And this. Not just America fed up with islam terror.
Outburst of violence jolts Dutch
Thursday, November 11, 2004
Robert Wielaard
Associated Press
cleveland.com
Uden, Netherlands - The brazen daylight murder of a filmmaker who criticized Islamic fundamentalism has shattered Holland's fabled tranquility.
A wave of attacks on mosques and churches - and a firebombing at a Muslim elementary school - is raising troubling questions about Dutch society's relations with a large and increasingly restive Muslim minority.
Marion Cappendijk can't understand the outburst of violence. "We are so tolerant here," she said Wednesday as she looked at the smoldering rubble of the school, the 14th Muslim building attacked by arsonists, bombers or graffiti sprayers in five days.
The Nov. 2 killing of Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh, allegedly by an Islamic extremist, unleashed powerful resentments that have shaken many Dutch.
"Extremism is reaching the roots of our democracy," Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende warned Parliament on Wednesday.
A tradition of ethnic and religious harmony, a well-known tolerance for marijuana use and avant-garde policies on euthanasia and alternative medicine have made the Netherlands synonymous for many people with broad-mindedness.
But Van Gogh's murder and the ensuing attacks are only the latest and most dramatic signs of ethnic turmoil here. In neighboring Belgium, a recent opinion poll ranked an anti-immigrant party as the most popular in Dutch-speaking Flanders. Far- right parties in Germany appear poised to win seats in parliament for the first time since World War II. And France is immersed in a heated debate about the government banning Muslim head scarves and other religious symbols from schools.
But none of those countries has seen the spasm of violence that is wracking Holland. A police raid on suspected Islamic militants Wednesday that saw three officers and a suspect wounded amid grenade explosions and gunshots added to the unease.
For the Dutch, it's evidence of a painful loss of innocence they are now tracing to the assassination two years ago of Pim Fortuyn, a gay populist politician who won a following by campaigning against immigrants, especially Muslims.
Van Gogh, a distant relative of painter Vincent Van Gogh, was killed on a busy Amsterdam street. A 26-year-old Muslim militant, Mohammed Bouyeri, allegedly shot the filmmaker several times, stabbed him and slit his throat, then used a knife to pin a letter on him threatening a Dutch politician who wrote the script for Van Gogh's film "Submission."
The detention of Bouyeri and five others also believed to be members of a radical Islamic terrorist group has been followed by what seems to be a cycle of retaliation between Christian and Muslim extremists.
Molotov cocktails caused minor damage at churches in Rotterdam, Utrecht and Amersfoort following a half-dozen similar attacks on Muslim buildings. |
