to be only short-lived. Today she knows for sure that the patient still needs to be taken care of.

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A 39-year old male from Amsterdam was arrested immediately after the incident. He is accused of causing the disorder by his shouting during the two minutes of silence. If no other accusations will be added, according to Dutch law the suspect has to be set free by tomorrow morning. The fact that he is known by the police from other drugs and violence related crimes, doesn’t alter that. Witnesses said that the suspect had the looks of an Orthodox Jew. Police couldn’t confirm that he really is.

UPDATE Charges have been changed into “causing serious injuries”, so the suspect will be held in custody for at least another 48 hours.

Image by Getty Images North America via Daylife

The fall of the Dutch government, which happened last weekend, brings me back to November last year. Minister for European Affairs Frans Timmermans, gives a brilliant performance at TEDx Amsterdam, where he encourages his audience to “embrace your fears and be like Jack Sparrow”.

Today I asked him if he still felt like Jack Sparrow during the dying hours of this cabinet. His answer: “I did encounter Beasty”. Of course I wanted to know who exactly played the role of Beasty that night, but unfortunately he didn’t answer that one.

Anyway, just to remind everyone that there is still some smartness in Dutch politics, here’s Timmermans’s TEDx speech. In perfect English, he talks about the understandable fear of “the other”, the much needed counterintuitive actions (like those performed by Jack Sparrow), the need for the left to “reinvent its ideology”, to go out and help change things. Yes, this speech has elements known from the Kennedys, from Barack Obama if you wish. But it is inspiring in its own respect. Enjoy 18 minutes of Frans Timmermans.

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Proud to be Dutch!

Not everybody realises that it is thanks to the Dutch merchants’ ships, that you American folks can celebrate Black History Month. According to yesterday’s Colbert Report, without these Dutch “there wouldn’t even be African Americans. They would still be called Africans.”

So painfully true…

On all levels, we Dutch like to be mocked about. Even by foreigners in our own country. One of the best in that field is Boom Chicago’s Greg Shapiro. Since 1993, Boom Chicago has mixed sharp writing and quick thinking and to create funny shows and videos. Boom Chicago performs nightly in a theater in the center of Amsterdam. Most of its shows contain a lot of funny criticism on Dutch society, and attract American tourists as well as Dutch people.

Greg Shapiro performs outside Boom Chicago as well; he had a news show on the Dutch Comedy Central channel. Now he is covering the local elections in Amsterdam, which take place on March 3. Watch how he explains the excesses of the “vertrutting” – the feeling that nowadays there seem to be more rules than people to break them.

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Instead of Elian Wils and Robbert Nieuwenhuijs, it was the Amsterdam Tourisme & Congres Bureau (ATCB) that organised the response to Bill O’Reilly’s criticism on Amsterdam. The Fox News anchorman had called the Dutch capital “a cesspool of drugs, corruption, prostitution and crime”, which inspired ATCB for a reaction last summer.

Now, half a year later, and only after it was nominated for a prize on innovation in city marketing, ATCB publicly admits it directed the big hit YouTube video’s .

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In a new video, ATCB declares “we decided not to disclose our commitment in order to maintain the initiative friendly and to get authentic responses”. The president of the national Dutch advertisers association (VEA) has called it unwise to mislead the viewers like ATCB did. “In an age of transparancy, you shouldn’t hide your intentions”, he says in newspaper Het Parool.

If ATCB gets the citymarketing prize, will be decided on january 14. According to the jury, “ATCB ridiculed a highly negative news item on Fox News in a very funny way.”

The website The Truth About Amsterdam is still on air and doesn’t mention anything about the real truth.

David Vogel wants to save the newspaper industry. He wrote an extensive blogpost about it and with it he hopes to win a couple of minutes at the prestigious Amsterdam TEDx Congress next week. His “Big Idea” in brief: newspapers should be better aware of the laws of the internet. If they would understand them better, ultimately they would be fine, he says.

Vogel, an internet designer, is convinced that newspaper executives need to change their behavior. They should become “more open, accountable and thorough in the checks and balances”. Next to that, Vogel thinks that newspapers should enable readers to actually contribute something. If a journalist writes about a certain project, a reader might want to donate money, Vogel thinks. And in doing so, the ties between reader and paper might get stronger, hel hopes.

Nice way to get on the TEDx stage. But still a long way to save the paper.

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It’s becoming more and more a common sight in Dutch cities: a semi-official road sign that depicts a ban on using marihuana in public. One out of five municipalities has at least one neighbourhood where blowing is forbidden by a local law. In 2001 the first blow ban was issued by the city council of Venlo, but especially in the last two years the number of no-blow-areas has been exploding.

According to an article in today’s newspaper De Pers, half of the banning cities have decided to do so without a trace of a reason. “They don’t even have coffeeshops where you can buy drugs”, professor Dirk Korf (university of Amsterdam) tells the newspaper. “These kind of communities you see for example in the bible belt (a group of municipalities with a strongly religious population in the middle of the Netherlands, BB). They want a moral signal: our youth should not use drugs.”

But even in cities like Amsterdam, some neighbourhoods have decided to get the blow ban signs out.  De Baarsjes is one of them, with a ban for the Mercatorplace since 2006. And although there are serious problems concerning drugs in areas like this, not everybody thinks a ban on blowing really helps solving this. Says a shop owner from The Hague, where another blow ban is considered, in de Pers: “There is some trouble in this neighbourhood, but not from the marihuana selling coffeeshops. Blowing makes a person slow and quiet, not troublesome.”

The “Cesspool of Drugs, Corruption, Prostitution and Crime”, the “City of Disaster and Anarchy”, the place “where every questionable person in Europe is coming to”, “Disneyworld for those People”, a.k.a. Amsterdam, is hitting back. The battle between two young Dutch film makers and Bill O’Reilly (FoxNews) continues. A new video shows interviews with Americans in Amsterdam – all of them jubilant about the city they are visiting.

One of them: “I would highly encourage Americans to come over and visit this place.” See for yourself.

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