The Dutch thriving public transport system is used by many to travel to work every day packed like a can of worms, to do mostly civil servant jobs in air-conditioned work places. We share coffee machines, have the habit of shaking hands with strangers, and many people greet vague acquaintances with our famous three kisses on the cheek. It is no surprise a large part of our population has a running nose whenever the letter “r” is in the month. The common cold must be invented here, it exists in all its variants: with or without a headache, fever, sore throat, or any other inconvenience you might think of.
Our climate and population density makes us vulnerable to attacks with viral, bacterial and toxical agents suitable for bio-terrorism such as Smallpox, Melioidosis and MTX. Unfortunately, it is easy to spread contageous agents at places where many people come together, such as our main airport Schiphol, or Utrecht CS the center of the Dutch railroad system, or even to pump them back into our water supply system. Moreover, the Dutch economy relies heavily on a few facilities that are easy to disrupt such as our major traffic knots, Rotterdam’s industrial area, or the gas winning installations in Groningen. Furthermore, half of the country lies below sea level, so our dikes are also a possible target.
The above all sounds pretty alarming, but I think it isn’t. First of all, the goal of terrorists is not to hit the economy, but to spread anxiety in a society that they hate, fear, or are jealous of, by hurting innocent citizens. They can simply achieve that by picking a small self-proclaimed symbolic target to “justify” their cause. It makes little sense to spend heaps of money to guard all possible theoretical targets, because fanatics are willing to sacrifice their life and their symbolic message is more than enough to shake our world. This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be on guard, but from a statistical point of view it is much more likely you will be a victim of a traffic accident. Moreover, the state always runs into the Big Brother dilemma: how to maintain the intricate balance between safety and privacy?
Luckily, as a target, The Netherlands has very limited symbolic value. Most of the world does not know where our cute little country is, don’t they speak German in Holland? Alas, Amsterdam is pretty well known, but everybody loves it being a free haven for soft drugs and everything else that most Gods have forbidden. It is a nice place to repose in freedom and observe beautiful canals and buildings of historical value. Even the most hardened terrorist needs a break from the strict regime every now and then, and Amsterdam has it all. Some say, it might well be the perfect place to make plans for attacks elsewhere. The somewhat silly image (on purpose?) of the Dutch secret service that seems to loose sensitive information via all possible channels, might strengthen potential terrorists in the idea that they are relatively safe here. Let’s hope the service does its best to identify early threats to stability and safety.
When we manage to succesfully integrate the many cultures that currently live in The Netherlands, it will be an even nicer place to live. With such diversity combined with our debating culture and communication infrastructure we could show the rest of the world ways to reduce the reasons for terrorism. I hope and believe terrorism is merely a temporary phase in the evolution of civilizations. As such I think it is due to the Huntingtonesque post-industrial clash of cultures, fear of future shortage of resources, but mostly of opinions not being heard or misunderstood as part of the further unescapable globalisation of our time.
Unneccessary violence can only be stopped by dialogue using the universal benefits of our blooming information economy in which free and easy access to information for all is around the corner. With Internet we cannot hide or run away anymore from other people’s ideas that we may not like, so please keep twittering away and let your opinions be heard and challenged by others. We have now unrevokeably entered the information age with its unlimited sharing of ideas in digital communities. They enable everybody to be a participating world citizen, or to dwell safely among peers, who like your ideas, in special interest areas.
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