"Muslim Backlash in Holland"

Sydney M. Williams

Thought of the Day

“Muslim Backlash in Holland”

March 12, 2010

One hundred years ago this May, seventy-four members of royalty, along with thousands of lesser nobility, gathered for the funeral of Edward VII. Included were three grandsons of Queen Victoria – King George V of England, Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany and Tsar Nicholas II of Russia – who would soon find themselves embroiled, on opposite sides, in a World War, which would lead to the deaths of an estimated 37,000,000 people, most of whom were civilians. That war was a precursor of the Second World War, in which an estimated 60,000,000 died. Yet, on that sunny day in May, in 1910, few would have forecast the storms that lay ahead.

World trade had flattened the earth in a fashion remarkably similar to today, at least in the minds and expectations of those then alive. The fruits of the Industrial Revolution had raised living standards in the developed world to heights unimagined a few decades earlier. Following the devastation of the first War and the world-wide depression that followed caused suffering people to look for someone, or something, to blame. The upshot was that the world experienced a bout of anti-Semitism of monumental proportions and 9,000,000 Jews were killed.

Today, it is again inconceivable that a Europe, which has been war-free for sixty-five years, could be embroiled in any period of extended violence.

But I worry about the possibility of a back-lash developing against an expanding Muslim population. While Muslims in the United States have been largely assimilated, in Europe 20,000,000 Muslims live in isolated sections of cities, not dissimilar to Jewish ghettoes of the 19th Century. Their birthrates are expanding, while those of their host populations are shrinking. An anti-Islamic Fascist feeling is morphing into simple anti-Muslimism. The potential is a tinderbox and ready with a match are politicians like Geert Wilders, a name likely not known to most Americans.

The Netherlands have been a hot bed of anti-Islamic feelings since the film director Theo van Gogh was gunned down on November 2, 2004. Following his murder, Aayan Hirsi Ali, an extraordinary Muslim woman who was born in Somalia and a member of the Dutch Parliament and a collaborator of Mr. van Gogh, was forced to move from the Netherlands to the United States, as her safety could not be assured by Dutch officials. Taking advantage of the growing hatred has been Geert Wilders. Wilders, who has been prosecuted for incitement to hatred and discrimination, has argued that there is “no such thing as moderate Islamism” and that Muslims who wish to stay in Holland should “tear out half the Koran.” He has argued that Muslim immigration should be halted and those that live in the Country should be paid to leave.

We might dismiss these ravings as those of an isolated nut, but Wilders is a member of the Dutch Parliament and is now leading in the polls as the head of the Party for Freedom, as the Country prepares for the June 9th national elections. He has produced a controversial film, Fitna (Arabic for test of faith in time of trial), which alleges that the Koran motivates its followers to hate all who violate Islamic teachings.

2010 is not 1910. The likelihood that these events develop will into a serious problem for Europe are remote, but a peaceful integration of Muslims into European societies also seems remote. To blame a race or religion for the acts of terror of a few is blatant racism with potentially devastating consequences. The situation bears watching.