The Dutch Radio One news and sports station reports that a controversial Socialist Party policy has been introduced by the council in Groningen in the north of the Netherlands. People on low incomes in the Groningen area will now be eligible to receive flatscreen televisions paid for by the council.
The councillors apparently believe that everyone, including minimum earners, should be able to buy flatscreen TVs. They decided grants available to the poor to replace television sets should rise from the present 170 euros to no less than 450 euros.
"Going too far"
Introducing a discussion on the subject, the radio anchorman quotes a well-known Dutch leftist slogan "Don't bitch, everyone rich". Although he laughs, a conservative VVD member on the council opposition doesn't agree with the motto. He thinks the poorest in society should get money to replace worn-out TVs, but believes that a council handout to buy a 55-centimetre flatscreen is going too far.
Defending the policy, a council spokeswoman points out that it was introduced after a vote at which VVD councillors were present. She says people on benefits or very low incomes are not able to save the money needed to replace fridges, washing machines and televisions. At most, they are able to apply once every 8 years for a special grant to replace a television set which is beyond repair.
Conservatives disagree
The council apparently voted to raise the grant to the new national level of 450 euros decided by the Dutch Institute for Budgetary Information (NIBUD). Nearly all Dutch councils have introduced the new grant levels and Groningen, she explains, was actually lagging a bit behind.
The VVD councillor is having none of it. He has done some research and rubbishes a NIBUD statement saying old-fashioned TVs are difficult to find. He tells us he recently visited major retailers and was able to find perfectly good televisions for 170 euros. He promises to bring the issue up at the next council meeting.
Tags:
council,
flat screen,
grant,
Groningen,
low income,
Socialist Party,
TV,
VVD
silvio,
22-10-2008
- italy
I have a question: why poor people in the Netherlands are always in front of grocery stores? I guess is that they are weirdos rather than poor, since they are there rather than being before a flatscreen television watching a football match or driving a car to the food bank. Maybe in Groningen, the capital of bikes, clochards cycle a lot rather than driving to the food bank. The very idea that in the NL a homeless (there must be at least one) is necessarily a person that chooses to be marginalised, or a junkie, or a mentally ill, is outrageous. Commonly I hear this kind of statements from very rich people who think that why you are poor is because you deserve it. I would not expect it from a progressive journalist or documentalist living in a country like the NL in which the welfare system must be reduced because of objective constraints (macroeconomic situation, baby boomer's pensions, etc...), not because people are getting flatscreen televisions from the city council.
David Berridge,
22-10-2008
- Canada
Let's hope that the city council of Gronginen does not have the funds for this project deposited in an Icelandic bank!! Why not allow those recipients who can earn the grant do so to benefit the community at large whose members worked to provide the city council with the funds to make the grant possible in the first place. It would provide the recipients with the dignity of earning something from the city and enhance their standing among their fellow citizens, who would feel much more positive of this project as a viable part of a "Social Contract' within their community.
silvio,
21-10-2008
- italy
Related comments:
Rather than commenting on free electronic appliances in Friesland I would like to thank the director Ms Deters. The point is that if the documentary is shown in the RNW website it gets really political for a standard reader. After all, one of the biggest issues in the Netherlands is the welfare system and its sustainability. This issue intersects many other issues like immigration and integration politics, for example. In other words, the context of reception of this video (I did not see it on you tube and I would not have bothered to react if I had, for it is not surprising to find ambiguous clips on youtube). The point is that the film can be interpreted in many ways, but the institutional background of Radio Netherlands Worldwide strongly suggests some interpretations over others. Put it rudely, the documentary claims to show what you have when you are poor in the NL and makes Peggy’s case an advertisement for the RNW readers and listeners from countries in which Peggy’s situation would be considered middle class. Even if Peggy is the poorest in the NL, it looks as if RNW said to the people in Africa or in Latin America, or even in the south of Italy, from which I am writing and that is considered one of the poorest areas of Europe, “Look, your middle class is our urban sub-proletariat! Incredible Netherlands”. “Smile, you are in the Netherlands” is really what I get from a documentary that is so short as a television advertisement. Put it differently, Ms Deters documentary on the RNW website is less a documentary about poverty and more a sophisticated form of Public Relations, an electoral appeal to the unlucky underpaid listeners and readers in the guise of the alleged truth-claim or fact of a documentary that asks to make a generalisation (look above the youtube link). This should be evident by analysing the film techniques deployed. Ms Deters starts describing Peggy’s economic condition by using the Voice-of-God typical of authoritative documentaries which know the truth of the story… “her income is so low that she is entitled to free food packages from the food bank. Once a week she goes there, by car… (pause).”. This is an oxymoronic statement: her income is so low that she... goes there, by car. The oxymoronic nature of the statement is reinforced by the question about the car that Ms Deters asks directly to Peggy within the documentary: “isn’t it expensive?”. Then they go to the food bank clerk who says that ‘It does not really matter if people have a car’. It is worth noting that despite this statement, the concept of poverty expressed by the woman working for the food-bank is pretty intuitive and, for the most part, commonsensical.
Then the voice-over narrator comes in again and its voice from nowhere tells us more about Peggy: “she gets many more things”, she receives a fridge that is ‘delivered’… “There are a lot of things in the Netherlands, if you know where to look.” This is quite intriguing and seductive: hey poor, where are you looking? Not there… you don’t know where to look! Poor poverty!, look to Gratis.nl … have you read Mr Wilcox’s article?… Look north! people with a low income in Groningen get a flatscreen television for free! If only they (we) knew they are eligible…
Then Ms Deters the interviewer, the participant ethno-sociologist filmmaker says to Peggy: “And what about poor countries, for example in Africa?”, “Do you feel any connection?”. By adding this crucial question about people in Africa, the Third World par excellence, the film-maker wants to know if the poor in the NL thinks of herself as a poor in the same way a poor is in Africa. Are they related? Peggy’s answer is imperative: Africa is too far away. She does not say whether she feels a connection or not, she is really miles and miles away from the black continent. The Dutch first!
After Peggy’s remarks, the viewer expects the conclusions of the omniscient narrator, but the documentary finishes, as the author is somewhat leaving to the viewer to judge, or even tacitly subscribing to Peggy's last words (only after Ms Deters has anchored the film to her own written words in the moderator’s response we know what she thinks about Peggy’s right to think the way she thinks.)
Related articles: http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2005-08-21-netherlandspoverty_x.htm
