THE INCIDENT (1979) The calm is complete. Not a noise to break the silence. Sixty people in space. In a space. It's like nobody dares to breath. Breathlessly waiting for the sign. The signal we long for. Without fear, without fright, cold sweat, without feelings, without brains, conditioned. Trained as an attack dog. To succeed. And succeed we will! Without mercy, without quarter, without feeling, without brains, emotionless and brutal. The rawness of the group. A chain of comrades, unbreakable, solidarity, prepared to go the whole way, if need be, over people. Bodies. If necessary. My brain is burning. My heart rate is rising. It almost suffocates me. Still, no fear. But the pressure is mounting. Sixty pressure cookers waiting for relieve. Go! Go! Go! The gate of the barn bursts open. This barn I had began to hate during the night. Because I had to wait. In that damned barn. Which was making me crazy. But now! Sunlight roaring inside. Halve blinded now, but trained, no problems. We storm outside. Our target is 800 meters away. 800 meters with the danger of an early detection. By the pigs, the servants of the state. The butchers. The butchers for money. Are there any other? Our boots are noisy. First like the rumbling of a thunder but after 50 meters in a steady cadence. Like a drum roll, unstoppable. Frightening for a few surprised spectators. Sixty helmed warriors, wearing camouflage jackets, iron bars in hand, hate in our eyes. We keep at it, our lungs pumping, sweat like pearls on our cheeks. Our brains empty. Which is necessary. We will need our brains later. Not now. First we have to make the objective. Another 200 meters in a rigid, hard, fast rhythm. But we have to make it. We make it!! City hall. Symbol of everything we despise, spit on, curse, hate. Iron bars are flashing. The sound of breaking glass. Pulverized under our boots. We kick in the front door. It gives itself with the heavy sound of wood being ripped apart. Inside. Typewriters are smashed against the walls. Tables turned on their head. Cabinets utterly destroyed. After a minute all rooms look like a disaster area. Hit by a destructive force. Collective anger focused on dead materials. Hoping for live adversaries. Up the stairs. There we find four rooms. 5 by 5 meters, 6 by 6. It couldn't be more. Again the windows are destroyed. We place cupboards and metal cabinets before the gaping holes. Everybody is calmer now. A lot of tension melted away. I feel free now. The only thing left is to barricade the staircase. We sprinkle the stairs with dossiers and any official papers we can find. Then we pour water, beer, champagne and brown soap over it. Until the whole stairway is one wet, slippery, slimy, dirty mini mountain. Bring on the pigs now. We're going to give them a warm welcome. The iron bars are steady in our hands. Hands without sweat, without moist. Cool hands now. Hands who know what will come next. Who know what to do. They arrive. With lots of noise, helmed heads in monotonous blue. In blue armored cars, blue water cannons, blue uniforms. Like a blue tidal wave. The incarnation of civilian authority. The defenders of the weaklings, those who shiver when they are stopped by their random controls. Here they are, with their orders, ultimatums, demands. With their terror, backed up by dead letters in dead books. Written by corrupt bastards seeking protection from the people. To enforce their arbitrary laws with the unbridled use of force. But damned, not with us. We are no sheep. I am no sheep. We will fight, and lose, and pay for it. We know that. I know that. But we are ready to give ourselves. Rather one day wolf, than a hundred years of living as a sheep. Distorted shouting through a megaphone. Another ultimatum. Five more minutes. Then the blue oppressors will get into action. Against us. Against punks, trade unionists, gays, negro's, against the right wing, the left wing, against the yellow, the green, the red, the Jews. It doesn't matter. They are paid by those who hold power. They don't care. Four minutes. Surrender? Never! Not without a fight. We have to stand our ground for at least another halve an hour. Until the other militants, in their thousands, will have penetrated the no-go area. Until then we have to keep fighting. Keep the blue shock troops here. Keep them busy. Another two minutes. Everyone is quiet. Everyone is waiting for the inevitable. Everyone is determined. I squat with my back against a wall. I close my eyes. I try to count the seconds. Prepare myself for the worst. And more. But without fright, without angst, not scared. Open and in peace with myself. What we are doing is necessary. At this moment. Nothing will change that. Treblinka, Auschwitz, gas chambers! No comparison. But it fits. That's how it feels. Everywhere there is gas, tear gas. In those four small rooms. Yet there is no panic. Despite the incoming grenades. Through the windows. Through the cupboards. Through the tiling�s on the roof. Chalk comes crashing from the ceiling, as the projectiles land on the floor of the attic. I can hardly see my comrades. The rooms are filled with a sickening white-yellowish smoke. It cuts of your breathing. Crushes the lungs. Our eyes are red from tears, a strangling sensation in our throat. Four, five, six grenades per room. This is hell. We'll have to get out of here. Or suffocate. There is no alternative. In the corridor, by the stairs we fight like madmen. Every policeman is kicked back to the bottom of the stairs. Their gas masks make it more difficult for them to move freely, to attack. They look like alien monsters, cold tiny eyes behind steamy glass. There's blood everywhere, cursing, shouting, complete chaos, battlefield, war. We escape through a window. A jump to relative safety. The flat roof of the refectory. A jump two meters down, two meters to the side. No problem, we are prepared for this. Here we go, one after the other, at a steady tempo. The first ones to land are dispersing fast. Defending the weak points. Where the enemy could get up to the roof. Only thirty people left in the last defended room. We have evacuated the corridor and the stairs. The police is crawling upstairs. Now they begin to break down the door, which we defend with ever fewer people. Rifle butts, bludgeons, beating, hitting, battering, wounding, hands, legs, feet, chests, arms. Now it's my turn. I have to go. The jump through the window. Without thinking, hesitation. I land on the roof, before I'm aware of making the jump. Everyone in the room gets away. Even Bert. As the last one. As the leader. Making his jump, while bludgeons miss him by a whisker. Angry, frustrated, the police begin to shout. "Come back up here"... Scornful laughter is our response. "You come down here! Come and get us, heroes!" The situation hasn't improved much for us. The police has now occupied the building and have surrounded the roof of the refectory. We're stuck. With little possibility to escape. Which is forbidden anyway. By Bert. No massive break-out in one direction. We'll have to stay here as long as humanly possible. Until we get the sign of the civilian spectators, that the other militants have broken through the cordon of police and are now in Flanders. The police is acutely aware of that. Their troops are needed on different points along the border. They are hard pressed. So they have to get rid of us. As fast as possible. More violence is in the air. Again it's raining tear gas grenades. But this time we're not such an easy target. The roof is about 20 meters long by 5 meters wide. They fire at us from the two long sides. But the greatest part of the grenades fly over our heads, landing between jumpy blue men on the other sides. The whole complex of the town hall is now hidden under an enormous gas cloud. Slowly a timid wind tears holes in the gas curtain. Like figures appearing out of a heavy mist, one by one my comrades appear again. We're still on the roof. This attack didn't succeed as well. A few meters lower, the police is still there, this time with blood red eyes. They don't look much healthier, or in better shape than us. They are probably asking themselves what will come next. So do we! From a distance orders are shouted. Sounds echoing between the walls, we can't understand a thing they're saying. Then we watch in amazement what is going on down there. New tear gas grenades are mounted on their rifles. We hear the clicks when the guns are put ready for use. They take aim. Straight into our group. "Damned, they are going to shoot at us" someone yells. A rather obvious remark. Or maybe not. We try to disperse, making ourselves as little as possible. Which doesn't work on such a mall roof. Everywhere where they see little groups together, they take aim and fire directly at us. At our unprotected bodies. I see a girl who had somehow lost her helmet and give her mine. It seems a silly thing to do. We might as well be naked. Here it comes. I see the grenades coming straight at us. Unable to avoid them. I feel a terrifying blow to the side of my head. Fall on my knees. The skin around my skull starts to swell. I touch my head, look at my hands. No blood. A lucky escape. Optimism. When the smoke clears again, we all feel very proud of ourselves. We are all still there, nobody fled. We are still in control of the town hall. But where are the other militants. It's high time they make their breakthrough. Because we know what will come next. Rubber bullets. Without any doubt. Still, nobody is ready to leave this roof, to surrender. Then! Cheering from the group of spectators, inhabitants of this little village. The other demonstrators are coming down from the hills. It's done. We can finally get down from this damned roof. Strange. Nobody seems relieved, happy. We just stare at each other. I see some people shaking each others hand. "Right, boys. Let's get down." It's Bert's voice. We obey immediately. One by one we jump off the roof. Where some of the police vent their frustration at us. Some more futile violence. We don't complain and get into a three men formation. To be led away. Seeing this, the police commander almost explodes with rage. "You WILL break ranks" he shouts "You will not march away from here like that!" No one reacts. Nobody moves. So they pull us from the formation, one by one. Lead us away. As individuals. As individuals from a tight group. Unbroken. Epilogue There were always young people who reacted as I did. There will always be new kids who act, like I acted. And me, being older will stare at them in disbelief and I will understand that as long as there is youth there will be war. Because what was certain yesterday a true belief is now a faint memory an incident... ----------------------------------------------- Thank you for reading this far and any comments you might have. Dirk