It keeps getting uglier in the Netherlands since the murder of filmmaker Theo Van Gogh.
Volkskrant reports (see Slate for details in English) that 5 Christian sites and 10 Muslim sites have been attacked in the past week.
More worryingly, the Turkish Press notes:
a recent poll showed that a staggering 40 percent of Dutch people “hope” that the 900,000 Dutch Muslims in a total population of 16 million “no longer feel at home here” after the murder of filmmaker Theo van Gogh by a suspected Islamic radical.
40 percent of Dutch people have it exactly backwards. I understand their frustration. But they should hope Muslims learn to feel more at home in the Netherlands, not less. Dutch society is perhaps the most liberal on Earth. It’s not surprising that immigrants from a vastly more conservative culture feel alienated there. If Dutch Muslims ever become as liberal as Dutch Christians the country will not be at war with itself. If Dutch Muslims continue to be shunted off to the side they will continue constructing an anti-Dutch (and hence anti-liberal) counterculture.
So here’s some free advice: Isolate, imprison, deport, or kill (if it comes to that) the extremists. Liberalize those who remain. Otherwise, brace for hell.
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