Right: Queen Beatrix of The Netherlands; Left: Flag half mast on the"Ouwe Jan" the tower of the Old Church near my house in Delft!
.... Lucky we were all still oblivious of the events which turned this years Queensday not in its normal happy Orange Queensday-mood, but in a true Black Queensday. One nobody who saw or heard of it will ever forget, for sure when one is Dutch,where ever we Dutch may live! The images of this useless and O so costly attack in human lives on the Queen and her family are impossible to errase from our minds. sadly we will never know why this guy caused so much havoc and death on what has allways been a day of true and happy honest celebrations of our nations connection with our Royal Family and our Queen as a symbol of our unity amidst all the disagreements we seem to like to cherish so much. Orange is their name, and orange has become the color with which the Dutch enjoy showing their unity as we can see during major sportsevents like European and/or World Soccer Championships and the Olympic Games. A color, recognised everywhere in the world as one symbolising the Dutch, more then our national flag, more then our tulips, cheese, wooden shoes and windmills.
Well it did happen and we all will have to live with it and am sure we all do our best to make its memory fade with the years though we know we'll never succeed!
We can only pray that the actions of this nutcase, if I may be so bold to state, will prove to be an islotaed incident which will not lead to such drastic security measures by the authorities that the spontanious caracter of Queensday and the celebration of it with our Queen will not suffer form it, that would be too much of an invasion on the spirit of our day off celebrating our unity as a people amidst, as it seems, a more and more insecure world where respect for live, liberty, religion, sexuality etc. seems more and more under duress by minorities who seem unable to cope with these changes for, what I believe will be in time a better and more peacefull world!
Useless attacks. like the one on Black Quensday, tend only to scare people and make governements take more and more restricting measures or radicalise....... and as such create the opposite effect of what we as people look for and want to have! I can only hope that the Dutch Governement and our Royal Family will not give in to fear and instead will lead us a way from that by giving the right example. Too much fear is allready starting to control our lives, exploited also by some political parties. A fear we should never give in to because it makes us less then what we are and,I believe, definitly want to be ! Fear has allways been a bad advisor anyway!
So the attack on our Queen and her family, and the sacrifice by the people who had to die unvolluntary on Black Queensday, will hopefully turn into a positive mood among our people and will make them hate those who like to exploit and broaden the fears amongst us, which is so easily done at times but always brings disaster in all kinds!
Happy to say that the attitude of our Queen and her family is one of not giving in to those fears, just as we might have expected from members of this family, who, trough the years/centuries have managed to show one way or another to rise above such fears. Hopefully our governement of the day will show same attitude and will show our people the way, together with our Queen, to the road out of a society filled with fear of what people don't know. But also show us what we gain by embrasing diversity instead of rejecting it. In matters small or big, in the end its all still same same but different!!
As a nation we once grew and flourished because of that attitude, we now refer to it with mild or big reference as The Golden Age, why should we not start to look for a new Golden Age based on some of the same as what made our small, in size, nation grow so big and floorish but then in a different, modern way. maybe then we can look at Black Queensday as a positive turning point for our people, our attitudes, mentality etc................
But maybe then again, it might just be a dream, wishfull thinking... though I sincerily hope not !!
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