Tolerating a Time
Bomb
By LEON de WINTER,
OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR, NYTimes on the Web, July 16, 2005
Amsterdam -- FOR centuries the
Netherlands has been considered the most tolerant and liberal nation in the
world. This attitude is a byproduct of a disciplined civic society,
confident enough to provide space for those with different ideas. It
produced the country in which Descartes found refuge, a center of freedom of
thought and of a free press in Europe.
That Netherlands no longer exists.
The murder last year of the filmmaker Theo van Gogh, whose killer was convicted
this week, and the assassination of the politician Pim Fortuyn in 2002 marked
the end of the Holland of Erasmus and Spinoza.
No, the Dutch suddenly did not become intolerant and insular. But these
killings showed the cumulative effect of two forces that have shaken the
foundations of Dutch civic society over the last 40 years: the cultural
and sexual revolution of the 1960's and 70's and the influx of Muslim workers
during those years of prosperity.
While most of Europe points to that epochal year of 1968 as a watershed, perhaps
no country was affected as profoundly by the radicalism of the times as the
Netherlands. In less than 15 years most forms of traditional authority and
hierarchy, the counterbalancing forces that made Dutch tolerance possible, were
undermined. Among students and the intellectual elites, "civil
disobedience" in itself was more admired than the point behind such actions.
Provos -- students and artists staging absurdist "happenings" -- and squatters
ruled the streets, and in 1980, the apogee of Holland's cultural revolution, the
coronation ceremony of Queen Beatrix in Amsterdam vanished behind a haze of tear
gas and anarchistic rioters.
Hence the current image of Dutch tolerance: marijuana served at coffee
shops, police officers growing their hair as long as the Grateful Dead, gays and
lesbians coming out of the closet without fear or hindrance, public television
showing full nudity and, for those who prefer not to work, a government package
of benefits that makes a toil-free life entirely feasible.
The second, simultaneous, change in Dutch life was the recruitment of young men
from the Rif Mountains of Morocco, most illiterate and many with only a
rudimentary grasp of spoken Dutch, to work in Holland's rapidly expanding
industries. When they came to the country, often under long-term
government work visas, they were faced with a highly educated but apparently
decadent society in the grip of a cultural revolution. Many were
astonished: was this country some sort of freak show?
No, it certainly wasn't. Under the effusive "anything goes" exterior, the
majority of Dutch people held on to their disciplined Calvinist values. To
the immigrants, however, this core was all but invisible.
For a while, the immigrants did the dirty work for which no training was needed,
and the two factions lived amicably. But during the technology- and
service-oriented economic boom of the 1980's and 90's, the demand for unskilled
work declined. The "guest workers" were no longer needed in such numbers,
but they were also not required to return to Morocco. Instead they were
given extensive social benefits and their families were allowed to come from
Morocco to join them. It was the birth of the ethnic-religious ghettoes
that surround our affluent cities and towns.
And thus the delicate mechanism of Holland's traditional tolerant society
gradually lost its balance. The news media, politicians and artists gnawed
away at the traditional values of Calvinistic civic society, while in the bleak
Muslim suburbs resentment grew among the Moroccans' Dutch-born children, who
found the promise of an affluent life unfulfillable.
Meanwhile, the news media and politicians maintained an unofficial ban on any
discussion of the problems of immigration: after all, in progressive
Holland only socioeconomic problems were admissible. It was simply not
acceptable to discuss problems relating to religion and culture.
This mix of cultural confusion, religious misunderstanding and political
correctness provided the stage on which Pim Fortuyn performed. In the
international press, Mr. Fortuyn was often described as a right-wing radical, a
label he loathed. He was a liberal with respect to personal freedom and a
conservative with respect to social norms and values -- that is, he was a
classic tolerant Dutchman.
Proud to be gay, he protested against the religiously based homophobia openly
espoused in the Muslim ghettos. Yet he also emphasized the need for
integrating Muslims into larger society and tolerance for their faith. His
political incorrectness shocked the press and political establishment, but many
among the traditional citizenry recognized Mr. Fortuyn as a kindred spirit.
This unconventional gay politician spoke up for the conventional middle-class
heterosexual. At the time he was killed by an animal-rights advocate in
2002, he was the front-runner to become prime minister.
Theo van Gogh, artiste provocateur nonpareil, never pursued a political career.
In the course of his 20 years in the public eye, he grossly insulted at least
half of the nation. His films were intended to shock; his newspaper
columns (of which I was the target more than once) were exercises in outlandish
mudslinging -- although never lacking in humor and stylistic talent. In
recent years, he had focused increasingly on the problems with immigration and
Muslim intolerance.
The radicalized children of disappointed Islamic immigrants were unable to
appreciate the humorous side of the Van Gogh phenomenon. Many of these
young men have found an expression for their growing sense of frustration,
alienation and anger in orthodox Islam. They have no use for Holland's
tolerance of alternative lifestyles, or for its professional blasphemers.
Last Nov. 2 a young Islamic fundamentalist, born in Amsterdam to Moroccan
parents, shot Mr. Van Gogh in the street and then tried to cut off his head.
In a final statement at his trial last week, the murderer declared that he had
killed Mr. Van Gogh for insulting the Prophet.
The trial lasted only two days, but the fallout will be with us for many years.
Much of the electorate no longer feels any loyalty to the existing political
parties. Many want to preserve the Dutch welfare state, but it's unclear
how to maintain it in an aging nation that is absorbing immigrants. The
Dutch "no" vote to the European Union Constitution last month was just one
aspect of this frustration.
WITHOUT a radical change in direction, Dutch tolerance may become its own
victim. The first step is enacting laws to curb immigration from Islamic
countries. We must also consider ways to prevent arranged marriages
between Muslims living here and people from the Rif (more than half of Dutch
Moroccans marry a traditional partner from their parents' home village).
In the longer term, we must somehow stimulate young Muslims to identify with the
Calvinist values of the majority. The radicalization among small groups of
young Muslims, a threat that cannot be fought within Holland's borders alone, is
a time bomb.
Perhaps what this country needs most of all is another unconventional, outspoken
gay politician.
Leon de Winter is a novelist and political columnist for
Elsevier magazine.
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