A year after the curfew riots in Eindhoven and Den Bosch, researchers are still working hard to find out how things could have gotten so badly out of hand last year. “I myself fled upstairs with my family during the riots in Den Bosch and turned off all the lights in the house,” says professor Michel Dückers, who hopes the research will be completed this spring.
Dückers is a crisis scientist and lives near the Primera store, which was looted during the riots. “The year started with the Capitol riots and disturbances in Dutch cities and now it was prize in my own city. We saw groups running and images of the looting circulated. It felt very oppressive and unsafe and I was very worried for my kids that night.”
Soon after the riots, he wanted to understand how the curfew protest could have turned into such serious riots. “We wanted to complete the study this month, but because we also involved Breda and Helmond, it will be April.”
“In my work as a professor at the Institute for Physical Safety, I deal with crises and their consequences on society on a daily basis. After a conversation with Mayor Mikkers, we first only wanted to investigate the riots in Den Bosch, but after some consultation we also will investigate the disturbances in Eindhoven, Helmond and Breda,” says Dückers.
“It has all been different in the different cities, but we want to better understand how these kinds of riots arise and whether there are points where you can intervene at an early stage.”
According to Dückers, the place where the riots took place plays an important role. “That place often has symbolic value. We also conduct extensive research into what happened on social media. We are still having conversations with rioters, administrators and residents in the various cities.”
The riots in Eindhoven and Den Bosch were the most violent, says Dückers, but the research data from Breda and Helmond are also important to see how riots develop. “The ingredients for a riot were also present in Breda, but it did not get out of hand there. That is why it is interesting to see what exactly goes wrong.”
Dückers and his fellow researcher Hans Moors are also curious about the social background, distrust of the government and problems that rioters encounter in daily life. It is also expected that there were many followers during the riots.
“In Helmond and Breda it has remained relatively quiet, while the pleurisy also broke out in Tilburg-West,” says Hans Moors. He is principal investigator of research agency EMMA (Experts in Media and Society). “It is interesting to us why there are such differences in the cities of Brabant. Does this have to do with the actions of the municipality and police or does it have to do with coincidence.”
What is striking, according to Moors, is that the mayors reacted differently in the run-up to the riots. But there are also similarities in how social media has played a role in organizing rioting groups. “It may also be that recent disturbances in Helmond and Breda have ensured that the police and the municipality there were more alert. I know that they have deployed a lot of police in Breda in the neighborhood where it was previously restless.”
“Furthermore, it was the first time that all kinds of groups that normally never hang out together, suddenly started demonstrating together”. They really felt like everything was being taken from them, fireworks, freedom… they were very disappointed.”
The researchers hope to eventually get data that will allow them to make recommendations to prevent these kinds of riots in the future. The study is expected to be completed this spring.