A social-studies class I visited included Africans, Indians, Turks, Moroccans, an Egyptian, and a few whites. We had a discussion about van Gogh and Hirsi Ali, and the only girl in class who wore a veil spoke more often and more passionately than the others. The girl, who was born in Amsterdam to Moroccan parents, didn’t condone the murder but could “understand why Mohammed B. had sought comfort in Islam.” She said that people had insulted her in the streets after the murder, spitting at her feet or telling her to take off her veil. “When I hear people talk about ‘those fucking Moroccans,’ I feel defensive and really want to be Moroccan, but when I visit Morocco I know I don’t belong there, either.” A Moroccan-born boy said that it was because of her Dutch accent.
I noticed that some of the Muslim boys, who were described to me later as “quite fundamentalist,” snickered every time the veiled girl spoke, even when she argued, to loud protests from the other girls, that Muslim women were not oppressed. “Hirsi Ali is a dork,” she said. “She doesn’t look beyond her own experience.” The whites in the class remained silent, as though afraid to enter this treacherous terrain. One of the black students made fun of the Muslims’ preoccupation with “identity” and said, “Moroccan, Egyptian, Algerian - who the fuck cares. They’re all thieves.” The others laughed, even some of the Muslims. A dark-skinned girl with Indian features suddenly spoke: “I think Hirsi Ali is really brave. She is saying things no one else has the guts to talk about.” A Turkish boy who had tried to see both sides of the question said that maybe Hirsi Ali’s film had not been the best way to convince moderate Muslims.
I came away impressed with the pupils’ readiness to argue: on the surface, integration, at least at this school, seemed to be working all right. It was also clear how diverse “the Muslims” were. Those born in Holland, like the girl in the veil, seemed the most troubled, uncertain of where they belonged. And the Turks appeared to be more at ease than the Moroccans. Leaving the school, I thought of a press conference I had attended the previous day, when Muslim community leaders shook hands with a district councillor and discussed a “contract” to defend free speech and identify extremists. The Turkish representative spoke perfect Dutch, wore a business suit, and agreed with the proposal. The Moroccan representative spoke broken Dutch, and still needed “to consult” with his mosque.
