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Dutch Struggle with Anti-Muslim Sentiment after U.S. Attacks
THE HAGUE, Oct 3 (News Agencies) - The Dutch normally pride themselves on their tolerant attitude towards minorities, but the veneer of political correctness is starting to crack in the wake of the September 11th attacks on the United States, blamed by the FBI on "Islamic extremists".
Rising anti-Muslim sentiment has put a heavy strain on normally tolerant Dutch society, with hate crimes against immigrants on the rise and politicians openly expressing doubts about the success of the multicultural society the Dutch pride themselves on.
In the three weeks since the attacks on New York and Washington, there have been 90 reported hate crimes against Muslims in the Netherlands, according to the National Association of Anti-Racism Bureaux.
In most cases people were verbally abused or threatened. Women wearing headscarves (hijabs) were specifically targeted, the organization said.
"Anti-Islamic propaganda is at an all-time high. The result is a widening of the divide in Dutch society where 'we', the indigenous people, turn against 'them', the Muslims," university professors Wasif Shadid and Pieter Sjoerd van Koningsveld wrote in the daily
NRC-Handelsblad.
A survey published last week showed that more than two-thirds of people questioned thought any Muslim who approved of the terror attacks should be thrown out of the country. Sixty-two percent said the attacks would slow down the process of integrating the 750,000 Muslims in the country into Dutch society.
A columnist for a popular right-wing news magazine, Elsevier, demanded a cold war against Islam and said the religion went against Western values.
Former European Commissioner Frits Bolkestein joined the anti-Muslim chorus in an article on Saturday in
De Volkskrant in which he criticized the "hatred against the West" which he claimed a large section of the Islamic world felt.
The Dutch government has always officially promoted the creation of a multicultural society. There are subsidies for firms that hire ethnic minorities and many job adverts state explicitly that women and minorities are urged to apply.
This strategy has worked very well, especially in public services. But the fact that many police officers are of immigrant origin says little about the general population's view on minorities.
"I think many Dutch people harbored anti-Muslim sentiments but they haven't dared to say it until now," said Badr Qohaki, a policeman of Moroccan origin working in The Hague. "They needed a reason and the [U.S.] attacks were it".
People on the streets in the Netherlands now openly make racist remarks about Muslims. Such utterances were absolutely taboo before.
"The subject comes up in company and suddenly people say things like 'All Muslim fundamentalists should leave the country'," said teacher Adriane van der Werf.
The attacks on the U.S. have exacerbated existing social rifts. Many Dutch believe people of immigrant origin, like the many second and third generation Turks and Moroccans in the country, do not respect Dutch values.
And the belief that Dutch Muslims condone the attacks on the U.S. has been fanned by overblown media reports of Moroccan boys "celebrating the attacks with fireworks" on the streets of Ede, in the east of the country.
Police and locals in Ede later said the boys were just being provocative and earlier media reports had not been "not objective".
The boys themselves said they were already in the street when two hijacked airliners ploughed into the World Trade Center in New York, a third slammed into the Pentagon in Washington and a fourth crash-landed in a field in Pennsylvania.
The said they had no idea what had happened until police told them or were aware of the number of victims, now believed to total nearly 6,000.
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