ISLAMISM VS. ? :

Clash of Civilizations: Europeans talk of ethnic tolerance. But events in the Netherlands show how dangerously they are divided (Stryker McGuire, 11/22/04, Newsweek International)

The drama is in some ways peculiarly Dutch, but it has sent shock waves through the rest of Europe. The violence is clear evidence that immigration, if badly managed, can be a destabilizing force even in the most seemingly settled of European societies. It underscores the fact that the clashes of civilization taking place at the global level—between Muslims and Christians, between religious fundamentalism and secularism—are also unfolding inside individual communities and countries on a smaller but still dangerous scale. And it shows that the war on terror is sometimes just down the street: police last week claimed to find a number of links between Bouyeri and international terror groups.

With 16 million inhabitants, including 1 million Muslims, the Netherlands is Europe's most densely populated country. Because much of the nation lies below sea level on land reclaimed from the sea (the polder) and protected by fragile dikes, Dutch society has long depended for its survival and well-being on the ability of its people to get along and live side by side in mutual respect. Holland's weakness is not immigration, per se; it is the special 21st-century mix of badly managed immigration, religious fundamentalism and international terror networks.

French political scientist Catherine de Wenden believes the Netherlands erred first and foremost by failing to integrate its immigrant population, which is predominantly Muslim from Turkey and Morocco. By funding religious schools that isolated many migrant children from mainstream Dutch life and by not doing enough to encourage immigrants to learn Dutch, even as job prospects were diminishing, the government created ghettoes of discontent, especially among those who came from outside Europe. University of Amsterdam anthropologist Thijl Sunier says immigrants to Holland—and even their second- and third-generation descendants—are treated like "foreign guests." They are "visiting an island," Sunier says, and, unlike immigrants in, say, Britain, most of them live outside the greater society.

Tensions over what to do about immigration have risen sharply in recent years. By the 2002 national elections, immigration had taken center stage—the heart of a Dutch identity crisis. Populist politician Pim Fortuyn called for Holland to rethink its policies. His simple slogan—"Holland is full"—resonated enough with ordinary Dutch that his party quickly became the most popular in the country. Then a radical environmentalist assassinated him. Ever since, unease over immigration has defined the nation.

Enter Van Gogh's accused killer. Bouyeri was a member of what's called the "one point five" generation: born in the Netherlands, but of Moroccan-born parents. A man like Bouyeri would never feel at home in Holland, supposes Mohamed Bibi of the Rotterdam immigrant-support organization PBR. Abandoning his studies, unable to find a job, craving identity, he would "seek calm in Islam," says Bibi. For all but an almost infinitesimal number of adherents, the religion would be a comfort and a guide, not a springboard to murder and terror. But Bibi believes Bouyeri's alienation from mainstream society may have been so profound as to render him choice fodder for recruiters who encouraged his radicalization.

If you don't give them a civilization to assimilate to they'll find one somewhere else.

MORE (via Bob Tremblay):
Fortuyn voted greatest Dutchman (BBC, 11/16/04)

Television viewers in the Netherlands have voted the right-wing politician Pim Fortuyn, killed in 2002, the greatest Dutchman of all time.

Mr Fortuyn, who inflamed Dutch society with fierce anti-immigration rhetoric, was shot by an animal rights activist.

He beat the first William of Orange - the 17th-Century founder of the modern Dutch state - into second place.

It's as if Americans chose Michael Jackson.

Posted by Orrin Judd at November 16, 2004 7:38 PM