Drie Dagen Rouw in Polen

President Kaczynski kondigt drie dagen van rouw aan voor slachtoffers brand

Afgelopen maandag zijn in Kamien, in het noorden van Polen, 21 mensen levend verbrand in een opvangcentrum voor thuislozen. President Lech Kaczynski heeft als gevolg van de ernst van de situatie een periode van drie dagen afgekondigd om de slachtoffers te herdenken. Alle televisie zenders laten een zwarte lint in beeld zien als symbool van de rouw.

Waarom er zo veel Gele Nummerborden zijn in Nederland

Gisteren in de file, opgemerkt door een Poolse bestuurder – een stukje zelfkennis

“In Nederland mag iedereen zo vaak als nodig is zijn rijexamen doen, daarom zijn er zo veel gele nummerborden; als aanduiding dat die persoon niet kan rijden”

We zijn niet alleen krenterig en besluiteloos maar we kunnen ook niet rijden!

Dutch Tolerance won’t last Forever

Dutch Boss violently ends strike by Polish truck drivers

Long known for it’s tolerant and open culture Holland had a good reputation and was an attractive place for foreign workers and investors alike. A small country that, except for natural gas and wind, does not contain a large amount of natural resources. Holland is however blessed with a population born for commercial trade. Much of it’s wealth has come from being smart, resourceful and how better to express it, Dutch. Making a profit from overseas trade and not spending too much of the profit it receives has made this tiny country a huge fortune. Being a wealthy and stable nation Holland has had to attract foreigners from less prosperous countries to fill the gap in the market for unskilled work.

In the early 1970’s there was a strong increase in workers of Islamist origin (mainly from Turkey) emigrating to Holland. This trend has continued for a long time and Holland now has substantial Moroccan and Turkish populations. Holland has for a while now been labeled a “multicultural” society much like the American melting pot except no one dares to use the term for fear of insulting the indigenous population. After the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 small numbers of eastern Europeans entered Holland illegaly to look for work. Many of them were skilled workers from Poland and they were warmly welcomed, at least by those whose house they could renovate for next to nothing.

When Poland joined the European Union in 2004 many more Polish workers found their way to the low lands taking on all sorts of jobs. Most of them ended up picking flowers, plumbing work and renovating houses. So many of them came to work in Holland that the Dutch even had a name for them: Kluspool. They became well known as affordable house renovators from whence came the term; a “klus” means to do handy work and this is combined with the Dutch name for a Polish person “Pool”. Up until a few years ago it was as if every household had one, they drank and smoke a lot but they were cheap. The Dutch, ever pennywise loved them.

It didn’t take long before Holland’s own handymen (plumbers and such) started complaining about European regulations concerning cross-border work. The Dutch workers themselves were way too expensive to work anywhere outside of Holland and the Polish were so cheap they couldn’t compete with them. In typical Dutch fashion the competing Dutch workers did not start looking at cooperative measures but instead lobbied to eradicate the affordable Polish laborers. Apparently none of the protesting parties realised that the culpability was not on the side of the Polish but first of all with their own countrymen who were not willing to pay more and second was the fact that the Dutch were not competing by overpricing themselves, as they had been doing for years already.

Finally there was some fair and healthy competition in this small and overpriced country (Dutch shopkeepers are well known for making price agreements between themselves) but “as we speak” the gratefulness is evaporating. In these hard economic times Dutch employers favour their own when it comes to giving out jobs and lately foreign workers are even being treated in ways more akin to the ways of the former communist regimes of Eastern Europe. Last tuesday Polish truck drivers, on strike to demand better pay, were beaten with stiks. One of the drivers has had to receive emergency care. The owner of the trucking company has been arrested along with four security guards believed to have been responsible for the assault.

The latter is certainly not good news for a small nation heavenly dependent on foreign trade and cheap, foreign labour. One wonders if the supposedly tolerant attitude Holland has been well known for is only a product of economic succes or if the Dutch are at their core just a small people only interested in their own welfare the rest of the Union would do well without.

As a final note I would like to mention that barely any media attention was given to the assault on the ten truck drivers. Had it been ten Dutch truck drivers it would have been on the eight o’clock news. The Dutch media is just as xenophobic as anyone else it seems.