Islamists dying for power in Holland
30.01.2012 12:36
For the first time in the history of
Europe, Islamic organization can participate in the elections. Party For
Muslim Netherlands wants to get into parliament in 2015. The
Netherlands could become the first country on the continent where the
Islamists will participate in the legislature. The far-right sentiment
is increasing in the country as well.
The party program leaves no doubt about
its nature. Let's start with the fact that only Muslims can be members
of the organization. Its aims are to fight against abortion,
homosexuality, abuse of religion and religious texts and all kinds of
discrimination. It proposed to prohibit all kinds of drugs, including
recreational. The main authority in the Netherlands should be the Shura
(Islamic council).
There are also no doubts with regard to
foreign policy. Activists of the Party for Muslim Netherlands insist on
the cessation of support for Israel, withdrawal of Dutch troops from
Afghanistan and Iraq, an early admission of Turkey into the EU. Party
members are promoting their ideas through the members of city councils
of Amsterdam and Rotterdam. Many Muslims live in the major cities of
Holland, so Party for Muslim Netherlands has enough voters.
Some of the demands of the organization
are shared by the conservative Dutch (there are still some of those).
Many residents of the country do not like the open sale of marijuana,
gay marriage, and "red light" neighborhoods - in short, everything that
made modern Netherlands famous. However, the topic of discrimination and
harassment of religious texts is quite slippery. The indigenous people
are unlikely to be thrilled with the idea of life under Sharia law under
the authority of the Shura.
What are the chances that the Islamists
will get into the parliament? The threshold for getting into the States
General of the Netherlands is five percent. The number of adherents of
Islam is approximately one million people (out of 16), or over six
percent. It is not a given that all followers of Islam will vote for the
Party For Muslim Netherlands. But even participation in the election of
such an organization is a significant event. Never before has Islamist
party "stormed" the parliament of a European country. And then,
everything is possible: the birth rate in Muslim families is high. The
time may soon come when the Islamists break through to the power.
What made one of the oldest democracies
in the world talk about creating an Islamic Shura? The first meetings
between Muslims and the Dutch occurred at the turn of 16th - 17th
centuries. Then they began the conquest of vast Indonesia - a
predominantly Muslim country. Some of its inhabitants were transported
to South America, the Dutch colony of Suriname. After the Second World
War, Indonesia gained independence. In the early 1960s, followers of
Islam have appeared in Holland.
Fifty years ago, Europe was faced with a
shortage of unskilled labor force. Many countries have decided to
attract immigrants from Asia and Africa, and Holland was no exception.
In 1970s, hundreds of thousands of Suriname residents, including Muslim
immigrants from Indonesia, moved to the former colonial power. Later,
Kurds, Afghans, Albanians, Bosnian Muslims, and immigrants from other
Arab countries came to the Netherlands.
In the mid-1970s, the government began
to subsidize the construction of mosques and prayer houses. As a result,
there are over 400 mosques with minarets in the Netherlands today.
Against the background of the fact that Christian churches are getting
closed and emptied, the growing number of mosques is particularly
impressive. Besides, immigrants from the mid-1970s have the right to
establish schools with instruction in their native language. It is not
hard to guess what was often taught in these schools. In recent years
the autonomy of these schools was limited. However, nearly 30 private
Islamic schools are still operating.
For many years the government encouraged
the creation of Islamic organizations. In the 1990s, the Islamic
Council of the Netherlands was created that included three largest
Muslim communities in the country - Moroccan, Turkish and
Indonesian-Surinamese. Then there were three other organizations. They
are fighting for leadership of the flock. There are mosques not
controlled by any one of them, and often these are the places that
conduct radical Islamist propaganda.
In 2003, the Government of the
Netherlands allowed the activities of the European Arab League. The head
of the Dutch branch Jamil Jawad immediately declared that Israel must
be destroyed. He demanded that the Netherlands recognizes the
constitutional status of the Arabic and Turkish languages and Muslim
holidays. In 2008, a native of Morocco, Ahmed Aboutaleb, became the
mayor of Rotterdam. Although he did not participate in any Islamist
propaganda, indigenous Dutch got scared.
They have good reasons to be frightened.
In 2004, a native of Morocco born in Holland murdered filmmaker Theo
van Gogh, who was filming a movie about the plight of women in the
Muslim world. Two years earlier the leader of the "List Pim Fortayna"
party Pim Fortayn, advocating for a total ban on immigration from Muslim
countries, was murdered. Although the crime was committed by a native
Dutch, its shadow still fell on the Muslim community.
In the upcoming in three years
parliamentary elections the main opponent of Islamists will be the Party
for Freedom, led by Geert Wilders. The Party received nine seats in the
States-General for the first time in 2006. Four years later, over 15
percent of the Dutch voted for it, and today it has 24 seats in the
parliament. In many respects it was the law proposed by this party that
banned headscarves in schools.
Wilders was not particularly shy talking
about the Muslims. There are moderate Muslims and many Muslims in the
West are law-abiding citizens. But there is no such thing as "moderate
Islam. "Islam is a totalitarian ideology. I would have kicked the
Prophet Muhammad from the country, if he had lived in our time." "I say -
stop Muslim immigration immediately. If we do not stop immigration
because of political correctness, we will lose Europe." This attitude
finds increasingly more supporters.
The Muslim community (and others) more
than once tried to bring Wilders to trial. First time it happened in
2008 for his film "Fitna", where the politician compared Islam to
Nazism, and the Koran with "Mein Kampf" by Adolf Hitler. There was no
appropriate article in the Criminal Code. A year later, a new process
was started where Wilders was accused of inciting ethnic hatred. The
trial continued for 18 months, but eventually he was acquitted.
"Multiculturalism has failed. The Dutch
no longer feel at home in their own country," said last year a far more
moderate Vice-Premier of Netherlands Maxime Verhagen. The existence of
an openly Islamist party on the political sky of Holland once again
confirms this. If it gets even three percent of the vote and does not
get into the Parliament, it will be a great success and the most serious
warning to the Dutch society.
Certainly, the participation of the
Party For Muslim Netherlands in the election will add votes for Wilders
and his Party for Freedom. Other parties also began voicing "right"
statements. The prospect of living under the authority of the Shura does
not appeal to either conservatives or liberals, or socialists, or
"green." Strictly speaking, this process is already underway. Some
immigrants from Muslim countries, too, are unwilling to live under
sharia law. Hundreds of thousands of them have been fully integrated
into the Dutch society.
One way or another, but the specter Islam is looming over the Dutch.
Vadim Trukhachev
Pravda.Ru
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