attention to detail...

Paying attention to the little things can be both wonderful and kind of hindering. Wonderful, when it comes to enjoying the little things in life (like getting perhaps unusually excited about finding an organic brewery in a windmill, or seeing a cat on the street, or the first flowers of the season). Terrible, when it takes much, much longer than expected to finish (or start) a task because I feel like I just don't have all the facts straight yet.

Then there's the times when paying attention to the details is just downright intriguing.

Yesterday, on my way back home from my volunteer work in Amsterdam Noord, I was waiting for the ferry. I had just missed the last boat by seconds, so had about 8 minutes to wait before the next one arrived. That's when I saw a little white sticker, no bigger than a name-tag pasted onto a pole. I had to get closer to read it, but it said

Geef Almere

AAN DE

Palesteijnen

which translates as "Give Almere to the Palestinians."

Almere, if you recall, is the city near Amsterdam where the PVV (the far-Right, staunchly anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim party of Geert Wilders) recently swept the municipal elections. Woah. The things is, there aren't a whole lot of 'allochtonen' (which in public discourse usually means, non-white, non-Western people, immigrants, probably Muslims and therefore, probably in need of integration) actually living in Almere (surprise, surprise), but the people that do live in Almere seem to be very concerned about this 'group' of 'newcomers' and their effect on the Netherlands. So, the fact that someone is proposing that the city should be given to the Palestinians (as a new homeland?), well that's just interesting! When I came home I googled the phrase to see what else is out there, whether it's some kind of organized campaign, or a random incident, or what?

What I found was that more people around the city have run across similar graffiti. Random expressions of anger, frustration, ridicule, or disassociation of Almere from... what? From Amsterdam, from the Netherlands, from the Dutch as a people, from the artists themselves? For instance, this one was posted on Twitter in January 2010 (notably even before the municipal elections in March 2010. And according to someone else on Twitter, the same graffitied message was in de Volkskrant in February, and I've found similar images posted from the Sarphatistraat in Amsterdam):

Or this one ('Give Almere back to the sea')... posted in December 2009:

I'm wondering now if these messages are only being found in Amsterdam, or if they're being pasted and sprayed on the urban landscapes of other cities as well. Back in mid-March I was walking on the Waterlooplein in Amsterdam one weekend, and came across this poster taped up to the side of a building on the fairly busy, even in grey weather, street. One of the many little old accordion playing women was sitting a few metres away (interesting contrast), and people were strolling the street, visiting the shopping plaza the next building over, or whizzing past on bicycles or scooters on their way to other parts of the city.

In a city as diverse as Amsterdam, as historically tolerant as Amsterdam, as tourist-magnet-y as Amsterdam, it's an interesting question to ask. Who is the real alien? What does being alien actually mean here? Does it have to do with geography, personal biography, or maybe with social or cultural values? And, the thing is, this poster, in English, is taped up to the side of a building in Amsterdam Centrum. Despite some social housing in the nearby streets, the centre is a place for wealthier, and better educated people, and predominantly white, 'native' Dutch people (2008 stats for this neighbourhood mark only about 12% of inhabitants as 'non-Western allochtonen' - which basically mean people whose families immigrated from non-Western countries, probably Turkey, Morocco, Indonesia or Suriname). Even so, I get the feeling that this poster wants the reader to set aside questions of race or ethnicity or autochthony and ask what it really means to belong in Amsterdam, or even in the Netherlands. Who is the real alien?