Crisis… Which fuckin one…

"Stop the fuckin' world, I wanna get off." 

That phrase was everywhere a few years ago. I eventually found out it comes from a 1960s musical of the same name. Ironically, the show centers on a character’s infidelity, his shifting masks, and a life defined by a hollow, vacuous emptiness. It’s a fitting blueprint for the state of the world today. I remember hearing that phrase constantly in the '80s and '90s, which is a dark joke in hindsight. Compared to the absolute shitstorm we’re weathering now, those decades look like a peaceful walk in the park.

I keep coming back to a feeling I had years ago. Back then, if you lived somewhere and felt anxious or terrified about the state of the country, you had the choice of "fight or flight." You could move; you could find a pocket of sanity. But these days, where the fuck do we even go? It feels like the entire planet is engulfed in flames, and there’s no ladder off the roof. I was reminded of this feeling when i was talking to Yusuf about why he left his home country, but more about that later.

The Dissent
I started protesting apartheid with my mum in New Zealand as a kid, and later marched down Oxford Street against Tony Blair linking arms with Bush.

Little did we know, Bush and Blair were just the opening act, successfully rewriting the manual on how narcissistic, killer governments operate. They are nothing compared to the suntan-splashed murderous clown currently occupying the White House in DC. And now, as if he hadn't caused enough death and destruction the first time around, Blair has rejoined the party to finish the job. In any world that retained a shred of normalcy, he’d be locked behind bars for eternity.

Meanwhile, in Europe, we watch the embarrassing capitulation of political leaders – including the former Dutch Prime Minister turned head of NATO – bowing down to the same machinery that hits the accelerator on global destruction. Watching it happen in real-time is like living in a state of permanent, paralyzed disbelief.

The Shitstorm & The Toll
The conditions people are enduring in Palestine, Iran, Africa, and war zones across the globe are beyond horrific; there aren't enough words in the English language to describe the level of tragedy. We’ve become so conditioned to killer tactics and endless violence that we don’t even have the energy to scream anymore; we just go numb.

I’m convinced the skyrocketing rates of depression today are directly linked to this global suffering. We are all connected. When that much agony is inflicted on humans in another part of the world, it leaks into the collective consciousness. Most people just can't put a finger on why they feel like shit when they wake up, but it affects us deeply on a molecular and spiritual level.

Most people I know avoid the news entirely, a desperate flavor of survival in a world that feels overwhelmingly hostile. We try to get on with our day, performing a sense of normalcy in our little micro-environments just to keep going.

The Trapped: Refugees in the Netherlands
The Netherlands has always been seen as so very safe and far away from many war-torn countries, we forget sometimes how it must be for people fleeing their home countries.

Where should people go when war, state violence and terror force them from their homes?

For those who survive the treacherous journey to Europe and end up in the Netherlands, the illusion of safety can quickly turn into another form of institutional cruelty.
Instead of offering dignity, the Dutch system traps asylum seekers in bureaucratic purgatory. While waiting for their claims to be processed, refugees are often barred from working, and even when they get a valuable work permit, the system can be a nightmare for employers trying to actually employ them. They are handed a meager allowance of up to €40 a week to survive on. After escaping war and carrying immense trauma, they are stripped of agency, self-reliance, and basic financial security.
Where the state fails, grassroots initiatives step up to rebuild human connection. Two projects in Amsterdam stand out as powerful counter-monuments to this neglect: A Beautiful Mess and Rederij Lampedusa.

A Beautiful Mess
More than 80,000 people currently live in regular and emergency asylum reception centres across the Netherlands. When refugees arrive in a new country, they often lose their connection with their homeland and familiar culture: they have to adapt to a new society, live in asylum seeker centres, meet new people, and learn a new language. This means becoming every day more disconnected from their roots and feeling more suspended.

Refugee Company creates shared spaces in AZC centres where asylum seekers can feel welcome and at home again. These Community Cafés, called A Beautiful Mess, provide a welcoming and inclusive environment where newcomers and Dutch residents can connect as equals. In these spaces, asylum seekers can host lunches, cook together, share their skills and traditions, and learn English, Dutch, digital literacy, and barista skills, while also having access to art activities and mental health support. Some asylum seekers teach locals Arabic, cooking, and other cultural practices, giving them confidence and showing that they have something valuable to contribute. Coaches also help guide people towards work that suits them. 

Refugee Company also runs A Beautiful Mess impact restaurants, where asylum seekers can learn through work, practise the language, and get to know Dutch society. These restaurants create opportunities for people to bring their culinary skills, talents, and qualities into Dutch society. Participants can gain work experience and, with support from coaches, find a job that suits their skills, interests, and ambitions.

Refugees are not only receivers of support, but also teachers, creators, volunteers, workers, organisers, and leaders.

Refugees are not only receivers of support, but also teachers, creators, volunteers, workers, organisers, and leaders. Through these activities and events, they regain confidence and a sense of connection to their cultural roots, while acquiring new skills, work experience, and meaningful  ties with their new community. Refugee Company believes that when people connect, learn, and contribute together, everyone can belong and society becomes stronger. 

Rederij Lampedusa: Stories on the Water
In 2015, two authentic wooden fishing boats that once ferried people fleeing war across the Mediterranean were brought from Lampedusa to Amsterdam. Instead of letting them rot, Mr. Friday and Hedir were retrofitted into floating stages and storytelling canal boats.

Captained and guided by newcomers from Syria, Somalia, Eritrea, Egypt, and beyond, these tours offer a fresh twist on Amsterdam's classic boat culture. Rather than treating the canals as a scenic backdrop for tourists, they explore the city through the lens of migration: the very force that built it. Historians note that during the 17th century Dutch Golden Age, roughly one-third of Amsterdam's population consisted of immigrants.

For guests who often only encounter refugees as abstract numbers in news headlines, these tours give a human face and voice to real people. Rederij Lampedusa reclaims Amsterdam waterways not just for sightseeing, but as dynamic spaces for empathy, solidarity, and truth telling. When I sat down with Yusuf, one of the boat captains and storytellers for Rederij Lampedusa here in Amsterdam, his deep local knowledge and captivating storytelling immediately drew me in. But beneath his warm, welcoming presence lies a harrowing journey, one that exposes the absolute cruelty of Europe's refugee crisis and the cruel Dutch political machine that treats human beings as pawns.

Yusuf’s story started in Somalia, where he grew up. Realizing he was dangerously close to being drafted as a child soldier, he made the heavy, desperate decision to head to the UK for a better life. His plane stopped in transit in Amsterdam, but instead of continuing on to London, a misstep led him out of the airport through customs. In hindsight, Yusuf told me that a single, accidental decision changed his whole life and led him to where he is today.

As an undocumented refugee in the Netherlands, Yusuf woke up to brutal hurdles. Struggling to find housing, his journey took him to sleeping rough and having to deal with hostile police and immigration officers on a daily basis. But drawing on his spirit as an activist he began fighting not only for his own rights, but for those around him, too. He worked with the organisation Wij Zijn Hier (“We Are Here”), which campaigns for immigrants’ human rights. Set up in 2012, they have been fighting for housing and healthcare for refugees ever since, yet barely anything has changed. How disturbingly frustrating this must be.

So many refugees come here looking for a safe harbor, only to find a wall of bureaucratic coldness, heartache, and pain. One of the most poignant things Yusuf told me was that most of the refugees he has connected with would love nothing more than to be back home. But corruption, war, and a total lack of hope for a meaningful life forced them to look abroad for survival.

What really pissed me off in our conversation was the sheer absurdity of how undocumented refugees are treated in this country. They are shoved into substandard accommodation, handed a measly government stipend designed to keep them invisible, and deliberately put through a bureaucratic stranglehold so that working or learning new skills becomes suffocating. 

I honestly cannot imagine living in that kind of institutionalized purgatory for months, and sometimes years awaiting an asylum decision. It takes a horrific toll on the human spirit and is designed to break people down. Yusuf told me about many of his friends who ended up being refused asylum status and sent back home with even more PTSD and trauma than when they arrived. For one of the richest countries in Europe, this institutional cruelty is completely inhumane.

For one of the richest countries in Europe, this institutional cruelty is completely inhumane.

Yusuf told me about the system in Germany, where the asylum procedure actually grants a baseline of dignity. Under their asylum framework, people are issued a temporary residence status known as an Aufenthaltsgestattung, and they can apply for work authorization through the Foreigners' Registration Office (Ausländerbehörde) to access the labour market. It means people can earn money, regain self-respect, learn new skills, and pay taxes. Considering how obsessed the Netherlands is with taxes and fiscal control, you'd think they'd see what a wonderfully practical way this is to help people stand on their own two feet.

Instead, the Dutch state prefers a nightmare of a system supposedly designed to help refugees find work. The more I researched it, the more I realised how painful it is for both refugees and potential employers trying to give them work. I’m not saying the German system is perfect, but at least it gives people some hope.

There is a huge labour shortage in hospitality in the Netherlands, yet the talent and work ethic of people arriving here undocumented is completely overlooked. It could work for both sides. Instead, it is left to private NGOs like Rederij Lampedusa and A Beautiful Mess to pick up the pieces.

When you deny people the right to work, they inevitably get pushed into the underground economy, where they can be exploited or pulled into illegal survival tactics. Not because they want to, but because the system leaves them little choice. At the heart of it, we all just want to be self-sufficient. Even if people eventually get sent back home, at least they could return with new skills, some cash in their pockets, and fresh ideas for the next stage of their lives, instead of returning completely broken.

My chat with Yusuf really laid bare how broken things are. He is a truly inspiring man, and there are countless other raw stories from the refugee community. We need to stop looking away. These stories shouldn't just break your heart; they should force us to question the system and do something about it.