In the past number of years it has seemed that the world is becoming increasingly dangerous. Maybe not life threatening but a bit more problematic. We’ve always been cautious travelers taking care to avoid being targets for pickpockets and not venturing into neighborhoods that might seem qustionable.
We were recently in Amsterdam and the last time we were there was over six years ago. There have been some obvious changes in the city which I’ll get to further along, but we watched a distressing incident unfold on the street which prompted some deeper consideration.
We were just coming out of a supermarket in central Amsterdam when a woman started screaming just down the block. The level and tone of her screaming quickly attracting a crowd. She was no more than a hundred feet away and at first look it seemed a man was attacking her. She and the man were about the same height and the man had her by the arm and she was screaming very loudly. They both looked to be in their thirties, he was wearing blue jeans a sport jacket and he had a light beard and she had on a long dress with half length sleeves and long breaded hair. Nearest this couple were two couples and another man.
Things unfolded quickly as the individual man and one of the men from a couple quickly intervened. One attempted pull the attacking man free by breaking his grip on the woman while the other man moved to his other side to get a grip. In response the attacking man threw his other arm around her body and twisted the two of them so they fell down to the sidewalk. The would be rescuers tried to pull his arms free but he wrapped his legs around her and continued to hold her tight. She kept on screaming at the top of her lungs.
As the crowd grew, out came the cell phones. One woman in the crowd yells she has called the police and they’re on their way. The crowd is now fifteen to twenty strong and there’s a lot of urgent talk in several languages.
In only a minute, while the woman is still screaming for help and the man continues to hold on, you can hear a police car coming through traffic. The police car gets to the intersection near us and speeds right by.
My wife is saying that she can’t believe that a woman is being attacked in broad daylight in downtown Amsterdam. Most people in the crowd seem to be expressing the same sentiment but I’m beginning to suspect there’s something very different actually going on.
There are several possible notions to consider. One is maybe it is what it looks like and what your emotions are telling you it is. A man is seriously attacking a woman for no apparent reason? Or perhaps it’s a purse snatching gone really wrong? Again it could be a domestic dispute and the attacker is trying to hurt her? Another idea is she’s a working girl and he’s her pimp and they’re having a fight. This being Amsterdam, the pimp idea doesn’t seem likely. After all, the legal, red-light district is only a few blocks away and I doubt there’s much street business in Amsterdam.
Thinking more about what’s happening it occurs to me he isn’t really attacking her. He could easily hurt her but he hasn’t. He actually seems to be intent in holding onto her. The thing that started the public spectacle is her screaming loudly that she needs help. That quickly attracted several men trying to come to her aid. Once the two men got physically involved and someone screams the police are coming the thing you would expect the attacker to do is to break it off and try and run to escape. He didn’t.
My thinking turns to consider she is a pick-pocket and her victim caught her and he was either trying to recover what she stole or wants to keep her there until the police show up.
While being in Amsterdam for only 24 hours, we’ve already been warned about pick-pockets twice. We were told that there are gangs of immigrants working the streets and we need to be cautious when people get too near. I think her screaming is calculated and is intended to illicit a response from those men nearby that would allow her to escape. It’s also an instinctive, emotional response from those men passing by to come to the aid of a woman. Most of us are raised to believe that men shouldn’t attack women and we still react instinctively to protect and defend women.
The crowd has now grown and you can’t see the man and woman and there are two police heading towards the crowd. Since there is nothing we can add we break off and head back to our hotel.
The next day when chatting at the front desk, a local says the pick-pockets are mostly foreign women and they now operate in organized gangs.
On this visit Amsterdam was still an amazing place maintaining its reputation of letting people do what they want still applying. Things like smoking weed, the legal, red-light district, the sex shops and the famous “live and let live” attitude, but now the city seems a bit rougher somehow. Perhaps there is a newer influx of people taking advantage of that traditional Amsterdam vibe. Now there seems to be a lot more trash drifting around the streets along with a bit more unsavory people out and about. We noticed homeless street people that we don’t recall from before that are sleeping in doorways and in parks. Nothing ever stays the same…
The Intentional Travelers 