In Rotterdam we speak cosmopolitan, no matter what the VVD says, writes Farid Tabarki.

In the words of the Rotterdam poet Jules Deelder on the subject of money: Rotterdam earns it, The Hague distributes it and Amsterdam pours it down a black hole.

Things have changed. Rotterdam no longer deserves the epithet of most productive city in the Netherlands and is spending quite a lot of money itself, on new buildings, for example. Rotterdam already had a reputation for being a tough city, now it is aiming to become a beautiful one as well.

Not very long ago an icon of post-war ugliness was torn down to be replaced by something utterly splendid. Rotterdam now has the most beautiful railway station in the country. The building is full of light, its shark’s jaw jutting proudly skywards,  ready to take on anyone.  

Dutch

Rotterdam is proud, and rightly so. It’s a city of superlatives. It has a huge port, more than 170 nationalities and the beautiful Boompjesboulevard with its 193 flags. It’s the most cosmopolitan of cities.

Imagine my surprise at the VVD when it decided to plaster the city with posters saying ‘In Rotterdam we speak Dutch’. What sort of Dutch would that be? Brussel sprouts Dutch? Or the kind of Dutch that includes phrases like ‘alle hens aan dek’ (all hands on deck) and ‘halve zool’ (arsehole)? We wouldn’t have had either if we hadn’t been such enthusiastic international traders.

Arseholes

And we wouldn’t be where we are now without our creative talent either. Rotterdam has made a good start with the New Institute for architecture, design and e-culture and the Fund for Creative Industries, but we will have to do better than that if we are to become world players in this ‘new’ economy.

Think-tank IPPR looked into ways of doing this in the UK. According to their report March of the Modern Maker one key factor is diversity: not all cultural institutions should be concentrated in the capital city and more must be done to encourage talented people of different backgrounds.

We would be arseholes indeed if we didn’t call all hands on deck to maximise what Rotterdam has to offer. The port generates €10bn a year and provides jobs for 75,000 people. Hopefully its creative industry will create even more employment.

Underbelly

One of the city’s councillors is the VVD’s Jeanette Baljeu. I hope she is wiser than her party’s poster-makers. I hope she knows that Rotterdam is not only a national earner but an international one as well. Perhaps she does, but then again maybe not. According to the Financieele Dagblad and pollster TNS Nipo only a quarter of all Rotterdam entrepreneurs will vote for the VVD.

The VVD in Rotterdam and others would do well to realise that entrepreneurs rely on their intuition and common sense –  the underbelly doesn’t come into it. Here we speak the language of cosmopolitans.

Farid Tabarki is a trendwatcher, public speaker, panel moderator and founder of Studio Zeitgeist in Amsterdam.

This column was published earlier in the Financieele Dagblad