November 16, 2004
ARE WE ALL INQUISITORS NOW?:
Holland's Deadly Tolerance: Another political assassination and its aftermath. (Christopher Caldwell, 11/22/2004, Weekly Standard)
After decades of trying to fight social problems with ever more tolerance, the Dutch are at a loss before terrorism. Queen Beatrix limited her involvement to visiting immigrant kids at a Moroccan "youth center." This was hardly what public opinion was clamoring for. At this point, the Dutch seem more inclined to move from Live and Let Live to its opposite, and are calling for laws that make the Patriot Act look like Kumbayah. Strict laws against government surveillance over religious establishments, a centuries-old inheritance from the United Provinces' battle against Spanish occupation, appear set to go by the boards. On Friday, the Dutch parliament requested a new law that would forbid mosques to employ imams who had been educated elsewhere. One member of parliament was quoted in a wire report as saying: "It's better to have 10 possibly innocent people temporarily in jail than one with a bomb on the street."Complicating matters further is the big story from neighboring Belgium, where authorities last week banned the Vlaams Blok, the most popular party in the Flemish (Dutch-speaking) part of the country. In recent years, the party has argued with increasing stridency for dissolving Belgium and building links with the Netherlands. There are not that many Dutch-speakers in the world. The unhappy result is that stories about Holland's immigrant menace and the Belgian government's banning of one of Europe's most popular right-wing parties have been mixed together in the same media pressure cooker.
There was naturally a lot of solipsistic hand-wringing in the Dutch press, warning the country against reacting like the United States or Israel, since "violence only begets violence." But for a change, that was not the only response.
One of the most rewarding features of being a conservative is that when others race off chasing new and patently absurd ideas, like the notion that you can have complete tolerance and a coherent society at the same time, you can just ignore them and sooner or later they come crawling back to traditional wisdom.
Posted by Orrin Judd at November 16, 2004 7:19 AM
And of course Israel (not to mention the US) responds to terror attackes by burning down mosques and Islamic educational institutions---though I suppose one might claim that it's the Zionist controlled pro-Israel press that sweeps such facts under the rug.)
(But then again, only about 1000 Israelis have been murdered and 5000 wounded, whereas in Holland....)
Posted by: Barry Meislin at November 16, 2004 7:20 AMViolence sometime brings peace. Look how peaceful the Nips have become. Solitudinum faciunt, pacem appellant.
Posted by: Lou Gots at November 16, 2004 7:42 AMViolence sometime brings peace. Look how peaceful the Nips have become. Solitudinum faciunt, pacem appellant.
Posted by: Lou Gots at November 16, 2004 7:43 AMIs a conservative nation a liberal nation that's been mugged? It seems as if at the moment the Dutch are taking the old parable about individuals and extending it to the national level, though they'll probably have to do it amid the sniffing disdain of their "enlightened" neighbours and the local media.
Posted by: John at November 16, 2004 8:08 AMThe Dutch have always been the most pragmatic people in Europe. Laws which were passed in the 18th and 19th century which reflected the end of serious religious squabbling among the Dutch are not capable of dealing with the new reality, of large numbers of Muslim psychopaths in their midst.
Anyone expecting the Dutch to change their laws concerning pot and nookie is going to have a long wait.
Posted by: Bart at November 16, 2004 10:03 AMBarry:
You wouldn't have wanted to be in a mosque in Fallujah this week.
Posted by: oj at November 16, 2004 10:49 AMNow, that's an apropos response!
Posted by: Barry Meislin at November 16, 2004 11:45 AMBart:
I am not so sure about that. The Netherlands have stopped licensing marijuana coffee houses for many years now; many coffee houses have even been closed down.
Posted by: Vince at November 16, 2004 2:41 PMIf the demand is decreasing, that's a positive development. However, they are part of the landscape and have been for decades now.
Posted by: Bart at November 16, 2004 3:09 PMBart:
I agree. The Dutch have started to realize how dangerous this drug really is, and the government has started cracking down on it.
Posted by: Vince at November 16, 2004 5:08 PM"You wouldn't have wanted to be in a mosque in Fallujah this week."
Very true, but only because those mosques had a very disturbing tendency to spew bullets.
Posted by: Jeff Guinn at November 16, 2004 5:20 PM