The Netherlands : The End of Tolerance

[Kurashima]

9/11 seemed to affect most countries in the world. Suspicion and hatred were rife the world over with regards to Muslims , Hindus, and most individuals or Middle Eastern descent.

The Netherlands however, with a multi national integrated population, somehow managed to buck the trend. With its laid back liberal lifestyle, the country somehow succeeded in having a multi cultural society without excess racism or xenophobia.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/3997943.stm

The experiment is over. If the Dutch government can work out how to get over that, and quell the growing racial tensions across the country, I vote now that every country in the world adopts their methods. I foresee all hell breaking loose, although i may be completely wrong, and would be really, really pleased to be proven wrong here.

[roadrunner_0]

i think that you may have a point, but with a bit of luck it will just be a very few extremists on both sides that quickly get arrested and locked up for a few years

[LHC]

This would never happen if the state introduced measures to further control religion.

[wu_trax]

is this another school, because didnt that happen yesterday?
anyway, i wouldnt read too much into it just yet.

[Leshy]

Originally Posted by wu_trax

is this another school, because didnt that happen yesterday?

Nope, it's a new one.

The issue is that everyone here who openly speaks against the Islam is receiving death threats all over. Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Geert Wilders, two dutch politicians who have openly criticized the Islam are pretty much getting them on a daily basis - hell, both of them were addressed in the letter that was stabbed onto Theo van Gogh.

When Fortuyn was killed two years ago, everyone was expecting it to be a muslim, as Fortuyn wanted to adopt a more rigorous policy towards immigration. It turned out to be a very dutch environmentalist. With Van Gogh being brutally slaughtered on the streets by a muslim extremist for criticizing the Islam, a lot of outrage is coming to expression apparently, even over issues that played two years ago, such as imams who live and preach here, don't speak a single dutch word, but do shout about how gay people are lower than pigs, for example.

Especially considering several politicians have openly stated that there are extremists in the Netherlands, that there is a list of people constantly watched, with the media turning a lot of attention towards muslim extremism and a lot of younger muslims on the Internet openly stating how happy they were with Van Gogh's death, there's a good bit of tension right now.

On the one hand, I can't image this escalating - now Van Gogh has been cremated, I expect things to settle down again in a few weeks time. However, with Geert Wilders having started a political party that has some big anti-Muslim points, I can foresee more trouble in the future.

Edit: The school currently on fire is not a response to the Van Gogh murder, apparently. From what I hear on a dutch forum, there have been a number of people on another school in the same town who have known that this would happen - one of the people there has ties to some White Power organisation and they've been planning this for a while now.

[Ninja_spammer]

Extremists goading the unthinking middle grounders into to stupidity, its the way of the world sadly.

[Proteus]

Originally Posted by LHC

This would never happen if the state introduced measures to further control religion.

Indeed, because states have always succeeded in that in the past.

[Knight Theamion]

i am reading this in a candlelit room, the irony

[paolo]

We've got some nice anti-terror actions in The Hague (Den Haag) right now!!

bbc yo


also funny that in the netherlands we get Mohammed B
and the bbc has Mohammed Bouyeri

[KoeN]

i never get bored here.

[Stew]

Maybe we should just ban islam?

[/troll]

[roadrunner_0]

there is a half decent article about islam on the bbc news website today, i would link to it but for some reason i cant get it to work anymore

[Nondescript Human]

I'm sure it's just a few crazy extremists. I'd be more worried about the state using things like this as an excuse to infringe upon individual liberties.

[Stew]

On the subject of Islam, this picture of Muslim 'emoticons' made me smile.

(From this BBC :eek: article about Muslims and the internet.)

[roadrunner_0]

cheers stew, that was the article i was on about, still cant get this damnable work computer to work properly, bloody piece of crap

[mpr0733]

Originally Posted by Nondescript Human

I'm sure it's just a few crazy extremists. I'd be more worried about the state using things like this as an excuse to infringe upon individual liberties.

I am worried about our government abusing these kinds of incidents to infringe on our liberties. But then again I'm also worried about the state of our media, monopolized and sensationalistic as it is. For instance writing every other paragraph that this (or any other) incident is the end of our innocence as a nation, the end of tolerance and that it will cause a further roughening (is this proper English??) of our society doesn't exactly help calming the big public.

[Nondescript Human]

True, the media is often extremely alarmist and sensationalistic, since they're concerned more with sales and viewing figures than with their responsiblity as a public service.
I sometimes wonder if their overblown claims could become self-fulfilling prophecies.

(I think 'roughening' is a word, but it's not used it that context. 'Degradation' would be a suitable substitute).

[Weeks]

Just goes to prove Bush is helping to improve world peace espically between different cultures.

It could possibly be sensationalism but I generally think there is a growing climate of religious/racial intolerance in Europe.

We've had the thirty years war, you'd think we'd learn. But as soon as the US starts a religious dog-fight we get drawn back into this bullshit.

[Dante Hicks]

The thing about ethnic conflicts is that it only takes a relatively small number of morons on either side to get everyone involved.

I fully expected some sort of severe ethnic conflicts in Europe within the next century so - this time less so involving historical animosities but between "indigenous" populations and newcomers (and their descendents) from the third world. I figured these conflicts would be more likely to take place later along the demographic timeline, when "Europeans" were reduced to a minority in an individual country. I suppose it makes sense that something like this 'Clash of Civilisation' bullshit which the neocons in the US seem determine to carry on could ignite something.

I don't think the storm is here yet, these countries are simply too wealthy to fall into real Yugoslavia / Rwanda / etc style bloodbaths. But there's bound to be some problems.