Category Archives: Netherlands

Dutch Muslims protest against face veil ban

Posted on by Bob Pitt

About 80 people protested outside the Dutch parliament on Thursday against a recent government decision to ban Muslim burqas and face veils, the toughest ban thus far in Europe.

Seven women clad in niqabs – a veil concealing the face except the eyes – and loose robes that covered them from neck to toes, and 20 women in headscarves gathered in front of parliament, which was to convene on Thursday for the first time after national elections were held last week. Around 50 supporters carried banners written with the phrases: “Before you judge me, try hard to know me” and “The first lesson of integration: the constitution is for everyone.”

Earlier this month, the outgoing government agreed to a total ban on burqas and other Muslim face veils in public, citing security concerns. Critics said the move was likely to alienate and victimise the country’s 1 million Muslims.

“Every time there is an election, the thing with the burqa comes up,” said Aishah Bayrat, a 41-year-old teacher and mother of five. “The burqa is a religious thing, nobody should interfere with it.”

Clad in a black and blue niqab, 17-year-old Tamara dismissed official concerns that the robe would make it hard for people to identify the wearer or serve as a cover for criminals and terrorists. “What about Santa Claus? He can go out on the streets with his long beard and we can’t recognise him.”

Reuters, 30 November 2006

‘Veil Wars’ reveal Europe’s intolerance

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“Europe’s traditions of secular tolerance appear to be haunted by the Islamic veil. Every week seems to bring new headlines announcing moves to crack down on the wearing of what critics appear to deem this most alienating symbol of Muslim faith, whether in French public schools, British government buildings or out in public in the Netherlands.

“But is European tolerance more threatened by hijab head-scarf, or even the face-covering niqab … or by the hypocrisy and low-grade xenophobia of those telling Muslim women that this attack on their religious practice is really for their own good? Beneath all the reminders of secularist tradition and progressive discourse cited in Europe’s headscarf debate lies the mean, provincial ‘not in our country, you don’t’ attitude – even when many of the women at whom it’s addressed to were born and raised in ‘our country’.”

Bruce Crumley in Time Magazine, 24 November 2006

Intolerance in Europe

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The Washington Post examines “the blatant bigotry of many mainstream political leaders, journalists and other elites against Islam and its followers” in Europe.

The article continues: “Sometimes the bigots portray their crude attacks on Muslim beliefs and culture as a defense of freedom of speech – as when a Danish newspaper last year chose to publish gratuitously offensive cartoons about the prophet Muhammad. Sometimes they claim to be promoting better communication, as when British parliamentarian Jack Straw recently asked Muslim women to remove their veils when visiting his office. Luckily for the enemies of cynicism and disingenuousness, there is also the Dutch government – which no longer bothers to disguise its ugly prejudice.”

Editorial in Washington Post, 25 November 2006

Far-right Islamophobic party makes gains in Dutch elections

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Once a country renowned for tolerance of minorities of all stripes, the Netherlands now risks being known for an ugly debate over its growing Muslim population. As preliminary results emerged from general elections on Wednesday November 22nd, it became clear that a previously insignificant far-right party, the Party For Freedom, may claim as many as nine seats in a parliament of 150. The party had campaigned for a halt to all immigration, and in particular was hostile towards Muslims, calling for a ban on the building of religious schools and mosques and for a ban on veils worn by Muslim women.

At its head is Geert Wilders, a man seen by some as the heir to Pim Fortuyn – a populist politician and outspoken critic of the 1m-strong Muslim population in the Netherlands, whose anti-immigrant party won 26 seats in parliament shortly after he was murdered in 2002. On Wednesday Mr Wilders told Dutch television that “we need more decency in this country, more education and less Islam”. He is unlikely to form any part of the new coalition government, which will be led by the moderate Christian Democratic Alliance. But he may yet influence policy.

Economist, 23 November 2006

Dutch Muslims condemn ‘populist’ burqa ban move

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Muslim leaders in the Netherlands have condemned a proposed ban on burqas, describing the eve-of-election pledge as an opportunistic overreaction and a populist attempt to win the anti-immigration vote.

The announcement on the burqa from the outgoing government took many politicians by surprise because the twin issues of Islam and immigration had barely featured in the campaign up to that point.

But the integration of Muslims in the country remains a sensitive issue two years after the murder of the film-maker Theo van Gogh, whose film Submission criticised Islam.

On Friday, the hardline, outgoing, immigration minister, Rita Verdonk, said the cabinet had decided it was “undesirable that face-covering clothing – including the burqa – is worn in public places for reasons of public order, security and protection of citizens.”

She added: “From a security standpoint, people should always be recognisable and, from the standpoint of integration, we think people should be able to communicate with one another.”

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Dutch government to ban veil

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Rita VerdonkThe Dutch government said Friday it plans to draw up legislation “as soon as possible” banning full-length veils known as burqas and other clothing that covers a person’s entire face in public places.

“The Cabinet finds it undesirable that face-covering clothing – including the burqa – is worn in public places for reasons of public order, security and protection of citizens,” Immigration Minister Rita Verdonk said in a statement.

Basing the order on security concerns apparently was intended to respond to warnings that outlawing clothing like the all-enveloping burqa, worn by some Muslim women, could violate the constitutional guarantee against religious discrimination.

The main Dutch Muslim organization CMO has been critical of any possible ban. The idea was “an overreaction to a very marginal problem” because hardly any Dutch women wear burqas anyway, said Ayhan Tonca of the CMO. “It’s just ridiculous.”

In the past, a majority of the Dutch parliament has said it would approve a ban on burqas, but opinion polls ahead of national elections Nov. 22 suggest a shift away from that position, and it is unclear if a majority in the new parliament would still back the government-proposed ban.

Associated Press, 17 November 2006

See also “Dutch government backs burqa ban”, BBC News, 17 November 2006

The ban would of course mainly affect the niqab rather than the rarely-worn burqa. But why should Verdonk (or the BBC) bother about the technicalities of Muslims’ funny foreign clothing?

The rape of Europe

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“The German author Henryk M. Broder recently told the Dutch newspaper De Volkskrant (12 October) that young Europeans who love freedom, better emigrate. Europe as we know it will no longer exist 20 years from now. Whilst sitting on a terrace in Berlin, Broder pointed to the other customers and the passers-by and said melancholically: ‘We are watching the world of yesterday.’

“Europe is turning Muslim. As Broder is sixty years old he is not going to emigrate himself. ‘I am too old,’ he said. However, he urged young people to get out and ‘move to Australia or New Zealand. That is the only option they have if they want to avoid the plagues that will turn the old continent uninhabitable’….

“Broder is convinced that the Europeans are not willing to oppose islamization…. West Europeans have to choose between submission (islam) or death. I fear, like Broder, that they have chosen submission – just like in former days when they preferred to be red rather than dead.”

Paul Belien in the Brussells Journal, 25 October 2006

Hirsi Ali arrives in the US

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Ayaan Hirsi AliThe Washington Post on Ayaan Hirsi Ali, newly arrived in the United States:

“Her story is told in a riveting new book, Murder in Amsterdam, by Ian Buruma, who is not alone in finding her – this ‘Enlightenment fundamentalist’ – somewhat unnerving and off-putting…. He is dismissive of the idea that she is a Voltaire against Islam: Voltaire, he says, offended the powerful Catholic Church, whereas she offends ‘only a minority that was already feeling vulnerable in the heart of Europe’.

“She, however, replies that this is hardly a normal minority. It is connected to Islam’s worldwide adherents. Living sullenly in European ‘dish cities’ – enclaves connected by satellite television and the Internet to the tribal societies they have not really left behind – many members of this minority are uninterested in assimilation into open societies…. Europe, she thinks, is invertebrate. After two generations without war, Europeans ‘have no idea what an enemy is’…. Clearly she is where she belongs, at last.”