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, has 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 the 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 Netherlands.
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 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 that the free smoking of marijuana is. In public, the metros running Gaasperplas and Gein, from the Central Station and the lifts of apartments, are always choked with heavy smoke and the odor of marijuana.
Some of the drugs they smoke and use have taken their toll on them. Junkies are a common sight in the Bijlmer. The effects of drugs on users are disastrous. Horrible creatures like people acting in horror movies.
An investigation conducted recently by two Dutch journalists, Jan-Willem Navis and Joris Polman, in the neighborhood of Bijlmer revealed that for between two and three hundred euros, someone could own a gun, and they fear that, within a short period, guns 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 who wanted to resist arrest jumped to their deaths.
They have tried everything to make Bijlmer a safe place to live, but from every angle, it seems the police are losing the battle.
