Of course, there would be no backlash if Theo van Gogh had not been killed, and if the Dutch government and media had not stigmatized as racism any frank discussion of the implications of bringing large numbers of Muslims who believe in Sharia into the country. No innocent people should be victimized anywhere, but articles like these “” which again classify this as a problem of racism “” are simply trying to shift the mantle of victimhood, so politically valuable these days, to the Muslim community in Holland — thus again forestalling any genuine discussion of the threat to a free society posed by the Sharia.
From Reuters, with thanks to Kemaste:
THE HAGUE (Reuters) – Selami Aydin’s words will comfort many Dutch people if opinion polls are to be believed.
“I’m thinking of going back to Turkey. Seriously,” the 39-year-old Muslim said just a few hundred meters (yards) from the apartment police stormed last Wednesday after a 14-hour siege with suspected Islamic militants. “We’re all frightened.”
The Netherlands’ image as the land of tolerance has been shattered in the two weeks since outspoken filmmaker Theo van Gogh was murdered and a Muslim suspect arrested in the crime.
Since Van Gogh’s death on Nov. 2 there have been at least 20 arson attacks on mosques and churches in tit for tat violence.
A Muslim school was damaged by a bomb on Monday, another set ablaze on Tuesday. There have been a number of minor arson attacks on churches and a classroom at a Catholic school in Eindhoven was destroyed by fire on Wednesday.
In the latest suspected arson attack on Saturday, a small mosque in the south was destroyed by fire.
Opinion polls show the majority of Dutch people are uncomfortable with or feel threatened by the presence of foreigners, while support is surging for Geert Wilders, seen as heir to murdered anti-immigration politician Pim Fortuyn.
Aydin’s comments are not typical of all Muslims in the working class Laakkwartier district of the Hague, but most are dismayed by the reaction to Van Gogh’s death.
Some say racism has been on the rise since Fortuyn’s party surged to second in a 2002 election shortly after he was killed by an animal rights activist and has ratcheted up a notch in the past two weeks.
“I think it’s got worse,” said 18-year-old Dutch-Moroccan Adbelmounir el Idrissi. “I was in a shop the other day and a man butted in the queue. I told him to go to the end. He said: ‘Are you going to shoot me if I don’t?”‘
Others are annoyed that the arrest of Mohammed B., the man accused of killing Van Gogh, and other suspected Islamic radicals has stirred a debate they say is critical of all Muslims, who make up about 6 percent of the Dutch population and are mostly concentrated in cities.
No one interviewed said they condoned the killing of Van Gogh, but many believe his short film “Submission,” about violence against women in Islamic society, simply fuelled anti-Muslim sentiment, although few people in the Netherlands actually appear to have seen it….
In the El Mohsinin mosque’s large prayer room, a sermon urges those gathered not to take the law into their own hands.
“The Koran means living together,” says 60-year-old Achmed Akasar who arrived from Morocco 36 years ago.
Yes, but it mandates living with Jews and Christians only when those groups “feel themselves subdued” (9:29) before Muslims. Is that what Dutch Muslims want for Holland’s future? If not, will they repudiate this idea? Doing so would take care of a lot (but not all) of their backlash problem.