Re: OT What a good man would say to the Arab nations.
From: ARKADYA (arkadya_at_aol.com)
Date: 11/07/04
- Next message: ARKADYA: "Re: OT What a good man would say to the Arab nations."
- Previous message: Robert: "Re: bin Ladin's message"
- In reply to: Phil Scott: "Re: OT What a good man would say to the Arab nations."
- Next in thread: ARKADYA: "Re: OT What a good man would say to the Arab nations."
- Reply: ARKADYA: "Re: OT What a good man would say to the Arab nations."
- Messages sorted by: [ date ] [ thread ]
Date: 07 Nov 2004 04:03:15 GMT
Europeans Face Tough Choices on Islam
By BRIAN MURPHY
.c The Associated Press
AMSTERDAM, Netherlands (AP) - Europe's complex interplay with Islam appears to
stand at a tipping point, and the slaying of a Dutchman who made a movie
critical of Islam could indicate one direction in which it is headed. ``The
Muslims say they're scared,'' said mourner Nicolette Toering. ``No, we're
scared.''
Dutch authorities were investigating whether the chief suspect in the slaying,
a 26-year-old Dutch-Moroccan man arrested shortly after the attack on
terrorism-related charges, acted alone out of rage or had links to wider
extremist networks. Police have detained several other suspects facing charges
including conspiracy to murder.
A five-page letter pinned to the body of Theo van Gogh, brutally murdered
Tuesday as he was riding his bike down a busy boulevard in Amsterdam, called
for Muslims to rise up against the ``infidel enemies'' in the West.
Other messages - later left at the sidewalk shrine where the 47-year-old
filmmaker's throat was slashed - dripped with equal venom against radical
Islam. ``Enemies live among us,'' read one missive in a bed of flowers, votive
candles and crosses.
The letter stuck to the victim's body threatened death to Somali-born lawmaker
Ayaan Hirsi Ali, who scripted Van Gogh's last film, ``Submission,'' which
criticized the treatment of women under Islam.
It also predicted the downfall of the ``infidel enemies of Islam'' in Europe,
America and the Netherlands.
Heightening fears nationwide, two Dutch men were arrested late Friday for
allegedly posting a video on the Internet calling for the beheading of
right-wing lawmaker Geert Wilders for perceived insults to Islam.
Prosecutors said the video was posted last month and offered ``paradise'' for
whoever beheads Wilders. The lawmaker, who said after Van Gogh's slaying that
he will form his own anti-immigration party, has been threatened before and
remains under police protection.
Arab music and singing accompanies the video, which runs a little longer than a
minute. The site where the video first was posted has been closed, but it could
still be seen on other Dutch Web sites.
The attack has underscored the hard political and social choices that European
leaders face about Muslims and the wider Islamic world.
In December, European Union leaders will decide whether to overlook widespread
public objections and move ahead with membership talks with Turkey, a Muslim
nation of about 70 million people and a galloping birthrate that could push it
past Germany's population in a generation.
European police agencies have sharply boosted cooperation against suspected
Islamic terrorist groups following the March train bombings in Spain that
killed 191 people. Washington's European allies in Iraq are reassessing their
levels of military and commercial support following waves of attacks,
kidnappings and beheadings blamed on Islamic militants.
EU officials last month signed the text of a proposed EU Constitution that
still could face opposition from voters demanding a clear reference to Europe's
Christian history.
But those big issues fade on the streets of many European centers. Here - even
in places like tolerant Amsterdam - it's often expressed as a gnawing feeling
that militant factions in Islamic immigrant communities are gaining ground and
chipping away at values such as free speech and secular politics.
``There is a general feeling that a social collision is becoming inevitable,''
said Jan Rath, co-director of the Institute for Migration and Ethnic Studies at
the University of Amsterdam. ``People think it's been building for years and
now finally coming to the surface.''
The landmarks along the way included the 1989 death threat ``fatwa,'' or
religious edict, against British writer Salman Rushdie for alleged insults to
Islam in ``The Satanic Verses,'' the rise of neo-Fascist movements, the
assassination of Dutch anti-immigrant politician Pim Fortuyn in 2002 and
France's ongoing showdown with Muslims over a ban on headscarves and other
religious apparel in schools.
``My impression is the European voices that say, `Everyone is equal, but we are
more equal than Muslims,' are growing,'' Rath said.
The Netherlands offers a good vantage point to gauge changing attitudes toward
Muslim communities across Europe - which have grown more than 100 percent in
the past 15 years, according to U.N. reports. Some sources place the Muslim
population as high as 13.5 million in Western Europe, or more than 2 percent of
the population, in addition to more than 6 million native-born Muslims in the
Balkans.
Unlike the French or Spanish, the Dutch long had little direct contact with
Islam apart from a colonial presence in distant Indonesia that ended in 1949.
Muslim immigrants began arriving following World War II as reconstruction labor
- as they did in Germany and other countries.
The workers, mostly Turks, assimilated well into Dutch society. Moroccans and
other North Africans began arriving in the 1970s and 1980s, when more lenient
laws allowed men to bring in their families.
But the situation in Holland was getting tougher. Jobs were more scarce -
especially for the Moroccan immigrant children - and some politicians began
trying to connect the rising crime rate with the swelling Muslim community: now
about 1 million in a country of 16 million people.
Last year, a parliament member, Geert Wilders, pressed for a five-year ban on
immigration from Turkey and Morocco. Dutch anti-terrorist agents, meanwhile,
have intensified probes into alleged radical recruitment among young Muslims.
Van Gogh - a distant relative of the famous 19th-century Dutch painter Vincent
Van Gogh - often tested the boundaries of free expression by denouncing Muslims
in the most graphic terms. His last work, ``Submission,'' a joint project with
Somali-born lawmaker Ayaan Hirsi Ali, attacked the treatment of women under
Islam.
The filmmaker's fans were as passionate as his detractors.
``He was trying to warn us about the dangers of radical Islam,'' said teacher
Geert Plas as he visited the site where Van Gogh was ambushed. ``Now maybe
we'll listen. To me this is not just a small event. It's part of the World
Trade Center and Madrid. We must see this.''
The letter pinned to the victim's body also threatened death to Hirsi Ali, who
has gone into hiding, and predicted the downfall of the ``infidel enemies of
Islam'' in Europe, America and the Netherlands.
``The jihad (holy war) has come to the Netherlands,'' parliament speaker Jozias
van Aartsen said.
The memorials that piled up on the dark brick sidewalk often crossed the line
from sympathy to seething recriminations. ``This is the true face of Islam,''
said a handwritten message. A framed poem called ``Imam'' ends with a stanza:
``If you want to improve the world, start with yourself and your faith.''
A banner waved from a fence: ``Theo rests his case.''
Christian prayer cards, crosses and biblical passages sat amid the flowers - a
rare religious outpouring in one of Europe's most secular states.
``This doesn't just say something about the Netherlands,'' said Baukje Prins,
assistant professor of social philosophy at Holland's Groninjen University.
``It is an example of how international relations have become polarized.''
At a mosque near the murder site, Friday prayers were dominated by talk of the
slaying - sprinkled with worry about a possible backlash.
``We are in danger,'' a Moroccan man told a group of friends sitting in a
circle on a carpeted floor.
``No, no,'' another man said. ``We cannot give in to fear. This is our home
now.''
Moulay Idrissi listened and shook his head.
``I'm afraid. I can't deny it,'' said Idrissi, who emigrated from Morocco in
1978. ``I feel respect for Muslims is falling away in Europe. When people have
no respect, anything can happen.''
A few hours later, suspected arsonists set fire to a mosque in the central
Dutch city of Utrecht, but no injuries were reported.
A 22-year-old student, Abdul Salam, said he tries to tell Christian friends
that Muslims have been in Europe since the Moors crossed into Spain in the 8th
century.
``So I don't know what to think when people say I don't belong here because I'm
Muslim,'' he said. ``I was born here. I don't even speak Arabic. I am European.
That's what I feel. That's what I am.''
But Salam represents just one side of an internal struggle within Muslim
communities in Europe, said Akbar Ahmed, a professor of Islamic studies at
American University in Washington.
``Right now the West sees all Islam as a kind of monolith and wipes away all
nuances,'' said Ahmed. ``Some want to draw boundaries around Islam in Europe.
Other Muslims want to deal with non-Muslims in a broad and tolerant way. It's
not new to Islam. It's just new to Europe.''
Never Forgive, Never Forget
9-11-01
- Next message: ARKADYA: "Re: OT What a good man would say to the Arab nations."
- Previous message: Robert: "Re: bin Ladin's message"
- In reply to: Phil Scott: "Re: OT What a good man would say to the Arab nations."
- Next in thread: ARKADYA: "Re: OT What a good man would say to the Arab nations."
- Reply: ARKADYA: "Re: OT What a good man would say to the Arab nations."
- Messages sorted by: [ date ] [ thread ]
Relevant Pages
|
