Category Archives: Netherlands

No blanket niqab ban: Holland

Posted on by Bob Pitt

THE HAGUE — In a retreat from the previous cabinet’s plan for a general ban, the Dutch government has said it would now impose a partial ban on niqab in the western European country. “Face coverings are undesirable in an open society, they hinder communication between people and undermine equal chances for men and women,” Dutch Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende said in statements cited Saturday, February 9, by Reuters.

He says the government will impose a face veil ban on its civil servants and in schools, and it will enter talks with public transport companies on adding a ban to their terms and conditions for passengers. The government wants clauses to the contracts of public employees forbidding them from wearing face-covering garments.

The cabinet has decided against a broad ban on niqab in public as that would violate the principle of freedom of religion. “Wearing Islamic face-covering veils is an expression of religion and freedom of religion can only be infringed in very special and specific circumstances,” Internal Affairs Minister Guusje ter Horst said in a statement cited by Agence France-Presse (AFP).

If the talks with other bodies like private transport companies fail, the cabinet can always introduce enforcement regulations, the minister said.

Shortly before being voted out of office, the previous centre-right Dutch government proposed a complete ban on niqab in public, citing security concerns. A new centrist coalition government of Christian Democrats, Labour and the Christian Union came into power in February 2007 and has taken a more conciliatory line on immigration.

Right-wing lawmaker Geert Wilders — who has angered Muslims with his fierce criticism of Islam — called the government’s reported retreat “very disappointing and cowardly”, according to the Dutch news agency ANP. Wilders sent a bill to parliament last July proposing a ban on niqab in public.

Islam Online, 9 February 2008

Veil to be banned on Dutch buses?

Posted on by Bob Pitt

De Volkskrant has the latest on the continuing political saga of whether, and to what extent, burqas should be banned in the Netherlands. Despite the fact that there’s only a limited number of women wearing this type of garment, the issue keeps stirring up strong political sentiments.

Earlier, the cabinet agreed that burqas would be banned for government workers and at schools. On Friday, the government is expected to announce that burqas will also be banned from public transport. And for those of you cynical enough to believe that all of this has anything to do with Islamophobia, the ban, if introduced, will also apply to balaclavas and crash helmets.

De Volkskrant writes that a ban on burqas was first proposed by Freedom Party leader Geert Wilders in 2005, but the previous cabinet never got round to it as a result of internal divisions.

The current government coalition has decided against a general ban on burqas, arguing that a ban is only justified when the garment in question “seriously hampers integration and communication”.

However, when this is the case, societal interests outweigh religious freedoms such as the wearing of burqas. It will come as no surprise that the Freedom Party does not think the ban is going far enough, and has submitted a bill banning the wearing of burqas not only in all public spaces, but also at home.

Expatica, 7 February 2008

US neocon defends Geert Wilders

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Christopher Caldwell of the Weekly Standard defends Dutch far-right racist Geert Wilders and his forthcoming film on Islam (though, to be fair, Caldwell does take exception to Wilders’ “brusqueness”):

“Mr Wilders is something of a bogeyman in polite Dutch society now. He should not be. His perfectly legal effort resembles the kind of mischievous testing of boundaries that civil libertarians have engaged in whenever they have sought to hasten social change in the face of an indifferent or hostile electorate. In seeking to reopen such questions as, first, whether Islam is a religion, and, second, whether ancient scripture is sheltered from our laws regulating hate speech, Mr Wilders is the comrade-in-arms of those western legal activists who have agitated successfully for gay marriage, euthanasia and bans on religious display.”

Financial Times, 26 January 2008

Dutch opinion leaders plead for tolerance

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Dutch opinion leaders published a page-size advertisment in the daily Trouw on Wednesday calling for tolerance and a softer tone in the debate about migration and Islam. In their statement, the 717 signatories, including prominent politicians, artists, authors, relgious leaders and academics, called on the Dutch to “break the downward cycle of intolerance and indifference” in the Netherlands.

Dutch nationals can support the statement by signing it on the website www.benoemenenbouwen.nl.

The statement was initiated by Christian Democrat Doekle Terpstra, who called upon Dutch society to counter the “wilderization,” a sarcastic reference to Dutch liberal-right politician Geert Wilders, one of the Netherlands’ most outspoken Islam critics. Responding to the publication in Trouw, Geert Wilders called the signatories “silly and naive fools.”

Earthtimes, 2 January 2008

See also Dutch News, Expatica and Radio Netherlands.

Anti-Islamic outsider is top Dutch politician

Posted on by Bob Pitt

geert_wildersGeert Wilders, who compares the Koran to Mein Kampf, has been named the Netherlands’ politician of the year in a poll run by public broadcaster NOS.

Mr Wilders’ pithy and shocking soundbites – he warned of a “tsunami of Islamisation” – have dominated headlines, while his parliamentary outbursts have brought an adversarial style of politics to the muted consensus to which the Dutch are attuned.

Mr Wilders’ proposed solutions are deeply radical: stop all Muslim immigration, ban the building of mosques and ask the 1m Muslims among the Dutch population of 16m to “go to their own countries” or give up their religion.

He remains a highly controversial outsider and many Dutch Muslims and non-Muslims alike would rather not discuss him. But his Party for Freedom, the PVV, won nine of 150 seats in parliament in the last election and it regularly polls above that level.

The NOS poll naming him politician of the year combined votes from the public and those of the parliamentary press corps.

Financial Times, 27 December 2007

‘Geert Wilders is evil, and evil has to be stopped’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Doekle TerpstraThe welcome campaign launched by the prominent Christian Democrat and former trade unionist Doekle Terpstra against anti-Muslim racist Geert Wilders has been roundly denounced by the Right.

At Pipeline News Bella Rabinowitz (who finds it significant that the campaign is supported by “the ultra-left Amnesty International”) denounces Terpstra’s initiative as an attempt to deny freedom of speech to Geert Wilders and claims that “the assault on Wilders is reminiscent of the hysteria which led to the assassination of another Dutch politician, Pim Fortuyn”.

Over at the Brussels Journal Thomas Landen opines: “Last month one of Holland’s most prestigious institutes, the University of Leiden, appointed the Islamist ideologue Tariq Ramadan to the post of professor of Islamology. Mr Ramadan is at least as controversial as Mr Wilders. One wonders why Mr Terpstra, contrary to Mr Wilders, did not oppose Mr Ramadan’s appointment. Mr Terpstra did not make any effort to say ‘Tariq Ramadan is evil, and has to be stopped’. Why has no-one heard him call upon his countrymen ‘to rise in order to stop Ramadan’?”

To believe in a European utopia before Muslims arrived is delusional

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“It has become a Europe-wide habit to refer to Muslims in particular and migrants in general as though they are barbarians who must either be civilised or banished, before they pollute the egalitarian societies in which they were either born or now live. Lacking all sense of humility, self-awareness and historical literacy, Europe’s political class acts as though these communities not only manifest homophobia, sexism, antisemitism, political violence and social unrest, but also as though they invented them and introduced them to an otherwise utopian continent….

“Herein lies the problem with Enlightenment values, as they have been promoted in recent years. The values are fine. But those who champion them most fervently also do so most selectively. They embrace Muslim women campaigning against sexism, but ignore those fighting racism, Islamophobia or war. They attack Muslim fundamentalist homophobes on housing estates, but align themselves with Christian fundamentalist homophobes in the White House. They demand secularism and assimilation, but view every action by Muslims and immigrants as essentially foreign or religious.”

Gary Younge in the Guardian, 10 December 2007

Ehsan Jami works on film on Islam

Posted on by Bob Pitt

AMSTERDAM –  Ehsan Jami, founder of the Committee for Former Muslims, has followed Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s example and made a short film about radical Islam, the Telegraaf reports.

The film entitled The life of Mohammed should be ready in February or March of next year and will cause more of a commotion than the Danish cartoons of Mohammed, the former Labour PvdA member says.

“I show how violent and tyrannical Mohammed was. This man murdered three Jewish tribes, killed people who left the faith, and married a 6-year-old girl, with whom he had sex when she was 9,” Jami says in comment on the contents of the 10-minute film.

Jami says it is a coincidence that Freedom Party PVV leader Geert Wilders is also working on a film on Islam at the moment.

Expatica, 30 November 2007

Dutch MP makes anti-Qur’an film

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Geert WildersA rightwing Dutch MP said yesterday that he was making a film to highlight what he calls “fascist” passages in the Qur’an, in his latest high-profile criticism of Islam.

The interior and justice ministers expressed concern but said they had no authority to stop Geert Wilders screening his film. Wilders plans to depict parts of the Qur’an he says are used as inspiration “by bad people to do bad things”.

Less than 10 minutes long, the film is expected to be shown in late January. It will show “the intolerant and fascist character of the Qur’an”, said Wilders, whose anti-Islam campaign helped his Freedom party win nine seats in parliament in last year’s election.

In the past, Wilders has compared the Qur’an to Adolf Hitler’s book Mein Kampf. He has claimed the Netherlands is being swamped by a “tsunami” of Islamic immigrants.

Guardian, 29 November 2007

The strange journey of Ayaan Hirsi Ali

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Ayaan Hirsi Ali“The former ‘liberal’ who becomes an outspoken right-winger has become an American political archetype. Ronald Reagan and David Horowiz are two prime examples of the breed….

“Recently, a related version of this turncoat persona – former Dutch Member of Parliament Ayaan Hirsi Ali – has emerged: a ‘reformed’ Muslim woman who favors crushing Islam under the boot of Western militarism. Once very devout in her Muslim beliefs, Ali has gained a great deal of media attention – including horrific tales of her abuse at the hands of Muslim men – and has transformed into an outspoken critic who bases her calls for the destruction of Islam on feminist and human rights principles….

“She is poised to become the most recognizable face of naked Islamophobia in America. Expect to see her as a ubiquitous guest on cable news channels and frequent contributor of op-eds reinforcing the worst stereotypes about the Muslim world. She’ll validate already disturbingly common narratives about the perfidy of Islam, and she’ll tout the vast superiority of Western thinking in stark terms that would be shocking coming from a more traditional (read: white, Christian) right-wing commentator….

“Hirsi Ali has become a darling of those who believe in the benevolence of Western hegemony; The Economist described her as a ‘cultural ideologue of the new right’…. Her outspoken advocacy on feminist ethical issues – roundly condemning ‘honor killings’ and female circumcision – has also made her a poster-girl for the aggressive brand of atheism typified by figures like Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris and Christopher Hitchens, all three of whom have held her life-story up as an example of the harms caused by religion in general, and Islam in particular. For them, she’s a living testament to the idea that rational liberal interventionists in the post-Enlightenment West have a moral duty to wage a new crusade against the Muslim world.”

Joshua Holland at AlterNet, 12 November 2007