There could not have been a more potent symbol of the harm done to the Netherlands and its psyche by the MH17 disaster than the magnificent reconstruction of the shattered Boeing 777-200, which loomed over the publication of the Dutch safety board's report this week.
The fuselage was rebuilt from pieces of wreckage recovered from a crash site spread across 50sq km of eastern Ukraine. The skeleton showed the enormity of the aircraft that was brought down. The cockpit had the puncture marks caused by the shrapnel of the Russian-made Buk missile we now know blew it out of the sky. The rest was left, powerfully, to the imagination.
As the chairman of the safety board addressed the awful question of what the passengers may or may not have known in their last seconds, all eyes were fixed on this Malaysia Airlines "ghost", a forensically engineered memorial to the 298 passengers and crew.
With 17 million people in a country the size of Munster, much of it below sea level and dependent on a complex network of dykes and polders, the Dutch appreciate such fine engineering. They also understand the need to rub along together.
Their interminable system of forming coalition governments is known as “the polder method” because in the 17th century, when polders were first built, the towns and villages they were designed to protect had to agree and share the cost and labour.
But the Dutch learned the hard way even then that the best-engineered protection doesn’t always work.
In January 1953, a vicious North Sea storm broke through their defences, and 2,551 people and 30,000 animals drowned. That watersnoodramp, or "great flood", has never been forgotten, just as MH17 will never be.
However, it’s their liking for process, procedure and engineering that has helped the Dutch through the shock of the MH17 catastrophe.
They rebuilt the jet. They produced first an interim report and now the final crash report. They are leading an international criminal investigation. They are doing what it takes to find redress.
And life goes on. This year, as many Dutch as ever flew to holiday destinations.
The attitude to Russia is equally sanguine. For the practical Dutch, trade trumps "emotion".
Not so for the relatives. They remain understandably furious at the slow pace of apportioning blame. They want their day in court and are depending on process and procedure to achieve it.
So the question perhaps should not ask how the disaster has affected the Dutch psyche – but how it will affect the national psyche if it turns out that not every tragedy, terrible though it may be, has a process leading to redress?
