Madrid Bomb Attacks

Here is a slightly shorter version of a message I wrote to friends, family and a few newgroups after the Madrid attacks. Although I received a lot of positive mails, there were also a few who thought I was being naive with my wishes for the world. Time will tell.

----------------

16 march 2004

Dear friends,

Thank you all for the many messages and phone calls we received last week. I realize I haven't responded to most of them (for reasons I will explainbelow), and now that life seems to go back to semi-normal, I prefer to write something longer and send it to a bunch of people at the same time.

To answer the common question: we are ok. We are healthy, we were far away from the attacks, and our circle of family and friends seems to be intact. We are however shocked, still, for a wide variety of reasons, not in the least the cruelty of this act and its human cost. And for the scar it has left behind on the city I love so much.

Some 13 bombs had been packed in bags and left in luggage areas of a few local commuter trains all running the same line into the city center. Most of them exploded right before 8am on Thursday morning. The explosion with the highest toll was in Madrid, some 300 meters from the central station (the train was running a few minutes late - had that not been the case then the human cost would have been even higher). The amount of people killed because of the attacks has now risen to more than 200 and there are 1460 wounded, a lot of which with damage for life (deaf- and blindness, amputated limbs, ears, deformations, etc). Some 40 or so still linger between life and death.

A few hours into the afternoon I received a call from KRO Television (Holland). A few reporters were already in a plane and they were looking for a local producer for a current affairs program. Was I interested? Seeing the opportunity to do something productive with what had happened that day, to contribute something to the flow of information, and to process my own (strong) feelings, I said yes. I resurfaced last Sunday night, four days later, from what I must say has been one of the most emotional, gratifying and intense experiences since a long time. We produced a 4 minute piece for a program called Netwerk for Friday night, and a 15 minute piece for Sunday night. We talked to specialists on ETA and international terrorism, interviewed the Minister of Foreign Affairs, but also taxi drivers and people on the street. We covered the 'official' demonstration on Friday night (which mobilized more than 11 million people in the country) but also the ad-hoc ones, which spontaneously started.

Saturday night it became clear that the attack might have been the workof an Al Quada cell due to Spain's involvement in the Iraq war (against the wishes of more than 90% of the Spanish people). The news seemed to change every five minutes, and along with hundreds of journalists, some of which from countries I hadn't even heard of before, we were continously changing and adapting our plans. As a result, I was standing by the empty train at the central station 24 hours after the attacks had happened. Until that time, they had somehow still seemed somewhat removed from me. But seeing the gaping holes in the train, and a single shoe on the pavement - forgotten by the rescue workers who had collected all of the victims' personal belongings by now, reality really hit me. There was no escaping it. Is this the beginning of a new era?

As you all well know, Spain has since gone through a dramatic political change. If the timing of the attacks were to coincide with, and change the outcome of, the national elections, then they met their aim. While the conservatives were still well-ahead in the polls a week ago, last Sunday the Spanish people voted overwhelmingly for the Socialist Party. Our new president has already comitted to pulling Spanish troups out of Iraq, a war his party has always considered a farce. I support them in this, but for us there is a bittersweet twist.

My wife has been a member of the cabinet of the Minister of Science and Technology for two-and-a-half years now. She is an advisor on scientific policy. The outcome of the elections cost her her job. She has a five-star resumé and we are not worried at all about her prospects, but taking everything together, we could easily say we have had a very heavy few days.

Questions remain. While ETA is weak and disorganized, and an attack from them might have heralded the end of something (a final blow, if you wish), the Al Quada scenario is a much scarier one. Is this the beginning of a new wave of violence against normal citizens? Will we see a growing distrust and prejudice against the immigrant community from Muslim countries? Will Europe now become subject of a more intense security operation a-la USA (airports etc)? Do we want to live like this? Is the world really a safer place?

My previous convictions have only been confirmed. I think we are on the wrong track, and that more attacks will follow both in Europe and the USA. I believe we need to find a negotiated solution for the Isreal-Palestine conflict and pull out of Iraq. This is what will bring security to the world, not more weapons.

On Sunday afternoon, with most of the work done, the Dutch team sent me home for a few hours. I was finally able to be with Paula for a while. Sometime in the middle of this period, she came to me and said: "you know dad, there was this train, and there was an explosion, and boom". The movement of her hands and her big dark eyes illustrated the force of the explosion. My heart broke. Why does she have to tell me this? She is four, she is not emotionally affected by all this. But the very fact that her life has taken her to a point where she could tell something like this to her father, got me so scared. We don't even live in a war-zone, or in a country in constant conflict. Just imagine.

Yesterday, Monday, I felt useless. The TV-work was done and it was impossible trying to get back to my regular job, my company, the projects, organizing my desk which had been stacked with mail, papers, etc. At night we received a phone call from a friend. A common friend had lost his sister in the attacks. She was one of the first names on the list on Thursday. The world is smaller than I thought. In a city of nearly 6 million people, when 200 die and 1460 have been wounded, everyone knows someone. Be prepared for that.

Thanks again for all the messages and calls of concern. We are truly grateful for those. Myself, I'm just happy to have had the opportunity to be so close to it all, and to process my own emotions in a constructive manner through the work we did. I also hope that you and yours are well. Life goes on, and I'm back to my dreams of films and documentaries, of a new house and a larger family. In reverse order...

Much love from Madrid.