Brussels Lockdown

Thursday, January 14th, 2016

Nowhere are the shock and change in Europe after the attacks better represented than in Brussels, which went into total lockdown:

I arrived in Brussels on the Eurostar at night to find only homeless people and camouflaged military on the streets. It was as if the Belgian Army were policing an insurgency in some distant, indigent colony, not guarding a city that also happens to serve as the de facto capital of the European Union. I dined in the empty Le Petit Boxeur, which I mention because it was the only restaurant I found open. I walked the spookily deserted streets, visited the Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts, which announced in a panicky notice on the door that it was closed because of the THREAT LEVEL FOUR, and toured the feared Molenbeek neighborhood, where business seemed to be going on pretty much as usual, with all the cafés open as well as the stores selling North African clothes and exotic fruit and vegetables.

This is exactly what ISIS wants: to shut non-Muslim Europe down, to close the schools and places of culture and have people trembling in their beds, which, to be fair, was what ordinary Belgians were saying. I watched a debate on local TV in which mystified citizens questioned an official on the exact difference between Threat Level Three and Threat Level Four. He had to confess that he had no idea.

After 24 hours, I had had enough and decided to leave. At the station, there were more armed police and soldiers than passengers, and the train to Paris was patrolled by five police officers with automatic weapons, which was understandable, given that this was the line where a heroic intervention by three unarmed Americans, including two servicemen, and a British businessman prevented a terrorist attack last summer.

Comments

  1. Alrenous says:

    Roughly the same thing would happen if a riot threatened Washington, instead of a backwater like Detroit.

Leave a Reply