Two Saturdays ago it got political. It just took me a little longer to write about it than I’d have liked.
Two Saturdays ago we went out into the gray afternoon to join close to 1,000 people gathered on Amsterdam’s Museumplein. Many were children. All stood in solidarity with American teenagers who wish to attend school without being shot.
We are in the crowd. Photo credit James Petermeier.
Pictures of the Amsterdam protest have appeared on the Washington Post, the New York Times, and the Huffington Post. One picture, unsharable due to copywrite, clearly shows my husband chanting no to guns as we joined voices globally in support of the marchers at home.
I hope Washington heard us.
The protest gathered in front of the US Embassy, which was shuttered for the weekend.
There were posters, a banner, singing, and chanting. The crowd was goodnatured. While it felt serious because it was serious, the action of getting involved was also tremendously positive.
In a poignant moment, a European teenager read from the United States Declaration of Independence, outlining our unalienable rights to Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. This was eery to hear in a foreign accent in a foreign city as he insisted the threat of gun violence deterred these most basic rights. I wasn’t tall enough to see him over the crowd, but his voice summoned the flawed but hopeful humanism of America’s inception, written by hands from many nations, calling us back to that early promise.
The kids ended up on Dutch TV.
My kids said it best in an impromptu interview by Dutch TV. They explained their protest in terms of raising international awareness, which they hoped could lead to a solution, and the very simple reason that they wished to support their school friends still at home.
In 1776, the Amercian founding fathers were more accurately the founding kids. Alexander Hamilton was 21 years old, James Monore was 18, Aron Burr was 20, and Nathan Hale was 21. Kids were at the forefront of the civil rights movement in the ’60’s, and today they are standing up again, this time to demand their safety.
Photo credit James Petermeier
Having come of age in the era of school lockdowns and massacres, the kids remind us that this is not normal.
They call on all the adults in Congress elected to represent us to pass legislation that will protect and save children from gun violence.
They demand the change grownups can’t seem to achieve, with courage from the front lines that will hopefully fill the ballot boxes in 2018 and 2020.
If these kids are the future, the future is ok.
Photo credit James Petermeier.
Mary Petiet 