This will be a difficult job. How do you explain that you don’t really like a well-made program? I’m talking about the episode of Backlight of Thursday, with the title Make it simple. Ilja Leonard Pfeijffer, writer in Genoa, starts with the statement that the Netherlands is stuck by a fundamental system crisis. The complexity of government policy is “a big clusterfuck” and democracy is on the decline. The fact that he is holding his middle finger against his face at that moment must be a coincidence. His statement is supported by fragments of statements from politicians – Rutte, Kaag, Schouten – that policy is “too complex” or “stalled” and that there is “no simple solution”. Migration, nitrogen, allowances, housing and Groningen. “Everything” is stuck, it has “all” been made too complex – I quote from the Tegenlicht press releases.
The problem statement is clear, now the solutions. Because that is what Tegenlicht promised: it can be much simpler. The editors will therefore shed light on “inspiring people and stories”. We start at the Afsluitdijk. Its renovation will take longer than its construction ninety years ago. The regular visitors to camping ‘t Wad, on a former work island next to the Afsluitdijk, have little confidence that it will be ready in 2026. To the extent that they ever trusted the government, because “they just do it”.
In Genoa, Pfeijffer is now standing at the brand new bridge that replaces the Morandi Bridge over the Polcevera, which collapsed in 2018. Mayor Bucci promised at the time that the new bridge would be built within a year. And it was. They were also surprised by this in Italy, where they have since referred to it as the Bucci method.
Pure desperation
This was quickly followed by a few cases in which citizens no longer understood the government. Robert from Boxtel was assured that he would keep his Wajong benefit if he went to study and also receive student financing. At the end of the day he still had 30,000 euros in debt. Homeowner Arno from Amsterdam had missed a crucial email from the municipality about his leasehold and that also cost him 30,000 euros. I understand that in their case you gnaw your wrists open in sheer desperation, but shouldn’t we be talking about solutions? An employment expert from the UWV benefits agency spoke, who managed to solve problems like Robert’s by looking at the “person instead of the case”. Director Abdeluheb Choho explained to me that the “increasing complexity of regulations” has long been overcome by putting many people on the helpdesk to guide citizens through the ‘process’. But now that there is a labor shortage, that is no longer possible. According to him, we must “approach the process fundamentally differently.” Then I could cry. How then, tell me, how?
Tegenlicht looked at an initiative in which one abandoned farm was converted into a residential area for fourteen people in eight homes. Its creator almost died from all the bureaucratic hassle, but it worked. Finally, a bright spot. Then we saw an artist collective in Amsterdam bring a run-down neighborhood to life. Call me cynical, but experience shows that as soon as a neighborhood revives, residents come and drive away the original residents?
Isn’t this Make It Simple episode just too complex? Too many big problems, too anecdotal solutions lumped together. Back to Ilja Leonard Pfeijffer in Genoa, who also questions the big solution. That mayor Bucci got his bridge by bypassing local democracy by decree and via shortcuts to skip consultation and safety procedures. Example of “strongman efficiency”. No, that’s what we’re waiting for.