Saturday, September 05, 2009

Bijlmer is beautiful but a dangerous place to live in Amsterdam?


The Bijlmer in the South-East of Amsterdam


The Bijlmer in the South-East of Amsterdam


In the south-east of Amsterdam, lies a nice lively neighborhood called Bijlmer. Bijlmer is always in the news firstly due to the big firms and industries that have created thousands of jobs for the Dutch people and secondly due to the wave of crime that has soured the image of its inhabitants mainly foreigners. 


Bijlmer has also situated the magnificent modern Ajax stadium, which has hosted thousands of international matches, conferences, and concerts.

The influx of immigrants both legal and illegal have made Bijlmer a dangerous place to live in Amsterdam. With diverse immigrants, mainly from Surinam, Antillean and Curacao, former colonies of the Dutch and West African immigrants, Bijlmer is now a commercial center for drug trafficking and harbors most hardened criminals.

How do we call this? Holland dream or Dutch dream? Like the American dream, inviting many Latin Americans and Mexicans into the country, Suriname came in their numbers to the Netherland. 

Without any basic education, the majority of Suriname is stagnant without any future. Feeling dejected and frustrated the only means to survive the material world of Bijlmer is to resort to drug trafficking, crime, and violence.

With the desire to study about the background of Africans living in the Bijlmer, I have never seen merciless, hostile, and aggressive people like Suriname before. 

They even think the police fear them and they would not like to come their way. But what makes these people so aggressive and violent? 

My opinion is the free smoking of marijuana. In the public, the metros running Gaasperplas and Gein, from the Central Station and the lifts of apartments are always choked with heavy smoke and odor of marijuana.

Some of the drugs they smoke and use had taken its toll on them. Junkies are a common sight in the Bijlmer. The effect of drugs on users are disastrous. Horrible creatures like people acting horror movies. 

An investigation conducted recently by two Dutch journalists, Jan-Willem Navis and Joris Polman in the neighborhood of Bijlmer revealed that between two and three hundred euros, someone could own a gun and their fear is, within a short period gun would overflow in the neighborhood of Bijlmer. Young boys move around everywhere with knives hidden on them.

The harvest is plentiful but the laborers are few. Is the crime wave in Bijlmer too much for the police to handle or bring the situation under control? Over the years, the police force has demonstrated how good they could be, by catching many criminals and those that wanted to resist arrest jumped to their death. 

They have tried everything to make Bijlmer a safe place to live but from every angle, it seems the police are losing the battle.