Its a familiar story: a young white man goes crazy and starts shooting his three weapons into a crowd of strangers at a shopping mall. He kills six - the number rises to seven by the time the news is rolling - and wounds several others before turning the gun onto himself.
But this is not happening in the USA - its happening right here in Holland. Little Alphen aan de Rijn with its neatly trimmed lawns and open curtained windows revealing neat orderly lives.
An event like this is a doorway to all sorts of dread.
If it can happen in Alphen, why not in Amsterdam? Why not at the shops near me? At a time when I’ve sent my kids out to get some bread or milk? If a young man can go so crazy that he wants to kill strangers, does this mean that hate lies just under the surface of all of us? If a rich placid little country like The Netherlands can breed this kind of virulence, then what in God’s name is the point of trying? Is wealth, a good social security system, a pretty good education system simply not good enough to vanish the monster that lies within all of us?
My heart goes out to the victims and their families. The dead probably had the worst last moments anyone can ever have, and their loved ones - well they’ve entered a hell that will haunt them for the rest of their lives. But I also think of the ordinary people of Alphen and of all the little towns and villages in The Netherlands who will not enter a shopping mall again for some time without looking out for something awful to burst out from somewhere.
But most of all, I think about the parents of this boy - 10 years ago he was 14. He was a kid still How troubled we still have to find out. But he is the child of people who now have to carry the unimaginable burden of what he’s done. Their grief will be tainted by guilt and I only hope that somehow the community around them also accepts that they too lost a child today.
