A truck drives off the dike and ends up at a neighborhood barbecue in Nieuw-Beijerland. ANP reports at 6.46 pm: several injured. At 7:57 pm: several deaths. I just got back from vacation that Saturday evening in slippers with a colleague in a colleague’s car. Along the way we talk about that horrible accident, of course. But also about camping, about the advantages of going out and disadvantages of lying in bed late and about a soft drug experiment
If we drive back well past midnight, we don’t talk anymore. We saw a truck being lifted inch by inch, forensic detectives on their knees beside it. We spoke to a lady who tells me over and over that if she hadn’t just got up to grab a piece of baguette, she would have been lying there too, under that truck. A young woman who continues to stare at the crash site with wide eyes. Abstract suffering has been given a very clear face by that dike.
Then it cannot be ignored. Whether or not that person looks like you.
The same is true with refugees who camped in their hundreds in front of the gates of the application center in Ter Apel as if it were a relief camp in Turkey. Different circumstances, very different suffering. And for many Dutch people abstract and far away. Those are others. But also the throw-all-borders-close people would not accept that Ter Apel misery if it happened to the man from their dog walking service, or that saleswoman at the bakery. Or if they would get to know and speak to those ‘others’.
Of course that doesn’t happen. Definitely not. Groups and groups sit in their foxholes, sometimes waving inverted flags. Shouting: The Netherlands is a crap country!
Of course you can be angry. You may also think the Netherlands is a crap country.
It is good to also see how after a very serious accident the emergency services are on site within minutes with ambulances, trauma helicopters, fire trucks, police cars. No matter how shortly after that there are security guards at the roads, the crash site has been cordoned off, dozens of experts from search and recovery services are at work. How quickly stadium lights are installed that brightly illuminate the entire site and a cherry picker is brought.
Police officers help, comfort, pat shoulders, pat backs, listen to people who miss someone. A man who panics and worries about his chickens gets help. Your chickens? We’re going to have a look together, says the policeman.
Such a shit country.
Sheila Kamerman replaces Gemma Venhuizen this week
A version of this article also appeared in the newspaper of August 30, 2022