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| Europe |
| Netherlands on Edge 1 yr after Van Gogh murder |
| 2005-11-02 |
| With Egyptian mangos and Surinamese prawns stacked alongside Dutch cheeses, the vast open-air Hague Market and its crowds of immigrant shoppers are a multicultural picture that used to make the Netherlands proud. Today, a year after the gruesome murder of filmmaker Theo van Gogh by a Muslim extremist, pride has given way to tension and suspicion. Van Gogh was shot, stabbed and nearly decapitated Nov. 2, 2004, because of a film that 27-year-old Mohammed Bouyeri, a Dutchman born to Moroccan parents, regarded as insulting to Islam. In the month of violent reactions that followed, authorities counted 174 bias attacks, 47 of them on mosques and 13 on Christian churches. "You can still feel the difference on the streets," said Marc Verwaal, 17, an ethnic Dutchman on neighborhood watch in the immigrant neighborhood around the Hague Market. "There is more tension and people are on edge." The sense of old certainties crumbling was first felt in May 2003 with the shooting of Pim Fortuyn, a gay, populist politician who stridently accused Muslims of maltreating women and homosexuals. Although the killer was an animal rights extremist whose motives were unrelated to anything Islamic, the murder triggered anger against Muslims and led to a government crackdown on illegal immigrants. It was Van Gogh's slaying, by a Muslim born and raised here, that was burned into the Dutch minds as the country's own version of 9/11. Now, in a nation that used to feel so safe that high-ranking officials and royalty got around on bicycles, two prominent lawmakers have been driven into hiding because of their criticism of radical Islam. The country's 1 million Muslims feel unfairly targeted by the anti-terrorism measures that followed Van Gogh's slaying — looser rules on wiretaps and evidence admissible in court, police powers to conduct searches without apparent cause and hold suspects for longer periods without charge. Authorities say they are tracking hundreds of young Muslims who may be inclined to violence against a society they reject. Police have detained dozens of North Africans suspected of plotting terrorist attacks in the past 12 months, and have alleged the existence of a conspiratorial terrorist group known as the Hofstad Network. Though tension has been rising across Europe since 9/11, worsened by terrorist bombings in Madrid in 2004 and London last July, it's all the more striking in the Netherlands, a country renowned for its tolerance of soft drugs, immigrants and same-sex marriages. After the Van Gogh killing "we got a hard smack in the face," said Mohammed Ousalah, a Moroccan-born imam, or Muslim preacher. "We notice the hardening against us, not just in the general sense, but with specific things: the mosque burnings, the racist remarks." Amsterdam Mayor Job Cohen says his top priority after the murder was "keeping things from falling apart" in a city of 170 nationalities. The number of racial attacks has dropped sharply since that violent November, but the distrust festers. "Muslims, for example and to my regret, are having a tougher time finding jobs and internships," said Cohen. Bouyeri targeted the director after he made a short film depicting ill treatment of women in Muslim households. A letter he pinned to Van Gogh's chest with the murder knife threatened more attacks. In court, before being jailed for life, he further dismayed the nation by refusing to express remorse, saying he would do it again, and telling Van Gogh's family: "I don't feel your pain." And the scene at the market in the Hague, 25 miles from Amsterdam, seems to accentuate a mood of drawing apart. About 80-90 percent of its 40,000 weekly shoppers are nonwestern immigrants, making the few ethnic Dutch vendors feel increasingly isolated. Fatima, a young Turkish woman selling soap and cleaning products, said the conservative government's tough response hurts honest, hardworking immigrants. "Van Gogh insulted the Prophet Muhammad, but that doesn't mean I'm going to go out and kill him," said the woman, who declined to give her full name. |
| Posted by:God Save The World AKA Oztralian |
| #1 Where Hitler failed, murdering raghead whacko's have succeeded. The average, garden varity Dutchman would much rather have lunch with a German than a Muslim. Theo's murder and the continued policy of nearly unrestricted immigration has not gone down well. |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2005-11-02 08:43 |