Hello Omega, it's nice to see you have such an interest in this
It is very difficult to answer your questions, but I will try.
As you already pointed out, the direct cause for the disturbed atmosphere at the moment was the murder of Vincent van Gogh by a fundamentalist Muslim. Van Gogh was a controversial person, who had an opinion about everything. He has been called an anti-semite, islamophobic, christian-hater, etc, etc. He has said things like "Gosh, what does it smell like caramel in here. I guess they're burning Jews with diabetes today" and "all Muslims are goatfuckers". He was not my type of guy, but we Dutch very much like our right to say what we want - freedom of speech is sacred in here, people may dislike you but you are free to say things about all types of people, as long as you don't openly call up to kill a certain group or something like that.
But there was at least one person who didn't understand that, and he killed Van Gogh. Some Dutch call it a wake-up call. They point at this gap there exists between the autochthonous Dutch and the Dutch Muslim community. They're partly right I'm afraid. A lot of foreigners - not only people from the Muslim community - live in large ghettos, especially in cities like Amsterdam, Rotterdam or The Hague, where 30 - 40% of the population is foreign. We ignored that for too long. Because of that, these communities are very isolated, and have minimal contact with other Dutch. I personally was shocked to read an article a week ago about the neighborhood where the killer of Van Gogh, Mohammed B., grew up. There were young persons, who were born in the Netherlands, spoke Dutch and even dressed in a Western style who said "I have never ever talked with a white Dutchman before in my life [referring to the fact the interviewer was a white Dutchman]. The only people I know are foreign. I have no idea how a Dutchman thinks, what it is to be Dutch".
People are considering that to be a problem. I do too, but some Dutch believe that only violence and total controll can get this "group" to do what "we" want.
Some people say our society has failed. They say "The Netherlands used to be a haven for people from other cultures, with other beliefs. It was so hundreds of years ago, when Portuguese Jews, French Protestants, and even Indonesians, came to our country and fitted in very well. But with this large relatively new immigrant community, we have failed." They point at the fact that so many immigrants do not speak Dutch; so many immigrants hold on to very traditional beliefs which can not fit into the Dutch values and way of thinking; they point at certain imams who call up for gays to be killed (something what made very many Dutch very angry, because I can proudly say that the Netherlands is one of the most liberal countries when it comes to gays and gay rights - gay marriage, gay parade in Amsterdam etc.); imams who call up to beat your wife, or - as what happened two days ago - imams who do not want to shake hands with a woman [explanation: our female minister of Integration - yes, we have a minister of Integration - had called up for a meeting with at least 50 imams to inform them about the new ruling that every imam has to learn Dutch within a year. When the meeting began, she wanted to shake all imams a hand. 49 had no problems with this. 1 however said in front of the cameras that he could not give her a hand, because she was a woman. Our minister was really angry, but eventually she accepted it. And because of that incident, a lot of Dutch were extremely offended, because they see it as a violation of Dutch values concerning women]. I personally think I know too little about our immigrant community to make any conclusions about it. I honestly have only minimal contacts with foreign Dutch, I live in a very white suburb in the south, a suburb which does have some foreigners but they are called "the good foreigners" by some Dutch: Indonesians, Chinese, Americans, Englishmen. I mean, it's kinda funny thinking about it, halve of my friends is foreign, but I don't think I will find many Dutchmen who will "agree" with me, because they are "good foreigners": one is English, one is Japanese, another one is Chinese and another one Bulgarian. Being a "foreigner" means something negative here I guess, thinking about it ...
But there are eventually also some "positive" things which have happened after Van Gogh's murder: people are aware that our society is also hardening, and so people are coming closer together. And luckily, a lot of people let the especially Muslim community participate in that. Because I think of all communities in the Netherlands, it has been probably the Muslim community who has been hit hardest after the murder of Van Gogh: attacks on Muslim schools (as you might have read somewhere, one of those attacked schools was in my town, Eindhoven, where they put a bomb at the front door - luckily nobody was hurt), burnings of mosques, Muslims being beaten, called names etc. Luckily nobody has been killed so far, but I still fear the worst. And because this all, other Dutch do many things to show their solidarity. In my hometown, some 500 people - mostly Dutch - gathered at the attacked school to show their solidarity; in Uden, a place nearby where an Islamic school was burned to the ground, up to 8,000 people gathered to show their support for the Muslim community (and imagine, the town has only 40,000 citizens). Prominent Dutch have called up to respect your Muslim neighbor, and to separate them completely from the fundamentalists.
I just hope that will help, because Islamophobia has never been so "popular".
I can go on and on and on about this, Omega, I'm glad I can actually, because people are also a bit scared (although they will definitely deny that) to give their opinion after what happened. But I think this is good for now. I hope you have gotten a little bit more insight in what has happened, and is still happening, in the Netherlands.
