J vs PE: Across the Border

I couldn't sleep yesterday so I went downstairs to watch television. As I switched channels, avoiding some of that less appealing late night variety, I came across a Belgian debating programme and was startled. Not by the fact that they were discussing our number one incident of last week, the profoundly unholy murder of Theo van Gogh, but by the seriousness and the focus with which they debated the situation in the Netherlands, a country which in their view now really went mad en masse.

Earlier last week our minister of finance and deputy prime minister Gerrit Zalm proclaimed war on muslim terrorism. Zalm himself is a remarkable phenomenon. He has the kind of a natural authority you would hope more politicians would have; he always has a smile for the camera but he also leaves you in no doubt that he is well in charge. By the way he featured in this Van Gogh movie COOL! which I mentioned in the Jihad vs Potato Eaters blog. His part was a bank employee in the bank which got robbed. That's the kind of person Zalm is, in for a joke, in for some fun, but always cool.

A war on terror is not the kind of words you would expect Zalm to use. If you hear him saying it you think it must be gdmn serious. In the Dutch media, his statement was rolled over like a canister with explosives which just turns out to contain milk. They say the statement is inappropriate, the Dutch word for war is defined as an armed conflict between two nation states and that is not the situation we're in, so there is no talk of war and we shouldn't be using such confusing language. But what most people so far fail to do is address the problem to its core rather than fidget over its name. Sadly, this also sometimes happens in the academia, when problems get so-called solved by defining them away. But if somebody like Zalm says we're in war, it clearly is no time for scrabble.

The Belgians were fascinating to watch as they puzzled over the sudden frenzy of their northern neighbours. And they did focus on the core of the business: what happens next? How can you actually struggle against something so fleeting and yet strongly anchored like (muslim) terrorism? How will the moderate muslims react to this new hardened rhetoric? How should we distinguish between those muslims who are fine citizens and those who are prone to terrorism? The Moroccan killer of Van Gogh was after all a perfect example of intergration by assimilation. He was born and raised in the Netherlands and spoke perfect Dutch; so where does his calling come from and are we naive to believe that the so-called integration in our society inhibits these radical tendencies?

The most startling was the appearance of one of the leaders of the Vlaams Blok, a Flemish right-wing anti-establishment protest party. This party has existed for some time now in the Flemish (Dutch-speaking) part of Belgium and has been electorally strong particularly in the city of Antwerp. However, it never got the chance to participate in government so it follows the more or less predictable path of a radicalising opposition force with no responsibility for policy of its own. The most recent development is a series of changes in Belgian law which now allows for proclaiming the party as unlawful on the account of discrimination against ethnic minorities and 'advocating hatred' against these groups. I do not know enough about them to judge whether this is justified. They have a point when they say that they don't violate the law, instead the law is being changed to maneuvre them into a situation where they do. They also have a point when they address the real problems which stem from the poor integration of ethnic minorities (and most crucially muslims) in Belgian society, like high unemployment and crime, but also violence against women and homosexuals. All in, they're no saints themselves and their rhetoric really sometimes goes too far, but they do have a point in addressing these very real problems.

And now this representative of this not all too kosher party used the example of the Netherlands, our very own no-longer-happy-go-lucky Gerrit Zalm, to justify their cause: look where toleration leads to! Murder! We're in war, like we've been telling you all this time! It was almost scary to see this man defending his party's cause by comparing it to the official Dutch government policy of the moment; we're equal now! Only two years ago the liberal party of Zalm as well as the whole range of other 'established' parties used very heavy rhetoric against the new emerging party of Pim Fortuyn. They even used the example of Vlaams Blok as a warning: look where we should avoid to end up. And now the official Dutch policy is almost identical to what they despised and condemned only recently!

So far the Dutch government hasn't ventured to skate on the thin ice of anything close to outright provocation, generalist slogans or big words awaking big fears. Everybody is very cautious to not generalise the problem to the entire muslim community but limit the debate to the fundamentalist few. Though you still may wonder what a statement like 'we're in war now' will produce in terms of reactions in an already hardened climate... And you may wonder, are these the feelings of the underbelly, can they still be labelled irrational? I fear not. We apparently do have a problem and we do have to look it right in the eye and address it by its name. I only wonder why it had to take a murder (two murders, in fact) to come this far?