Before the children are allowed to ask how much money the mayor has, Mayor Jouke Spoelstra first takes them to Vrede. What peace is and what democracy is. It is not only an explanation, but he also immediately tests the knowledge of the students. Whether they know places where there is no peace at the moment, for example. They know that. Ukraine and Gaza were mentioned, among other things. Alderman Jacob Boonstra watches: “It is nice to see that children know a lot about freedom and how important that is.”
While half of the two hundred students follow the guest lesson about democracy and peace, the other half are busy singing with Leon Moorman. He has written a song about being at home in Westerveld. “Singing with two hundred children, I have never done that before,” says the singer. “I have previously worked with children with music. But really writing a song for children, not. It came out well, so I am very satisfied with that.”
He also likes to be able to do freedom in the sign of eighty years. “Certainly in these times. It is good to realize that we no longer want to go on the side of the war. To get started with young people than with that theme is very cool.”
Then just that unveiling of the artwork. Today the town hall in Diever is also a bit devoted to Article 1 of the Constitution. It says that everyone is equal. “That is extremely important,” says Mayor Spoelstra. “Of course we celebrate freedom in the Netherlands for eighty years. We sometimes forget how naturally freedom is. And how naturally it is that everyone is treated equally. It is very important for school children to start with that basis.”
According to him, that basis is Article 1 of the Constitution. “Whoever enters the town hall, school or sports club, everyone can count on him or she to be treated immediately. You can’t start with that early enough.”
To emphasize how important that is, the text of that article is greatly highlighted on a work of art. The two hundred students count down. From five to zero. Mayor Spoelstra pulls a string. And pulls and pulls … the students count down again. Alderman Jacob Boonstra comes to help. Together they try to pull the string so that the canvas goes off the artwork.
The string cracks. But the canvas is still over the artwork. Then the students only sing the song that they have studied with Moorman. “Perhaps this makes it clear that it is sometimes quite difficult to stick to Article 1,” the alderman responds. “We think that everyone is the same, but that can sometimes be quite complicated. We also saw that by revealing the logo. We wanted to reveal it, but that was a little less easy than expected.”
Afterwards, when the students go back to school, a household staircase appears. Boonstra climbs on it and removes the canvas.
For the gourmets: then it appears that there is something to criticize in terms of language and layout. The two commas are wrong.