A Dutch Muslim on Dutch Muslims
The topic of the recent events in Holland has recently come up on a New Muslims’ group I belong to, and this piece was posted to the forum by Rahma Bavelaar (you can read more of her writings at IslamOnline).
As I am Dutch (though resident in Egypt) our sister Safiyya spurred me a while ago to answer this message but, as she said, marriage and work are time-consuming :) so here I am with a belated reply.
The incidents you mention in your email prove once again how events get inlated when they cross the bounderies of place and language. The convert you mention did NOT condone the murder of Theo van Gogh (who by the way only claimed he is a descendant from the genius painter, alhamduliLah, this also was never confirmed beyond doubt) [Yusuf: see note 1] and did NOT ‘support’ the death of the mentioned politician. What happened, in fact, is a sensationalist news reporter once again forcing a Muslim public figure (who happened to be a convert this time) into making blunt statements. The person in question is a Dutch imam who was explicitly asked in a tv-show whether, deep inside, he would mind Geert Wilders dying (“say, within two years”). Not having the time (and, indeed, the wisdom) to think of a better answer the imam answered he would not. After this, however, he quickly added that murder could in no way be Islamically justified and by this he was NOT calling on Muslims to commit acts of violence.
Of course this was a stupid answer and of course this man is not representative of the majority of Dutch Muslims, but the media outrage that followed the interview and the accusations of encouraging violence that were levelled at the imam, can by no means be justified by his statements alone, and are symptomatic of the current lack of reason exhibited by the Dutch media. The next day the imam, like many these days, had to go into hiding and wrote a long letter to a newspaper lamenting the way in which his words had been twisted.
What is actually happening here is a clear case of “everyone is equal, but some are more equal than others”, a phrase oft repeated by Dutch Muslims these days. On the one hand unlimited freedom of expression is hallowed as if it was sanctified from up high, but on the other this unlimited freedom seems to be limited to the non-religious alone. Where Pim Fortuyn, in spite of all his xenophobic ranting, still adhered to his own principles and consented that even gay-haters should be free to speak out, his followers and their counterparts in the media seem to reserve this right for themselves alone.
Consequently, an atmosphere has been cultivated in which any pseudo-specialists and self-appointed Islam expert can write the most outrageous and insulting crap about Muslims and Islam in the name of freedom of expression and ‘not giving in to their low tolerance threshhold”, while Muslims are demanded to be grateful for this ‘freedom’, presented as the epitome of the Enlightenment project. And what’s more, when it comes down to it, they are barred from taking up this right themselves. This is how it happens that the likes of Theo van Gogh can spew the most vulgar and scarring insults at the Muslim community while a Muslim is not even aloud to admit in the most covered of terms, and after much nudging, that he may wish these people away. In this way the Dutch are creating their own self-fulfillig prophecy: by acknowledging tolerance in themselves alone and employing an ‘achievemement’ of this ‘tolerance’; freedom of expression, as a means to consistently stigmatize the ‘other’ as backward, sectarian, incapable of progress and intolerant, they actually end up antagonizing the ‘other’ to such an extent that he can no longer respect the political an social system which condones the belittlement and denigration of their culture and identity in the name of a double-faced ‘tolerance’.
Is this tunnel-visioned and self-righteous secularism a result of a collective religious trauma caused by centuries of rigid Calvinism? Is it the need for a collective enemy at a time of a profound crisis of national identity? Is it perhaps the cultural supremicism brought on by centuries of Orientalist misrepresentations? Or is it a temporary shock reaction caused by a brutal murder which has violently awoken the Dutch to elements within their society who have not accepted the proverbial Dutch ‘tolerance’ as a way of life.
Whatever the case, the continuation of the current dominant discourse, in which everyone has a lot to say about the other, but is not willing to listen too, will NOT lead to solutions for the current political and cultural crisis. We have a long way to go.
In response to your questions: Of course the majority of Dutch Muslims are not extremists. As everywhere else the Dutch media will always highlight those who scream the loudest and have the least to say. More balanced articles by Muslims seem to be consequently ignored by Dutch newspapers.
And yes, Dutch Muslims, both the natives and immigrants, are very actively involved in the public as well as the internal Muslim debate. It seems recent events have even served as a type of catalyst for social organisation, and many new initiatives and cooperatives seem to spring out of nowhere all over the place. It is in these initiatives, and the social and intellectual progress reflected by them, that the Dutch community’s hope for the future is concentrated.
[Note 1: Theo van Gogh isn’t descended from Vincent, but from his brother.]
