Segroves you're the most boring cynic I ever saw. Meanwhile 3 coppers have been injured in an explosion during an anti-terrorism raid in The Hague. Several churches have also been set afire (who cares?)... I have a feeling some people are delibaretely trying to fuel the tension. Not a good idea.
It's all a big mess all right. Thankfully at the funeral Van Gogh's family condemned all violence, including that against muslims. And let's not forget what Van Gogh himself once said about the extreme right-wing in Holland: soulless dwarfs in need of a shág.
Meanwhile in the Hague a whole street has been cleared and sealed off by police. It's become clear that the explosion earlier this morning was caused by a handgrenade that was thrown when police tried to storm a house where a small group of men of (presumably) North African origin have taken refuge. According to news report they are armed to the teeth.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/3998347.stm Looks like the commonly held perception of the Dutch being liberal is going to have to come to an end.
The Dutch are liberal only in certain areas, and never out of idealism. Any Dutchman with half a brain would tell you that.
Now would be a good time to be liberal for practical reasons. As of yesterday (today also?), the Mosques weren't being protected, which is an invitation for violence. Now, maybe 4/5 of Moslems in Holland aren't very religious. What will be the figure next year?
But I thought Van Gogh WAS an extreme right-wing bastard, according to you in the other thread. Do you think condemning all violence will defeat terrorists?
The mosques were being protected, the entire Dutch police force is in a state of high alert for god's sake. You as an American should realise you can't protect everything and everybody 24/7. As for those figures on muslims in the Netherlands, I don't know how religious they are. What I do know is that at the most recent electiosn they followed the exact same voting pattern as the native Dutch population.
Van Gogh definitely held some right wing views, yes, but much like Fortuyn it was impossible to categorise him. He basically hated everybody. I think condemning all violence is a very sensible thing to do right now given the state the country's in, yes.
Yeah, but you didn't answer my question, hun. Will condemning all violence prevent terrorism in Holland? Do you think the Jihadists are done "making their point" and will now "stop the violence" because a few hundred people held candles and sang songs to protest "senseless killing?" Here's a little help: you're not going to convince the Jihadists to stop hating you with candle-light vigils. You could be 100% non-religious, and they would still hate you because you do not believe in Allah. In fact, I am pretty sure Islam hates Holland because of how liberal it is. Osama actually commented on our debased gay-marriage legislation in the most recent tape. It's not like the Jihadists want this or that right, and are fighting for it. They are fighting to destroy the Godless infidel's (all who do not believe in Allah are Godless in their eyes) society. They aren't trying to make their "niche." Surely once you face up to these facts, Dubya perhaps seems a tiny bit less "scary" than before? Nah.
You talk about a few people holding candles, I'm telling you that they still outnumber the group of muslim extremists. 6% of the Dutch population is muslim. I'm pretty convinced that a very small percentage of those is extremist - judging on their voting pattern at the most recent elections. So what you're telling me is that Holland should get paranoid about this tiny group, and that we should condemn the entire islam because of this tiny group ruining things for the others. Holland is a long-standing stable democracy. Things are difficult now but to assume that a tiny minority group can destroy the values of that democracy is downright silly. And, again, paranoid.
Now why don't you share with us what you'd do Mike. Follow the Bush-path? Now there's a thought, Holland should invade Morocco!
The Dutch themselves never believed in that facade in the first place. Still, with all that's happened, we're far more tolerant than most.