Amsterdamned

I've been in Holland for about a day, and I've been here before, and have come to really enjoy Holland. The people are invariably friendly and things function really well.

I'm particularly impressed by how the Dutch somehow balance the dynamic creativity of capitalism with certain social institutions and safety nets of the stereotypical "socialist" European society: when you go through Amsterdam, it has the feel of a very lived-in and dynamic place, with lots of entrepreneurs setting up businesses. It's a very capitalistic society (they had the earliest stock exchange in the world, and also pioneered the concepts of the corporation).

But then it is also interesting that this same society seems relatively egalitarian: there are practically no homeless drunk people in the streets (if you exclude the drunk/stoned Brits drooling on the sidewalks), and their entire social system (from what I can gather) seems to place an equal weight not just on pure profit, but also on fairness (a concept that most capitalistic societies seem to treat as a luxury good), with a focus on making sure all sides are heard and all parties are taken care of. For example, employers have to pay 8 percent of your salary in "vacation money", meant to pay for tickets, hotel bookings, etc., for you to go on vacation. This is on top of the paid vacation time that you are already entitled to as your normal compensation packet, and (get this) even if you are unemployed! The reasoning (based on the NY Times, the Oracle of Manhattan) is that "if you can’t go on vacation, you’ll get depressed and despondent and you’ll never get a job".

With a society like this, it's little wonder that there is quite a strong social glue holding the whole society together. I went to the Dutch Resistance Museum today, which was awesome (though the same can NOT be said of the owner of the cafe next door: please avoid the cafe unless you want to get harangued about "manners") and extremely eye opening about how diverse, yet united Dutch society is. The Dutch seem to have taken great pains to ensure that all groups are included in the societal dialogue, with no single group being superior; as a consequence, even though the Germans in WWII treated them as "pan-germanic brothers", the general sentiment across the society was one of resistance. A particularly funny episode I read there: this Dutch woman was arrested for anti-German sentiment. In prison, she was given the socks of SS soldiers to mend. She proceeded to "mend" by sewing up the sock holes entirely (so they were unwearable) "by accident"!

This led me to think about Singapore, and how tenuous the link is between most Singaporeans and Singapore. Can I honestly look at a fellow Singaporean who has migrated to Australia, and tell him that "your country has done so much for you"? Can we honestly say that our dialogue includes all strains of thought, that our system is fair, that we tried our best to help the disenfranchised and the unfortunate? I'm not sure.

There are times when I consider certain things (like the lack of consumer rights in Singapore) and wonder, if my friends and family left, "would I still go back to Singapore?" Having come to Amsterdam, that question continues to ring loudly in my mind as I think about this.