Thursday, April 30

And suddenly you remember what being a monarchy means

The driver of this car was attemtping to hit the 'bus' with our royal family.The car plowed through fencing and a crowd, killing 4 and injuring atleast 13 others only to plow into a statue (called the needle).


Not sure what to think of this beyond the obvious sadness about- and sympathy for the fatalities involved.
Mainly I'm wondering why would anyone do this? I can halfway understand trying to kill a US president, or our Prime Minister, but the Royal family is mainly a PR machine that doesn't have to pay taxes.

Very human reactions by the Royal Family

The kid in the car is a 38 year old autochtone (indigenous) Dutch citizen and already has two confirmed deaths on his conscience. Possibly 4. Now confirmed
The driver is also heavily injured and going through surgery.

Coverage on CNN is small, but there.

18 comments:

  1. On a lighter note, that's one hell of a quick reaction by that mounted police officer (mounted as on a bike).

    ReplyDelete
  2. if seen on the local news (tvGelderland) that there are at least 23 wounded people

    ReplyDelete
  3. I would not be surprised if it where a maroccan like was the case with Vincent van Gogh.

    ReplyDelete
  4. It was Theo van Gogh, not Vincent, he's been dead for some time .... bit early to jump to conclusions isn't it?

    ReplyDelete
  5. It's not a Maroccan. The man is white. And is not known right now if he did this on purpose.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Why are the Dutch still preserving, like the stupid British, the anachronism of a royal family? Two lives would have been saved if the royalty had become extinct.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Wow, lots of people on our blog all of a sudden.
    To tackle the last question, you'd have to go back hundreds of years in history to find the last assassination attempt at our Royal House. I don't know about the Brittish one.

    By contrast, political assassination has been 'part of the democratic process' in republic like the United States since its conception and on the day two airplanes bored themselves into the Empire State building in New York City, our Prime Minister at the morning went to his work riding his bicycle.

    Also, an anachronism is an error in chronology, especially a chronological misplacing of persons, events, objects, or customs. What exactly is not in chronological order? Ok, so the Dutch were one of the first Republics and we turned into a Monarchy around the time everyone else was joining the Republic fad. It's worked for us quite well. 2 Deaths due to having a monarchy in 300 years is not a high deathtoll.

    The driver is a Autochtone (sp?) Dutch citizen. No indication of ideological motives or (much) planning or organization. It was a deliberate action though.

    ReplyDelete
  8. 2 death's and 21 injured so far.

    Motive was to hit the royalbus with the queen. (says the chief of police)

    the driver was a dutch 38 year old man.

    ReplyDelete
  9. some pictures here

    http://www.nrc.nl/redactie/foto/koninginnedagongeluk/soundslider.swf

    ReplyDelete
  10. We're preserving the monarchy, because well -with all their flaws- the royal family rocks!
    I think Lani worded very well how us becoming a republic would not help us any. Been there, done that.

    It was said during the press conference that the guy who drove the car is 38 not 25...
    Just goes to show it's way too early to draw any conclusions since the investigation is still underway -duh- and the driver is currently under the knife in some hospital.

    If it was indeed a deliberate act -which it looks like right now, really-, I hope the guy lives to be 100 years old in solitary and endures severe pains...

    Now confirmed: 4 dead... :'-( From the footage I've seen, the little girl that got hit is among those 4. I'm afraid more will follow.
    Crap, I'm crying...
    My heart goes out to all of the victims families.

    In a weird way, I'm glad Juliana isn't around anymore. She would have been 100 years old today.

    ReplyDelete
  11. There's pictures of the driver on RTL...

    ReplyDelete
  12. Lani, you mean indigenous, that's the same as autochtone;) But I am sad that some people jumped to conclusions and thought it was a morrocan, I'm a muslim myself and love the royal family of the netherlands as well...:( and on a lighter note, there's not much 'Dutch'left in them btw, the crownprince is half-german and his children are quartergerman and half argentine:P

    ReplyDelete
  13. Aye, indigenous is the word I was looking for :-)
    Being indigenous to the Netherlands, as well as suffering from a bit of indignation at the time, I couldn't find the right term.

    Our Royal family is indeed a melting pot of many different nationalities and cultures. As such it's a good representative of our nation.

    I'm really hoping the driver had a better reason for what he did than something religious/cultural. Not that there's a good enough reason for what he did, but in my mind you have to really trie to find a worse one.

    ReplyDelete
  14. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

    ReplyDelete
  15. No personal attacks please.

    ReplyDelete
  16. At this moment there are 5 people killed and they say that the man who did this is braindead, I think it's a to easy punishment for him to die this quick, personaly I hoped that he would live in very much pain so he can suffer for what he's done to al does innocent people.

    ReplyDelete
  17. If the driver is braindead then we will simply never know the motivation, if indeed there was a motivation? Everything we know right now is pure conjecture until we get a background on the man behind the wheel. My heart goes out to the family and friends of those affected by this horrendous incident, but please lets not judge, there are too many media fuelled speculations, the driver could have been ill, slipped into some kind of fit/blackout and lost control of the vehicle, perhaps the dutch are getting more background but I haven't seen anything yet that provides a 100% solid case to make me want to condemn anyone.

    ReplyDelete
  18. Total death tall today is 6+1, six victims and one perpetrator who died of his wounds in hosptial last night.
    While we'll never know his true motivation I'm willing to wager a guess. From the disabled airbag I infer his main goal was to kill himself as dramatically as possible.

    I suspect this person's motives and psychological pathology aren't that different from the cases in the US where someone picked up a gun and started shooting fellow students or random passrerbys until they themselves get shot. A form of elaborate suicide that seems to be in vogue this last decade.

    The Royal parade on the annual Queensday was just an 'excuse' a means to make his suicide that more dramatic. Most of these cases invovle someone who feels unable to affect the world around him, and the way they kill themselves is the only way they can 'matter'.

    ReplyDelete