A century ago the German poet Heinrich Heine declared that he wanted to die in Holland because, he said, “everything happens there 50 years after anywhere else.” And indeed, until the war, this was the general European image – a nice country, but a little backward. What, then, has happened since? For Amsterdam has become the hippie capital of the world, and in every country young people are plotting to find ways of going to live there.
Some people have tried to explain the phenomenon of the new Amsterdam by invoking Dutch history: the Dutch, it seems, have always been an hospitable, tolerant race; they welcomed in with more or less open arms Spanish and Portuguese Jews, French Huguenots, Swiss Protestants. From the 16th century on, Dutch universities have always been international, accepting students from any country, As that great French refugee, Descartes, testified: “There is no other country in which one could enjoy such a total sense of freedom.”
And it may be that this traditional openness, this tolerance of foreigners is what has made Amsterdam the kind of swinging international city it is today. But there is more to it than that; the Dutch have not only accepted the far-out and the freaked-out; they have taken positive steps towards them as well.
The most amazing example is in their attitude towards soft drugs: technically they are still illegal in Holland. On the other hand, the government, in its infinite wisdom, decided that banning something does not do away with it altogether, so, for example, it has given over a disused church in the centre of town for the express purpose of being a rendezvous for cannabis smokers. Psychedelically painted up and dubbed the Paradiso, it is open four nights a week. Tickets cost about 25p and whatever expenses that does not cover are met by the government.
A way of life
But the Paradiso is not just an opium den – it is more a way of life. The main hall of this ex-church is given over to light shows, and pop concerts. The night I was there, a group with the English-sounding name Robin Air and Bridget St John were about to perform. Before they came on, however, and along with the rather impressive light show on the curtain, there was also – if you could manage to focus on it – a silent Buster Keaton film being lazily projected on a side wall. There is also a proper little cinema in another room: the repertory ran from Pluto the Pup cartoons to Laurel and Hardy’s The Bohemian Girl.
As you walk in to the Paradiso, a large, rather forbidding sign in four languages warns you that “anyone caught dealing in drugs will be immediately …” – put in gaol, expelled from the country? No, simply the biblical expedient of being “thrown out of the Paradiso.” I do not suppose much actual dealing goes on, but as you walk upstairs to the old choir loft, the acrid smell of marijuana smoke begins to get rather thick.
Once upstairs, you find yourself in a large room, furnished like an old-fashioned European cafe, with magazines and newspapers on tables and a snack bar. There are draught boards, chess boards, and overhead, a strange little balcony with rows of people sitting. What are they looking at? Nothing more exciting than the other people downstairs playing chess and eating. Some of the more adventurous (or exotic) have brought their own water-pipes and they sit there quietly gurgling away.
The atmosphere could not be more respectable and calm: to top it off, on Sunday afternoon, they actually have a matinee thé-dansant to which you can bring your children.
There is a rumour thay there are other, less desirable visitors to the Paradiso – narcotics investigators from several European countries and from the US as well, but this may just be subculture paranoia. The only thing I wondered about as I picked my way through the mobs was just how much the government subsidy could be: even at two guilders a head, the government might well be ahead of the game.
Truly benevolent
But that is probably just my suspicious foreigner’s mind. For it would seem that the official attitude is truly generous and benevolent. What surprised me most of all was the fact that on the government-sponsored radio station – good old Hilversum – you can hear on Saturday afternoons the week’s quotations for the soft-drugs market. Moroccan kif, you learn, is worth so much this week; so much for the Turkish variety, Pakistani, Iranian, Kashmir – and all the prices are given in a new international module: a matchbox full.
As I said, pot is still illegal, but the government feels that – legal or not – the innocent must be protected from price-gougers, with the result that the price of pot is apparently lower than anywhere else in Europe.
