The Even Greater Tokyo Region

An Orange Day Turned Black

For those who don't follow the news or live in Holland, you might not have heard about it, but there was an assassination attempt on the Queen, at the Queen's Day Celebrations when a guy ploughed through a crowd in a small Suzuki apparently aiming for the bus carrying the Royal Family. Here is a pretty comprehensive news article, but be warned that the images are quite shocking.

Usually I don't follow the news closely. It gets depressing, unless it is reported by Stephen Colbert or Jon Stewart (and there is no way I could make anything from the news even fractionally as entertaining as them, so I wouldn't try), and luckily, the news doesn't seem to affect me much. I mean, the weather presumably affects me, but I don't go to the theatre, I don't think there is an election coming up that I can vote in, I don't follow sports other than NBA, Garfield just isn't as funny as it used to be, and the only stocks I have are water-soluble.

After my bold statement from Wednesday that "I have been waiting for [Queen's Day] my whole life", I knew something had to go wrong. I just presumed it would be something more like sharting myself in public and trying to clean it up before anyone noticed, not a ridiculous and tragic national event. But no, I woke up already hung over on preliminary celebrations on Queen's morning, and my flatmates already had the TV on. It was full-time news coverage of the event. The only other times I can remember this type of news coverage was a few months ago when that Turkish Airlines plane crashed near Schiphol Airport (close to where I'm living... Thanks for everyone calling me to see if I was okay...), the US election nights (although they weren't technically disasters... Well, 2000 and 2004 may be considered that way), the start of both the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, and the Twin Towers attack.

The point is, in light of these comparisons, I am dissappointed at the sensationalist media, and the then necessary over-reaction of the Royal family and the Minister of Parties. (Oh yes, Holland has a minister of parties. It's like the official Van Wilder of the nation.) They cancelled Queen's day celebrations in several towns. Of course, there were already about 1,000,000 drunk people in Amsterdam, and I'd hate to be the one to tell them that they couldn't party, so instead, they cancelled the evening programs there too, out of respect to the victims.

Yes, it sucks for the victims and everyone in the town of Apeldoorn where it happened. But it was clear early on that this was an isolated event, and the rest of Holland was in no (extra) danger. In the end, 6 people died including the driver, (Which is lucky for him, as otherwise he could possibly have been "The Worlds Biggest Party Pooper" and definitely the "Most Hated Man in Holland".) My point is, I think the only reason the party was pooped was because the Royal Family "saw" it happening. And the cameras saw them seeing it happening. If a car had driven through somebodies living room and killed a family, it would just be a footnote in the paper and a short documentary a few months later. This was hyper-news because there were camera's everywhere (it was internationally news-worthy), and the Royals were nearby. The Royal Family was emotionally scarred, and the mayor and politicians and Prime Minister and milked the opportunity to be sympathetic. It's truly awful for the victims, but I don't think it helps that this news is everywhere, and that they were used for the aftermath politics.
Where was the US-style response: "Don't let the terrorists win!"? or the English response: "Win, lose, we booze"? Where was the Dutch response: "I'll give up, just wait three days."

And what a shame it was. My first Queen's day was officially the worst one ever. It is supposed to be the day where absolutely everyone is in a good mood. I was told it would be like if Holland won the World Cup- and there weren't any sports-haters, immigrants and supporters of other countries. Orange everywhere, at all hours of the morning, day and night, and everyone in a great mood.

Due to the politics, the nearby markets were called off, but I still went to Amsterdam and walked up and down the crazy busy streets wearing my colours, as many people were. It was reasonably fun, I guess. The best part was definitely before I went home and I needed to go to the toilet. "Need" is not an understatement. It was amazing. It's just a shame that Queen's Day was memorable for a relatively banal bodily function.

I hope I haven't been too insensitive, but surely I haven't been any less insensitive than the media and politics. So, I'm dissappointed on three levels. I guess my only consolidation is that the Queen didn't get her parade, and we didn't get our Queen's day. My true first Queen's day will have to wait another year.



Ooh, I forgot to mention that Princess Di's funeral was also a TV "news" marathon "event", even in New Zealand. WE HAD TWO TV CHANNELS IN NZ AT THE TIME! Okay, that was more ridiculous than this lame assaniation attempt. I was only about 10 when Princess Di got buried, and I was thinking "hurry up and play the Elton John song and put that box in the ground already!" I was more worried about who was going to pick up those damn flowers. Seriously, that was a low-point in TV history. And here, I don't care too much if I was being insensitive then, or now. Sorry, I feel that I needed to end this post with some justifiable negativity after some dubious negativity.

Anyway, Viva La Queen! See you next year!