Een mooie dag om stilte te verscheuren

Yes, another post about something Dutch, not that I've suddenly become a patriot, but I just had a lot of thoughts about it over the past 2 days, so I need to write it out of me.

On the 4th of May it's Remembrance Day in the Netherlands, a day on which the soldiers and civilians who died in WW II and other wars since then are honoured. What happens is that loads of people gather on 'the Dam' in Amsterdam and watch the Royal Family put floral wreaths (if this is the right word?) at the War monument. This is followed by 2 minutes of total silence, at 8 o'clock. The day after, on the 5th, we celebrate Liberation Day, the day the occupation by Nazi Germany during WW II ended. Nowadays it's more a day to celebrate freedom in general.

As I'm in England I hadn't thought about these days really, it crossed my mind, but other than that ignored it a bit, because I wouldn't have a bank holiday anyway. This was until Linda told me about a certain incident that happened during the 2 minutes of silence on Remembrance Day, and the day after there was an article in the London METRO about it as well.
Near the end of the two minutes of silence, a man started screaming very loudly, resulting into panic and chaos; people started running away, causing safety barriers to fall over and people stepping on each other in the mayhem. Apparently, the panic didn't seem this great in the crowd itself, as someone eyewitnesses said, but if you look at the next video it appears to be more 'dramatic';



You could say ultimately nothing 'serious' happened, no bombs went off or anything, but I think there's much more to this incident than just some chaos. It's completely understandable people freaked out, if a group gets scared and everyone starts running, you can't stand still to see what happened, you run as well, and later you'll realise what you're actually running from (in this case: nothing). It really shows the power of what can happen when hell breaks loose in a mass crowd.

I also think it's similar to what they call 'the butterfly effect', that something small can cause a huge chain reaction: a man starts screaming during a moment of silence - another man drops his suitcase - people start panicking and shouting about bombs - people start running - because people start moving other people start running as well - people fall against the saftey barriers, which fall over, resulting into something that sounds like gunshots - people are being stepped on - and the rest of the crowd freaks out as well.

Other than it showing the effects of mass psychosis, I think it also portrays the fear of a nation, a nation traumatised by the dramatic events that occured on Queens Day 2009...
For those of you who don't know: Queens Day 2009 was supposed to be a day of celebration, as the Royal Family wave from their open topped bus to the crowds of people, gathered to catch a glimpse of the Queen and her family. However, it became a horrorific day..... One man, considered intending to attack the Royal Family , drove his car at full speed through an unexpecting crowd, through several safety barriers and just about missed the Royal Bus before crashing his car into a local monument. Things like Queens Day are always broadcasted live, so everyone in the country witnessed this dreadful occasion. Result: 8 people dead (including the attacker himself) and 10 injured.






Coming back to Remembrance Day; they initially said someone passed out, later it turned out this wasn't true, as the noise was caused by a mentally disturbed local drunk from Amsterdam, who intended no real harm. The result however; about 60 people were injured, several suffering from broken bones after being stepped on by the crowd, or getting stuck between the safety barriers. Luckily, the police reacted quickly, they immediately captured the man, and a lot first aid posts were set up straight way.

To conclude; a poem by our National Poet Ramsey Nasr (who I featured in one of the very first posts on my blog), who was in the crowd when it happened and expressed his experience in a poem. Yeah it is in Dutch, sorry.