 | I've been waiting for the weep pieces to start coming out. The idea is that the original corpse or corpses are forgotten in the caterwauling about the injustice of it all... |
The Muslim woman adjusted her head scarf and gazed wearily at her daughters' elementary school Friday, one of many Islamic sites attacked since a Muslim radical allegedly murdered a Dutch filmmaker who criticized Islam. An explosion earlier in the week not only shattered windows and doors — it damaged the Muslim community's faith in the tolerance of their neighbors.
| Funny thing, that: having a prominent Dutchman slaughtered like an animal in the street by somebody named Mohammad had the same effect on the Dutchies... |
One mother said the attack made her afraid.
| Not half as afraid as van Gogh was there at the last... |
"I always thought the Netherlands was the safest place in the whole world, but if you see all that's happening, I don't know anymore," said the woman, who didn't want to be quoted by name for fear of reprisals. "I didn't know what to tell my daughter. She asked me: `Mommy, why us? All we did was go to school.'"
| Because Cousin Mohammad decided to slaughter infidels and declare holy war in your name? Could that be it? Think real hard, now... |
In Amsterdam, meanwhile, Queen Beatrix made her first public appearance since the slaying of Theo van Gogh and sought to assuage Muslims' anxieties by reaching out to Islamic youths. One woman who met the monarch, 26-year-old Naziha Daoudi, said she had not felt safe on the streets since the Nov. 2 killing. "We have to watch a lot of Dutch people watching us like we're criminals," said Daoudi, who works at the Argan Moroccan youth center. "The Dutch community doesn't know much about Islam. They think (Muslims) are all the same."
| I'd venture to say they think some are homicidal maniacs. The problem is that they don't have "krazed killer" tatooed on their foreheads. All they have is the occasional turban... |
The arrest of Muslim militant Mohammed Bouyeri, 26, as the main suspect in the killing has been followed by what seems to be a cycle of retaliation between Christian and Muslim extremists. A half-dozen arson attacks on Muslim buildings were answered by fire bombings that caused minor damage at churches in Rotterdam, Utrecht and Amersfoort. After Monday's pre-dawn attack on the Islamic school in this sprawling southern industrial city of 200,000 people, another Muslim school was gutted by fire in the town of Uden. On Wednesday, Dutch youths brawled with Turks and Moroccans in the first direct ethnic confrontation since Van Gogh's murder. For Muslims, the conservative government's reaction to the slaying has been almost as disturbing as the violence: Officials have moved swiftly to tighten controls on the nation's Islamic minority. On Friday, parliament asked the government to draft legislation that would compel Dutch mosques to employ only imams who have studied Islam in the Netherlands. Legislators are also considering laws that would enable the closure of mosques that spread non-Dutch values.
| Yeah. You can't get much more disturbing than that if you own a turban, can you? |
| Don't they have a good sedition law they can use for just such occasions? |
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