It's really time for new Dutch traditions. “Some people don't mourn a car, gym, church or one less eye - that's tradition!” Misbehaving, a tradition more deeply rooted in the Dutchman than a flare will ever be. Burnt-out cars, a primary school, a gym and eve... Show moreIt's really time for new Dutch traditions. “Some people don't mourn a car, gym, church or one less eye - that's tradition!” Misbehaving, a tradition more deeply rooted in the Dutchman than a flare will ever be. Burnt-out cars, a primary school, a gym and even an entire church, violence against police and emergency workers, unfriendly crowds in the Eye Hospital — it was, as predicted, an old-fashioned turn of the year. And Nazi, racist slogans projected on the Erasmus Bridge, shown live on TV. People who are allowed to rant lawlessly and with impunity, then the fragments are collected at sunrise and the damage recorded. We are now at the point where “no massive disturbances” — in a headline at the NOS on Sunday morning — should apparently be seen as a profit. This is only possible in the Netherlands: you can buy fireworks, but you can't set them off. What moron came up with this? I'm not against fireworks, I'm against fireworks in the hands of self-obsessed morons who think they can light whoppers of arrows. In their hands, even a bright pea could still be life-threatening. The older I get, the less I understand why people want to set off those fireworks themselves, I will undoubtedly miss that primal feeling, that piece of Dutch DNA primal feeling.