Posted on 11/08/2004 10:36:45 AM PST by SmithL
The murder of Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh last week was particularly cruel.
According to eyewitnesses the murderer, Mohammed B., first shot his victim repeatedly, then stabbed him several times.
Later it became known that the 26-year-old murderer, who held both Dutch and Moroccan passports, had become a fanatic Muslim only in recent years.
The victim was a gadfly, a racist who had made many insulting remarks about Islam. But many Dutch Moroccan organizations and imams, afraid of retaliation, rapidly pointed out that this was no justification for the murder.
Van Gogh had made anti-Semitic remarks too. One of his quotes was "It smells like caramel here. They must be burning diabetic Jews."
Until two years ago the Netherlands could claim that their most recent political murder occurred in the 17th century. In 2002, however, an extreme animal rights activist killed Pim Fortuyn, a populist political leader. Thereafter the authorities came out with many statements on how security would be improved.
After the van Gogh murder, the daily Algemeen Dagblad conducted a poll among its readers about their expectations of what would be done. Two-thirds responded that, "as typical for the Netherlands, nothing will happen." Van Gogh's murder demonstrates once again much of what is wrong with today's Dutch society.
One of its structural flaws is that, over recent decades, the country has become extremely tolerant of crime, and of intolerance. For instance, only a small percentage of complaints to the police are ever investigated and reach the courts.
The Netherlands, though a democracy, thus cannot be considered a country where justice reigns. Little action is taken against hate speech, despite its prohibition under Dutch law.
The main demonstration after the van Gogh murder was of a somewhat dubious nature.
Following the death of a man who had so often expressed his hatred for others, thousands assembled in Amsterdam's main square, the Dam, to support free speech. They included right-wing extremists, who would like to speak even more freely than they already can.
The Dutch authorities knew that extremist Islamic ideas had attracted a significant number of adherents among Dutchmen of the Muslim faith.
Jews have been their first targets. Physical attacks, insults, and anti-Semitic hate speech have been reported for several years in the media.
In January 2004, a weekly quoted a Jewish youngster convinced that, sooner or later, a Jew would be killed in light of the frequent intimidation by Muslims. He was wrong as far as the first Dutch victim of jihad in the Netherlands is concerned.
Trouble for the Jews in any country is usually an indicator of problems that will befall the wider community later. The authorities didn't trouble themselves too much about physical violence, threats, and hate speech against the Jews, and so it spread.
A few weeks ago a Dutch non-Jewish couple abandoned their Amsterdam home under police protection after being targeted frequently by Dutch hooligans of Moroccan origin.
Afterwards the authorities admitted that there were 80 such gangs in Amsterdam.
Parliamentarian Geert Wilders, who split from the Liberal Party some months ago, recently moved from his home in The Hague, located in a quarter where many Muslim and other immigrants live, because he didn't feel safe there. After van Gogh's murder, it turned out that the murderer had sent Wilders a threatening note.
The phenomenon of exaggerated, irresponsible Dutch tolerance has manifested itself most clearly on the soccer field. "Hamas, Hamas, Jews to the gas" is probably the only new Dutch expression to become internationally known in the last decade.
Over the years hundreds of thousands of Dutchmen have heard this standard anti-Semitic slogan sung or shouted. It was already being chanted in football stadiums in the mid-Nineties.
The Dutch authorities failed to act, and so this and other anti-Semitic hate songs spread to society at large, and even across the border to Arabs in Flanders.
After years of Dutch inaction non-Jews are now also being targeted by these hate slogans.
Following 9/11, Fortuyn's murder, the Madrid terrorist attacks, and now the killing of Theo van Gogh, Dutch politicians made vehement declarations, including a call from liberal parliamentary leader Jozias van Aartsen for the closure of extremist mosques.
When he was Dutch foreign minister, however, van Aartsen came to the Middle East to attack Ariel Sharon, the leader of a democratic country, and praised Yasser Arafat, financier of the murder of Israeli civilians.
Van Aartsen has now himself been threatened and is under police protection.
It has emerged that the Dutch secret services knew Mohammed B. was dangerous but had decided not to warn the Amsterdam police – further proof of the incompetence of Dutch authorities in dealing with known threats.
However, none of this prevents the Dutch government from frequently pontificating about how other countries, Israel in particular, should behave.
Hypocrisy is yet another feature of the Netherlands.
Spit out the poison!
Now, it is the Dutch that are tilting at windmills.....
I hope this brings down the left in Europe and their friends the Islamofascists.
Nobody likes to fight, but somebody had better know how.
The Dutch have their first taste of islamic fanatics. It'll get worse. I'm waiting for the islamics to start bombing them. Then, the Dutch can join US, Russia and others in the fight against terrorism.
How was Van Gogh a racist? Is Islam a race? I must have missed something.
Must be one of those "longer skirts for rape victims" kinda thinkers.
Liberals are stupid and insane, all over the world.
Celebrate our superiority while you can. You are watching a preview of coming attractions in the US as we pay the Fed and state trasuries to keep on converting the most vicious criminals in the US prisons to the religion of peace.
There are only two things I hate; those who are intolerant of other people's cultures...and the Dutch.
~Nigel Powers
And what of that old saying......first they came for the Jews........
Holland has become the poster country on what IS NOT good about multi-cultureism.. and a warning harbinger of whats to come with mexicans in the United States illegal or NOT..
You got that right!
Here in Georgia we have a rapidly growing Mexican population and they are good citizens, good parents, and good neighbors.
Many other articles point to him calling muslims "goat f**ers"
Look here:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,3604,1342743,00.html
I don't hate the Dutch... these people were very nice to me. I think they got some serious problems that though I hate to see it should at least be a warning to all of us.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.