A little double

By W.K.

As I sat down in front of the television for the National Commemoration on Dam Square yesterday, a strange feeling crept up on me. It started with one of the first statements: "Here today we commemorate all Dutch victims of war situations and peace operations from World War II onwards."

"Huh?" I thought "What happened to our global attitude? With our sense of Europe? Are we really still to the point where we only want to commemorate people with the same passport as us?". Suddenly, I started looking at the whole commemoration with different eyes: critical, almost cynical.

With the Englanders, I thought of the refugees on the Mediterranean. "How brave they were, to flee to freedom."

When I think of the victims of the Holocaust, I think of the Yezidis and other peoples now living under IS. "If only we had been there earlier then, if only we knew!"

Camps in North Korea, child soldiers in Sierra Leone, refugees, faith-based discrimination everywhere... it all flashed past me.

We commemorate all the horrors of World War II but how can you commemorate something that is still happening every day? We pat ourselves on the back for heroic deeds and sigh that it should never, ever happen again. At least not with Dutch victims of war situations and Peacekeeping Operations after World War II.

The 14-year-old girl reading a poem talked about questions that can no longer be answered, the question of whether we had been 'right' or 'wrong' in the war. Nonsense, every day that question is asked. Yes, it costs money to feed absconders. Yes, our military has to risk liberating others. But wasn't 'freedom', which we celebrate today, worth all that? Or did we mean it only for Dutch victims in war situations and Peacekeeping Operations after World War II?

What we, as a whole of humanity, have done right and wrong from 1939 onwards is admirable and grief-worthy but instead of honouring our heroes by remembering them, it would be better, instead, to remember them and act accordingly

116, 117, 118, 119, 120... That's how I thought my two minutes full, but the thoughts didn't leave my head. And so they should.