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Waking up xenophobia in the Low Countries
Daniel Pipes, never in doubt and sometimes right, wrote yesterday that not all countries wake up to the threat of terrorism equally fast. In what Pipes describes as "perhaps the world's most tolerant society," the result was:
One day after the murder, 20,000 demonstrators gathered to denounce the killing, and 30 people were arrested for inciting hatred against Muslims. The interior minister, Johan Remkes, announced that he could not rule out unrest. "The climate is seriously hardened." Proving him right, the next two weeks saw more than 20 arson and bombing attacks and counterattacks on mosques, churches, and other institutions, plus some major police raids, giving the country the feel of a small-scale civil war.
Pipes quotes the Dutch immigration minister as saying: "For too long we have said we had a multicultural society and everyone would simply find each other. We were too naïve in thinking people would exist in society together." A public opinion poll found that 40% of the Dutch want Moslems not to feel at home in the Netherlands anymore.
In his preface to the article, Pipes writes:
It took 3,000 deaths to wake up Americans, or at least to wake up the half of them who are conservative.
Pipes has repeatedly written that the problem isn't Islam but it's radical Islam; and the solution must be moderate Islam. Most of his writing goes to great pains to show how virtually every Muslim organization you thought was moderate really is radical.
Be forewarned: several rants are on their way, so I'll number them.
I haven't seen Theo van Gogh's film, but it's apparently a fictionalized account of how a woman is abused by her husband in a Muslim family. To the extent that it seeks to make wife beating something particular to Islam, I can't blame Moslems the least for being offended by it. But let's be clear that people can be offended by a film without condoning the murder of the man who made it.
I don't know if Pipes would ever characterize Fahrenheit 9/11 as Moore's "artistic expression" (as he does van Gogh's film), but both are protected under free speech. The murder of van Gogh is despicable and inexcusable, and the guilty should be punished to the full extent of the law.
It may have completely slipped Pipes's attention that the island of Manhattan had one of the strongest turnouts for Kerry. To suggest that these people - who were firsthand witnesses and victims to the 9/11 massacre - didn't "wake up" to terrorism because they weren't conservative, is deeply offensive, to say the least. I've written to him demanding an apology.
Dutch tolerance is obviously much overrated if a single, admittedly horrifying incident causes 40% of the population to want to make life more unpleasant for a religious minority.
In many ways, the Dutch reaction represents the worst case scenario, in that it plays into the purpose of the terrorists: polarization and extremism is the stuff conflict is made of. Nothing would reinforce Osama Bin Laden's philosophy than institutional discrimination against Moslems in Europe.
I have often said that European countries would do much worse than Israel (or the US) if they were subject to the same level of murder and terrorism. This incident is one proof point for my assertion. Not only did public opinion quickly become xenophobic and bigoted; there is none of the resolve you see in the US and Israel to keep the moral high ground. Israel and the US may fail in sticking to this resolve, but there is no questioning its sincerity (and the dedication of the opposition that keeps the government honest).
Posted by Leif Knutsen on November 17, 2004 at 08:25 AM | Permalink