[Series] Municipal politics? Not now please

Two weeks ago, I promised the editorial team to write a series about engineers and municipal politics. I left the office and headed into Delft. At the time, I still believed that it was urgent to write about the limited involvement of students in local politics. About how the sustainability policies of Delft and the province could really use some young analytical thinkers. But the arrival of the coronavirus put paid to that. I am so pleased now that the crisis management policy completely rests on the assessment of RIVM (Netherlands National Institute for Public Health and the Environment) scientists. It’s clear, takes one course, and is neither ambiguous nor contradictory.

But the government’s response is probably the only unambiguous thing in these pandemic times. Otherwise, contradictions are everywhere. The contradiction between how I, on the one hand, feel nauseous from that endless ‘together we are stronger’ from the song You never walk alone on the radio, and from that empty gesture of applauding from a window for the healthcare professionals, while, on the other hand, I am touched by these awkward expressions of solidarity. Because they push out the twitter fights that usually take our attention. Because we apparently do feel connected to each other. I feel that it moves me. The little boy from next door has been doing the shopping for my elderly neighbour for a couple of weeks now. He is about 10 years old. I assume his parents really buy the groceries. He puts the bag down, rings the bell and sprints five metres back. She opens the door and they wave at each other.

‘That piece about engineers in politics can wait’

But also the contradictions between what is happening outdoors and how I experience it indoors. Or not experience it. It is so far from reality to experience a pandemic from the isolation of my self-quarantine. Outside, patients are being driven around in search of IC beds, while indoors I make another cup of tea. A pandemic in pyjamas. It is so beyond imagination. Is it because the only way to experience outdoors here is through the virtuality of my screen? I wouldn’t know why else it feels this way. The crazy experience of losing reality in the mad limbo between the watery sunshine on my balcony and a world in which a virus is rewriting history books.

We are lagging behind Italy by a couple of weeks. In Italy this week, more than 700 corona victims died. They are deploying the army there to help bury the dead. That piece about engineers in politics can wait. On Monday, the RIVM adjusted the forecast. In two weeks’ time, 2,500 corona patients will need IC. We then had about 1,600 beds. I went for a walk when I heard it. I left my house and headed into Delft. A ghost town.

Boris van Overbeeke (28) graduated in Art History and then studied Engineering Policy and Management. He is a member of the Municipal Council of Delft and writes about TU Delft and local politics (not at the moment though). Follow him on Instagram of Twitter.

Boris van Overbeeke / Columnist