The arson attacks on Dutch mosques in the past few days and yesterday’s bomb blast at a Muslim school in Eindhoven, following on the murder a week ago of Theo van Gogh, the director of a film attacking Islam, are frightening developments. They send out an unmistakable message — that the tide of Islamophobia in the Netherlands, which many thought to have peaked with the defeat in last year’s elections of the anti-Muslim LPF party, is gathering pace again. The other message, or lesson, from the attacks is that violence only serves to create more violence. The situation is getting out of control.
A dialogue has to be initiated, bringing together political parties, community leaders and religious figures to cool tempers. The emphasis should be on calming public fears. Otherwise there will be further polarization, with yet more violence — which will hit Dutch Muslims hardest because they are the minority. Fortunately, last week no one was killed in the attacks. But sooner or later, if the violence continues, there are going to be fatalities. That must not be allowed to happen. All have a duty to ensure the safety of everyone in the country, regardless of religion.
It is impossible to know how widespread is the anti-Muslim mood in the Netherlands. The country has a long tradition of tolerance and liberalism. But the reputation is vanishing fast, and the murder of Van Gogh is likely to accelerate its demise, coming as it does just two-and-a-half years after the similar murder of Pim Fortuyn, the anti-immigration, anti-Muslim politician. For a nation so wedded to peace and the notion of “live-and-let-live”, political killings hold especial horror for the Dutch. Not since the assassination over 400 years ago of the father of the Dutch nation, William the Silent, has there been anything like it. The assassination of Pim Fortuyn shot his anti-immigration organization from nowhere to second place in the 2002 elections. Now another politician, Geert Wilders, says he will set up an anti-immigration party in the wake of Van Gogh’s death. It is deeply worrying. More worrying are the calls by Islamic radicals for Wilder’s beheading. The Dutch government and Muslim organizations must step in to stop the poison.
There are, fortunately, wider signs of hope. Despite a growing tide across Europe of anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim voices, the continent is not the blinkered anti-foreigner club that some have begun to fear. In Macedonia, a referendum bid by nationalists to strip Albanian Muslim citizens of new constitutional rights has just failed. In Belgium today the far-right Vlaams Blok, which like the Dutch LPF, campaigned on a specifically anti-Muslim ticket, will be banned by the courts for being a racist party — although that will probably be circumvented by a name change. The courts in the Netherlands likewise have just shown that they are on the side of good: Despite the political trends, they have just barred the extradition of a Kurdish woman which the Dutch government supported. Populist politicians may jump on bandwagons, but institutions remain resolutely committed to fair play. Grounds for hope.
