July 4
Ironically, my first full day in Europe happens to fall on the Fourth of July, one of the most important days in the history of my home country, the United States. It shouldn’t be hard to believe, then, that this brought a sense of not necessarily home-sickness, but perhaps nostalgia in celebrating the birth of my homeland.
With our full day of activities, however, it wasn’t long before I was entranced by the beauty and atmosphere of Amsterdam. Following an introductory lecture to the course, we students were fortunate enough to visit the Vincent van Gogh Museum, take a boat tour through the famous canals of the city, and walk through the even more infamous Red Light District. I couldn’t imagine a more fitting welcome to the most liberal city in the world.
This brings me to my main point of discussion here for today, of the often misunderstood concept of tolerance in Amsterdam. Whereas many (myself included) imagine most vices and liberal policies to be legal here, there is instead implemented the concept of gedogen, meaning “to tolerate.” Although we learned in class that this was meant to lessen criminalization of the system, others would argue that it promotes further criminal behavior in other less tolerable actions.
What I imagine is that this back and forth rhetoric of the opposing sides will continually play out in a pendulum effect, in that both liberal and conservative values will gain more momentum generation by generation. It will be interesting how current public policy here in the Netherlands will carry over throughout time.
But in the meantime, gedogen is here and tolerance will prevail. Below are a couple instances in how this applied during our first day.
It almost seems to encourage the use of soft drugs.
Although not visible here, I recall both alcohol and marijuana aboard the neighboring boat.
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