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Generational Dynamics Web Log for 15-Nov-04
Dutch Mosques and Churches burning after terrorist murder of author

Web Log - November, 2004

Dutch Mosques and Churches burning after terrorist murder of author

The November 2 murder of Dutch author Theo Van Gogh is stirring religious violence and political repercussions throughout the Netherlands, and is raising concerns throughout Western Europe.

It all started on November 2 with the murder of Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh last Tuesday by a suspected Islamist militant. Van Gogh, the great-grandnephew of famous Dutch artist Vincent van Gogh, had made a short film, called Submission, that portrays and criticizes Muslim treatment of women. You can view the 11-minute film online on the ifilm.com web site.

I saw this news story the day it happened, but didn't think much of it. It was a horrible crime, but I figured that they'd catch the guy who did it, and that would be the end of it.

We're pretty used to murder here in America. People will give you different reasons for the murder rate - liberals will tell you it's because of poverty and lack of gun control, and conservatives will tell you it's because criminals are coddled and schools aren't teaching kids to read. And we're used to dealing with racial or ethnic crimes as well, even though we hate them.

But not so the Netherlands. The capital city, the Hague, calls itself "the international city of peace," and points to various peace conferences and international courts of justice to back up its claim. The entire country considers itself to be the most tolerant in Europe of other religions and races.

People with such a smug attitude are bound to be humiliated sooner or later, and the first major blow came in February, 2002, when an "intolerant, right wing" politician, Pim Fortuyn, suddenly became very popular after expressing harshly anti-Muslim views. This was a matter of debate throughout Holland and Europe, as Fortuyn gained popularity, and formed a new political party that was poised to score well in the May, 2002, national elections. But shortly before the elections, the country was shocked to hear that Pim Fortuyn was murdered, in a country where politicians are never murdered.

Now, the murder of Van Gogh appears to have set off a wave of religious violence throughout Holland, including the firebombing of a Muslim school and attacks on a dozen Mosques. Reprisals have included molotov cocktail attacks on several churches. So far, no further injuries have been reported.

However, the same can't be said of the arrest of two terror suspects in the Hague last week. Dutch police arrested two suspected terrorists after a 14-hour siege of their apartment that required the evacuation of five city streets after the terrorists exploded a grenade that injured three policemen, two seriously.

The murder of one man, Theo Van Gogh, has exposed deep fissures in the Dutch, and has caused reactions that appear to exceed those of Americans after 9/11.

The Dutch, normally considered to be docile, tolerant people, were treated very harshly by Nazi occupation during World War II, and there is still a feeling of betrayal by Nazi collaborators.

So with a population of 16 million containing 1 million Muslims, it's not surprising that some Dutch are calling Muslims the "new Nazi occupiers."

The fallout isn't limited to Holland.

With 3.4 million Muslims comprising 4 percent of Germany's population, centuries-old fault lines between the Christian Habsburg Empire and the Muslim Ottoman Empire has been re-opening in recent years, even before the current crisis.

Germany's interior minister, Otto Schily, said earlier this year, said to Islamic fundamentalists: "If you love death so much, then it can be yours."

Just a few weeks ago, Neo-Nazis and Communists made significant gains in regional elections, on a platform blaming foreigners, including Jews and Muslims, for the country's high unemployment. "It's a great day for Germans who still want to be German," said Holger Apfel, a spokesman for the neo-Nazi National Democratic Party.

Now the remarks are getting even more pointed. "The feelings of hatred against the majority Christian society are growing," said the left-leaning Berliner Zeitung.

These feelings between Germans and Muslims may well be mutual. A TV station secretly filmed the following speech by a cleric at the Mevlana Mosque in Berlin: "These Germans, these atheists, these Europeans don't shave under their arms and their sweat collects under their hair with a revolting smell and they stink. ...Hell lives for the infidels! Down with all democracies and all democrats!"

Both Dutch and German legislators are now considering legislation which will be even harsher than America's Patriot Act, even including banning speeches in Arabic in mosques.

From the point of view of Generational Dynamics, this is developing into a hardening of attitudes that was predicted. West Europe has had numerous wars for centuries, and a new one is "scheduled" in the next few years.

The startling and suddent transformation of normally placid Netherlands into a zone of conflict between Christians and Muslims is a step along that path. (15-Nov-04) Permanent Link
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Generational Dynamics Web Log for 15-Nov-04 Dutch Mosques and Churches burning after terrorist murder of author

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Generational Dynamics Web Log for 15-Nov-04
Dutch Mosques and Churches burning after terrorist murder of author