An Italian Counter-Terror Blitz/ The Van Gogh Trial
Austin Bay
France ramped up its own border security operations. Now Italy is conducting a “blitz” of pre-emptive raids. The Italian authorities indicated these counter-terror operations were planned prior to London’s 7/7 attacks.
From The Washington Post’s report:
Italian authorities reacted Wednesday to last week’s bombings in London, tentatively blamed on four British citizens, by searching the homes of hundreds of suspected Islamic radicals and illegal immigrants.
Police and anti-terror units fanned out in Naples, Milan and other major cities, and searched homes and offices. Interior Minister Giuseppe Pisanu told reporters that the “maxi-blitz” showed that the government of Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has been alert to the possibility of attacks in Italy.
“The operation has been prepared for some time and confirms that Italy has never lowered its guard in the face of the terrorist tide,” he said. “I’m not saying that we have seized terrorists. It’s a preventive operation in high-risk environments.” The police were looking for arms and explosives, officials said. No arrests were announced.
Authorities say they believe that Italy may be the next target of violence, following the bombings of transit systems in Spain and Britain, both allies of the United States in Iraq.
Several months ago Mark Steyn and I discussed Europe’s long term prospects. He’s a Euro-pessimist, I classify as a Euro-optimist of sorts. We both agreed Europe’s response to the Islamist terror challenge was slow and benighted — but one could also accuse the US of following that route until 9/11. The London attacks give Western Europe another political opportunity, the chance to change failed security and social policies. Yes, this will take committed leadership, but not all European leaders are callow crooks like Jacques Chirac.
The Theo Van Gogh murder trial testimony is galvanizing. The jihadi enemy isn’t a poor, misunderstood victim of European imperialism — he’s a vicious religious supremacist. Here’s the link to the NY Times version, which appeared on July 13.
Key quotes:
Breaking a self-imposed silence that had confounded court officials here, a young Muslim man coolly accepted responsibility Tuesday for the brutal slaying of a controversial Dutch filmmaker, adding that he would do it all over again if given the chance.
Shaken by the horrific death of the filmmaker, Theo van Gogh, the Dutch heard for the first time Tuesday the voice of his assailant, who spoke of the murder in the same matter-of-fact manner in which some witnesses say it was executed.
Bicycling to work last Nov. 2, Mr. van Gogh was shot at least six times before having his throat cut.
The defendant, Muhammad Bouyeri, the 27-year-old son of Moroccan immigrants, showed no remorse, saying he had killed Mr. van Gogh based on his religious beliefs.
“I acted out of conviction and not out of hate,” Mr. Bouyeri told the court. “If I’m ever released, I’d do the same again. Exactly the same.”
Why would he do it again?
He added his actions were based on “the law that instructs me to chop off the head of everyone who insults Allah or the prophet.”
Mr. van Gogh - along with Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the Somali-born Dutch politician - received death threats after their short but provocative film about abuse of Muslim women was broadcast last year on Dutch television.
Mr. van Gogh once compared fundamentalist Muslims to practitioners of bestiality. He had also written a book, “Allah Knows Better,” that was critical of Islam.
Mr. Bouyeri, who mentioned Mr. van Gogh’s expletive involving animals in court, said he chose his victim because he had insulted God, not because he had offended Muslims.
“As a Moroccan, I never felt offended,” said Mr. Bouyeri, who has passports from both the Netherlands and Morocco.
The following should be required reading for every literate person on the planet:
In a moment of courtroom drama, Mr. Bouyeri addressed Anneke van Gogh, Mr. van Gogh’s mother, who made an emotional statement about the personal and political impact of the loss of her son when the trial opened on Monday.
“I don’t feel your pain,” Mr. Bouyeri said. “I don’t know what it’s like to lose a child who was brought into this world with so much pain and tears. I realize that my attitude is very confrontational for you and others. I hope that you will derive some comfort from the maximum sentence.”
Prosecutors, having reconstructed Mr. van Gogh’s gory death in a four-hour presentation Tuesday, demanded that Mr. Bouyeri receive the maximum sentence of life in prison. They characterized Mr. van Gogh’s killing as a terrorist act.
“The accused preaches a message of hate and violence,” one of the prosecutors, Frits van Straelen, told the court. “He preaches that anyone who thinks differently can be killed.”
I have searched for a link to a July 14, 2005 UPI dispatch by Jeremy Hurewitz, but can’t locate one. I had a copy of it sent to me via email (one may pop up on google shortly).
Hurewitz’ subject is Holland and its political struggle with terrorism and failed integration.
Here’s a key quote:
The Netherlands is dealing with the same sort of failed assimilation of its post-World War II Muslim immigrants that many other European countries are grappling with. France, Germany, Belgium and others countries have had their incidents with Muslim extremists and no one doubts that radicals are operating across the continent. But The Netherlands — with the assassination first of right-wing politician Pim Fortuyn and more recently of van Gogh –has become a flashpoint for the conflict of Muslim and Western society.
Many point out that The Netherlands’ recent rejection of the European Constitution was due at least in part to the fear of Turkey joining the European Union and increasing the number of Muslims filtering through the continent’s porous borders. Similar fears about Turkey’s ascension are underlying the suspicion of the European Constitution in other countries who have recently voted (such as France) and others who are still considering a referendum.
Out of the ashes of the van Gogh murder Geert Wilders has risen like a phoenix. A former speechwriter for the liberal VVD party, he has founded his own party, the Geert Wilders List, and has taken up the mantle of right-wing rhetoric from Fortuyn.
Wilders’ shock of peroxide-white hair standing nearly straight up on his head makes him look like he has had a terrible fright. And indeed he has: after the van Gogh murder Dutch security services uncovered a plot to kill him, with one video offering 72 virgins for his head. He has since had to sleep in a different safe-house every night and maintains a strict security detail.
At his parliamentary office in The Hague Wilders paints a bleak picture of the failure of Dutch society to grapple with the unsuccessful integration of Muslim minorities and is unsurprised that The Netherlands has become the focal point for the Muslim-Western struggle.
“It’s not a coincidence that the unfortunate slaughter of Mr. van Gogh happened in the streets of Amsterdam and not anywhere else,” he said. “For too long we’ve been tolerant of the intolerant. We’ve had a policy for years that everything should be tolerated, that anything is possible. For instance, when the Kurdish PKK party was outlawed everywhere they came to The Netherlands to hold a congress.
“We should have seen it coming. Only three years ago journalists on public television recorded Imans in The Netherlands saying things on the record about how women could be beaten, homosexuals should be killed and the friends of democracy are the sons of Satan. Our secret service has already known for two years that the recruitment for jihad in mosques and prisons were no longer incidents but a structural phenomenon.”
Wilders has advocated a five-year ban on non-Western immigrants and has proposed that extremist suspects be rounded up without the approval of a judge; those that have dual-nationality should be expelled.
Wilders is a firebrand:
Wilders claims that Article 103 of the Dutch Constitution makes such round-ups legal and he spouts such classic populist grandiloquence as “if I have to choose between protecting the families of The Netherlands, or granting these people the benefits of the rule of law when their sole aim is to kill other people and introduce some sort of Sharia system in The Netherlands, I will not choose for the latter. Do we have to wait until a lot of people are killed in The Netherlands? Must we wait until they use some kind of sarin gas in metro in Rotterdam?”
Wilders’ concerns are valid and there does seem to be a constitutional provision for this sort of action. Nevertheless, most of Dutch society is aghast at the thought of such actions. People still remember how neutrality led to acquiesce in World War II and how nearly three times as many Jews were killed proportionally in The Netherlands than in France and Belgium. There is also the legacy of the colonial past and involvement in the slave trade that many Dutch feel their country has never full grappled with.
However, though Wilders’ party seems popular at the moment, it is not likely the Dutch will vote for the sort of government that would round up and expel the 200 to 300 radicals Wilders sees as ticking time-bombs.
But that’s not to say that Dutch society is not waking up to the dangers of Islamic extremism.
In a landmark essay entitled “The Multicultural Drama” in The Netherlands’ leading daily newspaper NRC Handelsblad, Prof. Paul Scheffer of the University of Amsterdam claimed, “the culture of tolerance is coming up against its limit.”
Published in 2000, the essay generated an enormous response and is widely seen as the first endeavor to honestly tackle what he called the country’s “lazy multiculturalism”. It was something of an intellectual revolution to have a left-wing professor write, “There should be no place in public life for movements opposed to the separation of church and state or equal rights for men and women. Religious symbols such as turbans belong in private life and not in official bodies like the police force.”
Hurewits notes Scheffer opposes expulsions– and I understand Scheffer to mean the expulsions Wilders advocates.
Here’s a link to a website (Peace Journalism) with more commentary on the effects of Van Gogh’s murder. Hurewitz recently published a an article similar to his UPI essay in Peace Journalism’s newsletter.
Peace Journalism advocates the following policies to maintain social tolerance:
…we continue to aim for “constructive dialog” between all religions. On our home page we have installed a platform for an open discussion. We do not want to restrict ourselves to just a dialog between Muslims and Christians. Together with our readers, we would like to develop a code for mutual respect – such as:
All foreign groups should respect the fundamental rules and laws of the host nation they choose to reside in
All host nations should give foreign groups and individuals a fair chance to integrate and participate
Freedom of worship for all religions should be protected in all countries in a reciprocal manner
No group should be forced to assimilate - they should integrate
Learning the host nation’s language is the first step to integration and participation
Extremists and terrorists should be expelled
The social position of women should be enhanced
Peace Journalism looks like an organization that is on the verge of discovering they may have to fight to protect a liberal society."
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