The first week of 2021
It was twelve o'clock, midnight with very little fireworks. For the first time in my life, I celebrated New Year's without hugging friends, but with great champagne and the belief that this year would be better. We are a week further and my favorite Instagram account articulated it aptly: “I tried 2021 for a week, where can I unsubscribe from this year?” Which is too negative, I know, and that’s not in my nature, but what is happening here? I still can't wrap my head around the events of the week.
I watched CNN uninterrupted on Wednesday night until it was half past one in the morning and I fell asleep on the couch. It was as if a mediocre version of the movie Olympus Has Fallen was being broadcast, combined with a bad scene from Game of Thrones where the icy wall was being climbed. The final act of Trump's presidency has shown how dangerous polarization is. On Jinek, there was a video of a Black police officer in the Capitol being chased by the crowd, while a white officer was taking selfies with the terrorists. I was scared, nauseous, sad, and furious.
The first week was turbulent, totally ecstatic, sad, and hopeful at the same time. The news of this year so far.
1. Joe Biden is officially the new president of the United States. Even the doubters in Congress have crossed the line, after the attack on the Capitol in Washington.
2. Bright spot: Sanna Elkadiri from Boxtel received the very first coronavirus vaccine, and also folk hero Diederik Gommers has received his first shot. Vaccination is seen as the beginning of the end of the pandemic. Even more good news: Pfizer also appears to work against mutated variants.
3. The Capitol in Washington was stormed, which is a direct attack on democracy. And Trump let his supporters run wild for hours.
4. Donald Trump was banned from Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube. He has since regained access to Twitter, but he cannot use the other social platforms until the end of his presidency. They should have done this much earlier.
5. After driving the terrorists out of the Capitol, Congress immediately resumed confirming Joe Biden as the future president of the US. I call that democratic muscle.
6. The man in carnival-like attire, who was seen in the meeting room of the Capitol, is Jake Angeli, a fervent supporter and self-proclaimed shaman of QAnon, the far-right movement that believes an influential elite secretly governs the world and drinks the blood of children. He is a conspiracy theorist who believes that the government brought the coronavirus into the world. According to reports, he has not yet been arrested.
7. A test festival in Spain was a great success. More than a thousand visitors received a rapid coronavirus test at the start of the party in Barcelona. With a negative result, they were granted access to the event, where a approved face mask had to be worn but no distance was kept. Result? No infections. I foresee a slightly more festive 2021.
8. And finally: rumors are circulating that Kim and Kanye are getting divorced and as we speak, there is a blanket of snow in Limburg. Which seems just as important to me after all the news of this week, hence this shared spot.
