Ophthalmologist De Faber was working for twenty years before fireworks ban: ‘That tradition got completely out of hand and became a license for anarchy’

A day after politicians from The Hague decided to prohibit consumer fireworksin Maastricht, the annual congress of the Dutch ophthalmic company (still) started. The biggest champion also runs around that ban, beaming. NRC looked for him.

Children’s eye doctor Tjeerd de Faber (69) is on a triumphal tour. Calculated in South Limburg, the region where he grew up, and where they poorly understood the Dutch love for fireworks. « We may saw one or two arrows in the entire street. You go there – Paf, Getaway – Not spending all your money on it? Here people saved for carnival, that was the party. And you could also buy two beers from the money for a few arrows. ”

The woman at the counter of the Congress Center said that she has « a big weak » for you and your campaign. You will be celebrated.

« Yes, yes. Let me say it like this: many people congratulate me. They finally succeeded, they say. This is the crown on my career. When I see how long we have had to fight for this … »

In the nineties, the Faber operated so many young fireworks victims in the Rotterdam Eye Hospital in the nineties on 2 or 3 January that he wanted to see how things were going during the turn of the year. « Ground Zero« He calls that. Unfortunately, December 31 is also the wedding day of the Faber and his wife. » In my life I made one very good decision, and that was to marry my wife. But I did that on the wrong date. Since 2000 I have not been able to celebrate my wife completely with my wife, except when we were married for 25 years. « 

You started to turn fireworks victims, first alone in Rotterdam and when you were chairman of it, you picked it up nationally. Was a fireworks ban already a theme within your profession?

« Twenty years ago I was a calling in the desert, an old piss, it was January 1 and the press wrote: It was a quiet New Year’s Eve again. And then I thought: goddy, you should come and have a look here. One year you had a disaster in Utrecht, then in the Hague, then again in The Hague. And then their parents. »

Why do you get their suffering so much?

« I experienced the necessary with my own children. My oldest son was born with a serious handicap on his hands. His classmates asked if that came through fireworks. And my daughter died of cot death after five months. Then you will get antennas for the sorrow of other parents. That powerlessness is so recognizable. A child can cross a parent. »

It went from childish innocent to an annual horror porn power

How did you see the fireworks tradition changing in the last twenty years?

« That went from childish innocent to an annual horror forces. In my childhood they said: count your fingers. Your fingers, it was actually, because there was mainly bang fireworks. It is in our human being to want to surpass ourselves every year, I think it must always be harder. At one point that fireworks tradition was completely out of hand, it was completely out of hand, it was completely out of hand, it was completely out of hand, it was completely out of hand, it was completely out of hand, » ”” ”” ”” ”.

When did you notice that public opinion started to tilt?

“Together with colleagues, I founded a website in 2014 on the advice of Ahmed Aboutaleb with a fireworks manifesto that people could sign. The first year we had about ten thousand signatures. Those were five thousand people and five thousand names of pets. In 2020 we received there in Arnhem, where one Father and his son were killed by fireworksfour hundred thousand signatures in one fell swoop. The snowball was getting bigger and bigger. « 

Did you expect that ‘your’ fireworks ban would come during the right -wing cabinet ever?

« When this government took office last summer, I thought: that will be another four years. I always had the plan to postpone my pension until it was successful, but I didn’t want to wait another four years because there is a right cabinet. But I started working again last New Year, that works as a kind for me superchargerI was completely charged again. Then after the turn of the year the police, fire brigade and care providers also said: we can no longer continue. That is what politics now yields. « 

If you let it rot for another year, this will be one of the worst years ever. The big bang

It is not yet certain whether the prohibition will be introduced this year or only next year.

« If you let it rot for another New Year, then this will be one of the worst years ever. Because everyone thinks: this is the last time, then just buying a double bang awaits us. Soft surgeons make smelly wounds. »

Anyway: you can retire.

« I have always said: my patients in the hospital cannot miss me yet and I am not welcome at home. But next New Year I will be abroad with my family. Then my wife and I are married for 43 years. The youth can take over from me, and you will see less and less of me. «