She remembers sitting at her desk in Amsterdam, talking to a rebel in Congo on the phone and to calm him describing the scene of people cruising outside her window. And despite the fact that she was well aware of the fact that he was a killer, an executioner, all the awful and terrible things he did, she still wanted to hear his side of the story, in order to understand.
And this passage is revealing and reflects me as well:
"Do you feel more Flemish or more Dutch?" - "I'm Flemish, very distinctively. The religion here (i.e. Amsterdam), the Protestantism, is nothing I recognize myself in. I'm really somebody who comes from the South - let's define this as Flemish. Sometimes people say that's typically Catholic" - "You feel rooted in Catholicism." - "Yes, of course, in the way I act, in my being, in the forgiveness. I think that's what very much defines me, culturally."
Lieve Joris - The Rebels' Hour
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