Standing still for a moment

Like many people, I often take a moment to reflect on life during the month of December. At the events that have made our world more beautiful and a lot uglier in recent months. At the people I have had the pleasure of meeting, and unfortunately had to lose. I then dwell on friendships that have been formed and think of the wonderful people I have had to leave behind sometimes in hopeless situations in their home countries.

In my work, sometimes you wish you had a little button that you could turn so that you no longer feel connected to the things you see, the poverty, the dead, the sadness. I can tell you that there is no such button. It is nonsense to think that I don't fall asleep with it, wake up in the morning and dream about it in between. And the day it won't touch me anymore is the day I will look for another profession.

Today I pause to remember the people I met in a refugee camp in Bulgaria, where the situation is so degrading that no human being would want to live there. I pause today with the former residents of the Jungle in Calais, many of whom are still wandering around the old camp this winter month without shelter. I pause today with the children in Donetsk whose parents are no longer there due to the ongoing war in the area. I pause today with the street children of Caracas who may look for their Christmas meal in the garbage bags of leftover garbage.

But I also reflect on the tens of thousands of Dutch people who will spend Christmas in their own country on the streets, or in an emergency shelter. The Dutch who have to get their Christmas meal through the food bank and the Dutch who are isolated in their homes due to loneliness.

When I look at the decaying world around me, I am often proud to be a Dutchman. Often, just with shame. We have become good at distancing ourselves from the problems around us. We have become good at closing our eyes and turning our backs on the problems. We have become good at worrying about futilities that we sometimes seem blind to reality. As if it's a button that makes us sleep better, dream nicer and get up finer.

Nevertheless, I wish everyone, here and far from home, Merry Christmas.