An email from a friend of mine in The Netherlands….
[begin email]
In reaction to Bjorn Staerk, I would like to point out that, in contrast with 9/11, the murder of Van Gogh is everything but an isolated incident whose reaction you can measure. Any comparison between the two is, as we say over here, like comparing apples with pears. The attack on the World Trade Center was made by a foreign enemy, suddenly and unannounced, as it happens orchastrated by some rich boy from Saudi Arabia who got pissed off about the Americans supporting Israël and having soldiers on ‘holy ground’ (a good thing, mind you). On the other hand there is the Dutch population, who have been attacked, harresed, intimitated and made to feel a stranger in our own country for decades. This isn’t a case of one man or a group of extremists who held a grudge against Theo Van Gogh, since nearly every Muslim in Holland disagrees with his given right to criticize, or ‘insult’ Islam. They don’t “approve” of the murder, but they “understand why it happened”. In other words, a silent consent. Made by people who, be it by violence or by openly rejecting violence, already know that it doesn’t matter. If supporting freedom of speech is the common opinion in Holland now, it won’t be in 40 years time. What’s happening in Holland, and in the rest of Europe (think of France and its 300 lawless ghettos) is a fundamental invasion of one of the most free and social societies in the world, by those making use of those very same liberties and privillages to cause a demographic, and eventually a theocratical revolution. You’re being attacked by Islam; we are becoming Islam. Numbers of victims or of the population involved may sound interesting and lead to judgements about our intolerance (intolerant Dutch, talk about stereotypes!), fact remains that the current situation is not a simple equation of people against burning mosques.
David van Ofwegen.
Philosophy student, Leiden.
Posted by razib at 01:37 PM