The strength of the royal family is that it's real

Dutch author Oscar van den Boogaard writes that the attack against the royal family in Apeldoorn in the Netherlands on Queen's Day was a blow "straight to the heart". It was an attack on an true idyll, he comments in the Belgian daily De Standaard: "The strength of the royal family is precisely that it is not a fairytale, but true. It's plain to see. The royal family is a good thing, precisely because we didn't choose it and it didn't choose itself. Today it is a naïve and droll symbol that optimistically rises above quarrelling ethnic groups and opportunist party politics. The royal family creates continuity, it slows us down and pacifies us. Even though everyone gets annoyed about it, it still unites us. It's precisely the fact that one didn't choose one's father and mother, brothers and sisters that makes a family. They don't have to be friends, but they can give one the feeling of being at home."

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