For people who prefer to keep their emotions in check, it was a day to release them with gentleness and dignity, and for a while at least, unburden themselves of the pain, grief and anger they have been wracked with for a week. The return of the first 40 bodies of the 295 passengers and crew of the ill-fated Malaysian Airlines Flight 17 — that was shot down over Ukraine on July 17 — to the Netherlands last week and the augustness the Dutch brought to that moment reinstates the faith of the world in the human ability to hold on to dignity and compassion in the face of escalating evil.
The tragedy that plunged the world into a state of shock and despair over the rising conscienceless of mankind needed a counterbalancing force of goodness and the Dutch provided it admirably. Lining up along the streets for miles as the convoy of hearses made its way slowly to the town of Hilversum, where forensic experts would begin the process of identifying the bodies, they paid their respects with grace, united in their grief for those they knew and those they did not.
The indignities suffered by the bodies of the passengers of MH17 on the fields of Ukraine will stay forever etched in our minds as will the nobility with which the Dutch restored their dignity on their soil. In a world desecrated by the politics of war and divisiveness, the Dutch showed us how unity and non-discriminating love can bring us much-needed redemption.
