Column | Thank you! – NRC

The 'conversation' in The Oval Office still threw after, but a group of dozens of Ukrainians had already drawn the right conclusion. They traveled through Utrecht on Saturday to show their gratitude. The tour went from the Jaarbeurs to Domplein. They walked with yellow-blue flags and handed out flowers to Utrecht people. At the same time, they also showed that the Dutch lesson had been for nothing.

« Thank you! »

« Thank you! »

« Thank you! »

A people who had come through a car -free artery in Utrecht, the « thank you! » Went through marrow and leg. You heard the fear of the future, they had paid attention to the news broadcasts: as soon as the merciful helpers think that gratitude is not big enough you are lost. The CNN fact checkers had found no fewer than 33 thanks from Zensky for the American weapons, not enough to penetrate to The Oval Office.

Then take to the street, the Ukrainians who reside in the Netherlands must have thought, perhaps it lingers in the collective memory. It was better to scream as loudly as possible and prefer to look at it as kindly as possible so that all our Putin-Verstehers and Geert Wilders could hear it. Our support, our help, our mercy: they had seen it. They were incredibly grateful, the thanks-to-you's fly from the mouths.

We are not the US, we just don't have JD Vance yet, but already a minister who does not know that Zensky is democratically chosen, a public broadcaster who is openly pro-Putin and the leader of the largest government party does not yet know exactly where he stands, so that the good understood can suggest it.

On Saturday they handed out flowers and chanted thanks to thank you, in a few weeks they might come by crawling through the buying gutter to kiss our feet. Everything so that it cannot escape us that they have seen, felt and appreciated our goodness. Of everything we are going to throw them at them – that they have to go back there to die, that they have to pay for our help – the worst thing you can do to us will be ignorable. Because what good is you ingrained when nobody sees it? Nothing at all.

Yesterday Dick Schoof returned with a drawn face from the top with European leaders in London. He had not made any concrete commitments for Ukraine on behalf of the Netherlands. The Ukrainians are already grateful to us anyway.

Marcel van Roosmalen writes a column on Monday and Thursday.

To share





Mail the editors