Fireworks are only legal on new years eve over here. And there are a few countries in the EU where insanely powerful explosives are also legal (basically hand grenades), so they very easily find their way into our country, even though they’re not legal here. The police do what they can but it’s impossible to make more than a dent.

Fireworks used to be a fun way to have a great party. But as they got harder and louder, and the country got more and more densely populated, the problems also started to pile up. So the tone slowly shifted from a big party, to a rowdy night, to eventually a largely lawless night where it’s more and more outright vandalism and rioting, instead of having a party. The past years it’s been “normal” to have several deaths, thousands of wounded and scores of cars, houses and other buildings (from bus stops to supermarkets) burned down on new years eve. So even though the Dutch as a people are very resistant to changing their culture, the call to outlaw all fireworks got larger and larger. So large that even the last right-wing parties gave up their resistance last year and admitted that the only way forward was to do away with it altogether. But instead of banning it immediately they wussed out and said they would ban it after one more year with fireworks, even though everyone in law enforcement, the fire departments and medics begged them not to.

So naturally, everyone wanted to go out with a bang, and they basically succeeded. At half past midnight every mobile in the country got an emergency text to only call 112 (our version of 911) in life-threatening situations, since they were completely overwhelmed. Even though they doubled their normal capacity and every policeman, fireman and medic in the country was working as hard as they could to keep things under control. In my opinion political heads should roll for this but it seems the general opinion is to shrug your shoulders and keep on keeping on. Ironically the rest of the year the Netherlands is a very tame country, with less than 100 murders a year in the entire country for example. It’s just this single night that got completely out of control.