Well Gitana, and all others who deemed this a Usefull Post, let me put it to you like this, in the most friendly way possible:
I am a Dutch woman, living in The Netherlands. If you think that I'm in anyway impressed by an American lecturing me about my country, it's politics, leadership and the lack therof and the emotions that my countrymen and I are going through at this moment, based on something that some travellers have said to a correspondent of The Guardian, wel ..... kindly think again.
I do not demand the Dutch to react angry. I am one of the many Dutch who are angry as we speak.
"There's a particularly sobering statistic that emphasizes the magnitude of this tragedy: with the reported death count now including 189 passengers from the Netherlands, the MH17 crash has claimed the lives of a greater share of the country's population than the September 11th attacks did in the US."
http://www.websleuths.com/forums/sh...-295-aboard-7-17-2014&p=10763501#post10763501
Thank you.
I don't make statements lightly or without some knowledge. But since you responded twice to my post, I can see it must have been offensive. I apologize for that.
However, I wont back off my belief that anger that the PM didnt immediately call for blood is atypical of the Dutch character. Thats just not my experience.
And clearly, not all Dutch people feel the way you do and are enraged that the PM didn't immediately call for blood, or feel that he is in bed with Putin due to his statements:
1. Artur Laumann, 36, arrived with a bunch of tropical flowers for tulips arent appropriate to ensure one of his friends would be remembered. He placed the flowers with a picture of his colleague Wayan Sujana and a message of condolence written in Indonesian, and then acknowledged the Australian reaction to the disaster had been more in keeping with the strength of the atrocity.
Your Prime Minister Tony Abbott has spoken in very strong language but here, we are in shock, Mr Laumann said. I think we should be as angry as Australia and I think that very soon we will see our politicians speak out loudly too.
I havent slept since hearing about the plane going down and it is only now that I am starting to tremble a bit and realise what has happened.
2. But another Dutchman, Henri Karsten, who was checking in for a flight to New York, said: The Dutch people are still in a state of shock.
There is fear too about the implications of this, will this escalate into another Cold War? and well, I can only say that everyone is trembling.
3. Asked how they felt the Dutch government should react to the tragedy, Van den Akker said: "What happened was awful, and we are all thinking of the victims. But we are not going to call for the government to go and catch the perpetrators or go to war. We are not America."
4.
An actual family member of a victim:
I expect there to be a thorough investigation by the authorities into what has happened, Sander Essers, who lost several relatives in the crash, said in The Hague.
Mr Essers lost his brother Peter, 66, Peters wife Jolette Nuesink, 60, and their two children, Emma, 20, and Valentijn, 17.
(Sounds a lot like what the PM said).
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/in-...994237603?nk=5ef20e1f80d3e0fa135c41693fecce5b
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/18/dutch-travellers-react-calmly-loss-flight-mh17
5. My mom: Volgens een opmerking van een Nederlandse schrijfster laten de Nederlanders zich zeer kritisch uit over het gedrag van Mark Rutte, na de rampzalige gebeurtenis van gisteren. Nu, ik heb gelezen wat de man heeft gezegd en vind daar niets in waarover iemand mogelijk zou vinden dat Rutte een lafaard is. Wat willen de mensen eigenlijk? Moet hij nu onmiddellijk militaire maatregelen gaan nemen? Ik kan echt niet geloven dat Nederlanders, die bekend staan als vredelievend en nadenkend, zich nu achter een vaandel van geweldadigheid willen scharen.
Ik woon nu al 55 jaar in de Verenigde Staten en heb begrijpelijk meer interesse in wat hier op politiek gebied gebeurd. Ik weet dus niet of ik voor Rutte had gestemd, als ik in Holland woonde. Evenwel is het voor mij echter op dit moment niet van veel belang of de man op politiek gebied links of rechts is. Ik reageer alleen op wat de dame in kwestie gelooft over een passende reactie. Als ik de verklaringen van Rutte ga vergelijken met de die van Bush, na 9/11, vind ik dat Rutte's toespraak op simpathiek gebied en realistisch gezien stukken beter is dan de wijze waarop Bush in 2001 reageerde. Rutte heeft duidelijk gemaakt dat maatregelen zullen worden genomen, maar dat er eerst een grondig onderzoek moet plaatsnemen. Hoe is dit fout? Moeten we nu spontaan en zonder overdenking oorlog gaan voeren?
My initial reaction was to immediately blame Putin (I still do, BTW), to want to send him to hell (I still do) and to be scared of WWIII. I'm not a world leader, though.
And while incredible anger is totally understandable and 100% merited here, (and I do think its obvious this wasnt a regular plane crash and that Russia has it's hand in what happened), I think our anger is better directed at the actual beasts who did this, not at innocent world leaders, like Rutte or Obama, who are trying to carefully respond and figure out how to address this most volatile of situations.
I thank God that the world leaders addressing this are not acting like hot heads or letting their emotions rule.
IMO, we just can't afford that.
