There's another half an hour left to blog about poverty and to join the forces with the rest of the bloggers participating in this campaign.
Talking about poverty in the Neverlands is different. The way I see it here is dissimilar to the other countries I have lived in - Lithuania and Ireland (I suppose I could include the USA where I spent half of the year). In a nutshell, I don't see it here. Magnum photographer Geert van Kesteren says that "<...>poverty in the Netherlands is different than in the developing world. It's invisible. In my previous blog which I was writing while living in Dublin (many of the topics were focused on the binary East-West, in which I sometimes found myself trapped) a few times I posted my remarks on begging (here and here). I noted that the amount of people begging on the streets of Dublin was disgraceful, especially Ireland being (or having become) one of the most prosperous countries in the EU and the world. I questioned an idea that perhaps despite the job market offering vast opportunities (and the minimum wage being one of the highest in the EU) those people (mostly younger than 40, oftentimes male) where in the streets by choice rather than driven by the need (given the fact that the Irish social system is quite generous and quite easily fooled - an issue I addressed in my posts more than a few times).
The Neverlands is a rich country. Ha's Blog backs my statement, even though he notes that in the face of decent figures the Dutch still manage to complain.
When I say that I don't see poverty here I mean that, for instance, I don't see people begging on the streets. But here I'm reminded of the case with disabled and mentally ill people in the former Soviet Union - you didn't encounter them too much, in fact they didn't exist (they were spending the days either in hospitals or other secluded places). In this respect I am asking two questions:
1. Are the Dutch coping with poverty much better than, let's say, Ireland and the rest of the world could take that as an example?
or
2. Perhaps Geert van Kesteren is right when saying that poverty here is invisible, or shall I say hidden?
It is an open question I can not answer due the fact that I have haven't spent enough time here, besides, much of it is spend in the academic environment, which I must say, the more time I spend there the more it seems auratic and elitist (are these the features of the education by default?). That's what my next post will be about.
In the meantime I am asking - how come I do not see poverty in the Neverlands?
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