I forgot to post an e-mail I received, I believe from the US Department of State, the day before we flew to Belgium. The e-mail contained a warning about an upcoming public demonstration in Brussels. The time of the demonstration coincided perfectly with our scheduled arrival, and the location coincided with our hotel (in the Brouckere neighborhood)! We ended up being delayed, due to bad weather around O'Hare, and fortunately we missed the hubbub. A verbatim excerpt from the e-mail follows:
According to Belgian police, a large demonstration to protest Israeli Military Operations in Gaza is planned to take place in Brussels on Sunday, January 11, 2009 from 2:00 – 5:00 PM. The demonstration is expected to involve 15,000 people and to travel along a north/south axis through the center of Brussels from Gare du Nord via Albert II, Anspach, Brouckere, Lemonnier to the Gare du Midi. Major disruptions to traffic are expected in the downtown area. This demonstration has the potential to become unruly or deteriorate into violent actions by smaller spin-off groups. The Embassy has advised its employees and their families to avoid the downtown area of Brussels during the demonstration.
I thought the e-mail was insane, because here we are investing a lot of time, money, and effort to go on this big trip to a civilized city, and then we're going to be greeted by unruly hordes! It didn't seem possible, and fortunately it didn't work out that way.
Re: the politics of the demonstration, there is a lot of interest around Europe in the tragic events taking place in Gaza. In my meager understanding, most of Europe is pro-Palestinian, at least in this case, because of the Palestinians' clearly inferior military strength, and Europeans' typical preference for balance. (Dan summarizes European politics in 10 words or less.) I heard of one small pro-Israel demonstration in Brussels, and several larger pro-Palistinian demonstrations here.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment