*snip*
The backlash against Hirsi Ali has astonished and disappointed many Dutch feminists, who continue to count themselves among her biggest fans. Margreet Fogteloo, editor of the weekly De Groene Amsterdammer, said flatly that Mak is crazy. "People like him feel guilty because they were closing their eyes for such a long time to what was going on," she said. In what appears to be a Europe-wide pattern, some feminists are aligning themselves with the anti-immigrant right against their former multiculturalist allies on the left. Joining them in this exodus to the right are gay activists, who blame Muslim immigrants for the rising number of attacks on gay couples.
*snip*
Source
the TELEGRAAF tells us that, according to the mayor of Bloemendaal, children in his wealthy white community of yuppies are having language problems, because their au pair babysitters cannot speak good Dutch or English.
One mother whose au pair was from South Africa discovered her children were learning to speak very quirky Dutch, and had to send them off to a special speech therapist. They were speaking the language of the Boers and the Cape Coloureds: Afrikaans.
Ajax's 'Jewish' identity turns sinister
By Craig S. Smith The New York Times
Tuesday, March 29, 2005
AMSTERDAM Just minutes before a high-stakes soccer game not long ago between this city's home team, Ajax, and their rivals from the southern city of Eindhoven, a chant built to a roar in the hall packed with supporters where they were serving plastic pint cups of Dutch beer.
"Jews, Jews, Jews!" thousands of voices cried.
Outside, souvenir stalls sold Israeli flags or flags with the Ajax logo, the head of the fabled Greek warrior, emblazoned inside the Star of David. Fans arrived with hats, jackets and scarves embroidered with Hebrew writing. Until recently, the team's official Web site even featured ringing tones of "Hava Nagila" and other popular Jewish songs that could be downloaded into fans' mobile phones.
Few, if any, of these people are Jewish.
"About 30 years ago, the other teams' supporters started calling us Jews because there was a history of Jews in Ajax," explained Fred Harris, a stocky man with brush-cut hair and a thick gold chain around his neck, "so we took it up as a point of pride and now it has become our identity."
For years, the team's management supported that unique identity.
But over time what seemed to many people like a harmless - if peculiar - custom has taken on a more sinister tone. Fans of Ajax's biggest rivals began giving the Nazis' signature straight-arm salute or chanting "Hamas, Hamas!" to provoke Ajax supporters. Ajax games have been marred by shouts of "Jews to the gas!" or simply hissing to simulate the sound of gas escaping.
The most disturbing displays have come during games against teams from The Hague or Amsterdam's greatest rival, Rotterdam. But even Eindhoven fans get into the act: Not long after the game started, a chant arose from the corner section of the city's stadium reserved for fans of the opposing team.
"Everyone who's not jumping is a Jew!" the crowd cried over and over again as thousands of people in the section jump up and down.
Ajax games have become so charged with such anti-Semitic displays that many of the team's Jewish fans now avoid the games altogether.
The offensive behavior is not one-sided: During a game against a German team late last year, a group of Ajax supporters displayed a banner that read "Jews take revenge for '40-'45," a reference to the Holocaust.
"We were probably too tolerant," said Uri Coronel, a Jew who was a member of Ajax's board in the 1990s, speaking about the management's past attitude.
Since then, the atmosphere at the games has become "unbearable," he said, adding that the fans' adoption of a Jewish identity is widely misunderstood as something positive.
"A lot of Jews all over the world believe that Ajax fans are proud to call themselves Jews, but it's a kind of hooliganism," he said.
There is no clear reason why Ajax, founded in 1900, became known as a Jewish club. Amsterdam has always had the largest Jewish population in the Netherlands and the club had two Jewish presidents in the 1960s and 1970s. It has had Jewish players at various times. The club, which owns 73 percent of the listed company that owns the team, also has some Jews among its 400 members, but no greater a percentage than their representation in the city's general population. There are no Jews on the club's current board.
"The club has no real Jewish origins," said John Jaakke, the club's dapper president, speaking before the Eindhoven game.
Nonetheless, the club became identified in the public mind with Jews in the 1950s, and by the 1970s, opposing fans began to call Ajax supporters Jews. The supporters adopted the identity in a spirit of defiance.
Jaakke said the trend has bothered the club's management for the past 10 years, and many Jewish supporters have complained that it makes them uncomfortable. Finally, last year, during a period of national debate about the language being used in soccer stadiums, the board decided to take the opportunity to address the issue. One of the main catalysts for that debate was not anti-Semitic chants, but chants calling the well-known girlfriend of an Ajax player a prostitute.
Jaakke called a meeting with representatives of the club's two main supporters' associations last year to communicate the management's concerns. Coronel, the son of Holocaust survivors, spoke to them about how hurtful the language is to Jews. Finally, in his New Year's speech, Jaakke expressed the management's desire that fans drop their pretended Jewish identity.
"Not only Jews are bothered by this," Jaakke said, "I'm not Jewish and I hate it, too."
The club has asked an independent committee, headed by the Dutch foreign minister, to discuss the issue and try to come up with a strategy for ending the practice. Jaakke said there has been some suggestion that fans substitute the word "Goden," or gods, for "Joden," or Jews, and call themselves "sons of gods," on the logic that Ajax was a sort of god.
Jaakke conceded that forcing the fans to change their behavior is a daunting task. "It's difficult for the supporters because it has become part of their identity," he said. "Many people are walking around with Jewish stars tattooed on their bodies and they're not Jewish at all."
Standing in a section behind the goal reserved for hard-core Ajax fans, the leader of the more fanatical of the teams' two supporter associations said he understood that it hurts Jews who lost family members during the war, but complained that it was the fault of other teams' fans.
"We don't say anything that hurts anyone," said the tall, sharp-featured man who would give only his first name, Henk. "Even if we stopped, they'd still call us Jews."
A cheer of "Let's go, Jews, let's go!" started up among the fans around him.
"It'll never change," he said. "It's been our identity for almost 30 years - you can't erase it." He tugged down the neck of his shirt to reveal a large light-blue Star of David tattooed on his chest with the word AJAX emblazoned above it in black Gothic letters.
11.07.2005
Van Gogh Trial Opens Under High Security
The trial of Mohammed Bouyeri, a Moroccan Dutch national accused of the murder of Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh, opened Monday at a high security court in Amsterdam.
Bouyeri, whom prosecutors describe as a radical Islamist, was present in court but his lawyer said he did not want to be defended. He also refused to participate in his trial voluntarily but the court issued an order for him to be brought in regardless.
Bouyeri, 27, came to court dressed in a long black shirt and a Palestinian black and white checkered headscarf and carrying a green leather-bound book embossed with gold Arabic script.
His lawyer Peter Plasman announced he will not present a defense. "It is my client's wish that there will be no defense not by him but also not on his behalf... He will use his right to remain silent," Plasman said in a short statement.
When Judge Udo Willem Bentinck asked Plasman whether Bouyeri's refusal was connected to his beliefs the lawyer would not answer, but Bentick said, "I see your client nodding."
Plasman repeated that Bouyeri "takes complete responsibility for his actions and that specifically means his actions on November 2, 2004," the day Van Gogh was killed.
Born and raised in Amsterdam, the 27-year-old Bouyeri is a radical Islamist who hoped to die a martyr after killing controversial filmmaker Van Gogh, a distant relative of 19th century painter Vincent van Gogh, police said.
Public execution-style murder shocked the nation
Theo van Gogh, who was also a well-known columnist noted for his virulent attacks on multicultural society and Islam, was shot and stabbed in broad daylight while he cycled on the streets of Amsterdam. Several months before the murder he directed a short film called "Submission," which was critical of abuses against women under Islam.
A letter was left on his body that included quotations from the Koran and threats to several Dutch politicians, including Somali-born lawmaker Ayaan Hirsi Ali who wrote the script for "Submission."
Bouyeri was arrested as he was attempting to flee the murder scene, according to police.
Ethnic tensions escalated
The assassination caused a surge in ethnic tension in the Netherlands and a wave of over 150 reprisal attacks on mosques, Islamic schools and churches followed.
Bouyeri is charged with murdering Van Gogh, attempted murder of several police officers and bystanders and obstructing the work of Hirsi Ali as a member of parliament. If convicted he could be sentenced to a maximum of life in prison. Under Dutch law a life sentence is applied in the literal sense.
Even though prosecutors have said that Bouyeri was "a leading figure" in a terrorist organization known as the Hofstad group he has not yet been charged in that connection as they do not have sufficient evidence.
Possible second trial on terrorist charges
Monday's trial will therefore only focus on Van Gogh's murder and related events. Under the Dutch legal system, Bouyeri could be separately tried later for membership in a terrorist organization.
Security was tight around the courtroom with a sniffer dog checking the building and its surroundings for bombs and all visitors and media thoroughly searched.
The court has set two days for the trial, with the possibility of extending into Wednesday.
Author DW staff / AFP (nda)
I would certainly hope so. He definitely meets my definition of a sociopath.
On the street, admiration predominates
Tuesday 12 July 2005
De Volkskrant
Wow, nimh. How come? I've been following things through Pieter Dorsman (http://www.peaktalk.com/), but I'm curious about why you think he went too far.
this is the man who [..] cracked jokes about "how it smells like caramel here ... they must only burn Jews with sugar illness today". The man who [..] said that "if anyone deserves cancer, it's [then-Green Left leader] Paul Rosenmoller, the scoutmaster of politically correct Holland". Who in 1989 wrote that he "already looked forward to the day that we have to say goodbye to [TV personality] Henk van der Meyden when, as THEY tell me, the mercy of AIDS will finally, finally close Henk's tired eyes." The man who called an opponent a pig or compared him to Eichmann, who speculated that a Jewish critic must "have wet dreams about getting done by Mengele", and whose interpretation of being thought-provoking was, as he bragged afterwards, to greet Green Left MP Mohammed Rabbae with a "Allah is great, Allah is mighty, he has a cock of one meter eighty".
But [NYT reporter] Craig Smith [reporting from Holland after Van Gogh's murder] has a problem of his own. Theo van Gogh was so controversial because of his most explicit way of attacking what he saw as the Muslim danger (though he used the same vitriol against intellectuals, filmmakers he did not agree with, politicians of the wrong side and, lest we forget - back in the eighties when Islam had not distracted his attention yet - Jews.) He called the prophet Mohammed a pedophile, radical Muslim leader Abou Jahjah "the pimp of the prophet" and described Muslims/Moroccans in general as "goat-fuc kers". And therein lies the problem. Smith needs to explain the backgrounds of this murder to the American readers, but "goat-fuc kers, no that word I am absolutely not allowed to use. It's allowed in the Dutch media? Unbelievable. It is really unthinkable that we would say something like that about anyone in America on the radio or TV or in a newspaper. [..]
Interesting if you think about it: an American, scandalised about how, in this Western society, someone has been killed for saying something that ... err ... he would never have been allowed to say in the US in the first place ...
What, for instance, would you envision the 'good talking-to' would have entailed?
and did you read what the islamist said to van gogh's mother in court yesterday?
'If it had been my father I would have done the same thing'
Murder of Theo van Gogh
Trouw
By Hélène Butijn and Kustaw Bessems (my translation)
13 July 2005
Mohammed B. made use of his right to a last word. He spoke using notes that he had been making during the court proceedings.
--------------------
Mohammed B.: Wow." Judge: What are you saying?" B.: I said 'wow'. You have written beautifully. You offer me the opportunity to say something. You will not interrupt me. And I'm allowed to be critical."
Judge: "You can say what you want."
B. starts speaking in Arabic.
Judge: "Now I will interrupt you. To ask the interpretor to translate this."
Interpreter: "This is a usual text when you begin speaking. He says: I want to thank Allah. I ask Allah for help with the words that I'm about to speak. I testify that there is no other God but Allah."
B., in Dutch: "I have thought long whether or not I was going to say something. Before I continue, I want to address what has been said about the reversed world. I assume that was about the defence, Mister Plasman and Mister Sarikaya, here behind my back. (The judge had reproached the lawyers that they had defended their client in the press, but did not state a defence during the court case, ed.) I think and I feel that they do not deserve it that you drag their name through the mud like that. Despite tha fact that the gentlemen know that I do indeed hate their unbelief with heart and soul, they do their work with conviction. In eight, nine months they have been two of the few people of whom I believe that they act from conviction. You can't say that about many people."
"The reason I now say something, is not that I feel obliged to tell this court anything. The only person to whom I am maybe obliged to do so, is the mother of mister Van Gogh. I have to honestly confess that I do not empathise. I do not feel your pain. I can not. I do not know hoe it is to lose a child that you have brought to the world with so much pain and tears. Partly because I am not a woman. Partly I can not empathise with you because you are an unbeliever. You can, may blame me for that."
"I know that the way I behave myself. my attitude yesterday and today, is very confronting for you. And for more people here. And many people know that they are not just looking to a suspect, but that they are also fighting with their own emotions."
"Concerning the indictment: I can completely agree with what the mister public prosecutor has said. In broad lines at least. I take the full responsibility upon me. You have characterised what would eventually have driven me to what I did. I am purely driven by my belief."
"It is indeed cowardly if I would hide here behind the procedural rules by saying nothing. I do not want to escape the chance to get the maximum punishment. Herewith I say straight away what the weakness of this court procedure is. I do not recognize your court procedure. Perhaps you do not recognize my court either.
I did understand from mrs. Van Gogh that she can perhaps find some comfort if the maximum punishment is given and in the fact that I get the maximum prison sentence, that is what I have understood."
"Concerning your expert, mister Peters (professor of Islamic law, ed.): he has indicated that I do indeed have texts that preach violence. He says there are also texts that preach peace. But you did not ask Peters the question when peace is preached and when violence. You have neglected to do so."
"I will not talk about politics here or keep giving a religious strand, I am not here to make a political statement, or a political statement with a religious strand, I will spare you that. But I do want you to know that I acted from conviction. It is not because I hate your son Theo van Gogh so much, not because he is Dutch or because I feel insulted as a Moroccan. I have never felt insulted."
"I can never ... suspect your son of any hypocrisy. He was no hypocrite. He said things from conviction. I know that he said things out of conviction."
(leaves a long silence)
So the whole tale that I would feel insulted as a Moroccan, because he called us goat-fuc kers, is not true at all. I acted from my belief. If it had been my father or my little brother, I would have done the same. You can not suspect me of any sentimentality.
The question this court faces: a maximum punishment, but the suspect gives no insight into his state of mind. But I can assure you: should I be released, I will do exactly the same. Exactly the same. You thought perhaps that I feel imprisoned. I do not feel imprisoned by walls or a small pen. I will tell you: I feel free and I am free. Otherwise, concerning your criticisms: perhaps with Moroccans you mean the muslims. I don't blame you for that. The same law that obliges me to hack off the head of anyone who insults Allah and the Prophet, the same law obliges me to establish myself in a country where, as the prosecutor called it, the 'free word' is proclaimed.
But what, then? I tell you, this reproach of yours... This reproach would have legal validity if there exists a country where people like me can seek refuge. That you stop a man like me, I do not blame you for that, that is your job."
(looks around to face the policemen who are sitting at the back of the courtroom)
And I think that those policemen who on 2 November were also confronted with me, have the right to know that I did not shoot to spare you, but I shot to kill you. And to be killed.
You may send all your psychologists, psychiatrists and experts to me, but I tell you, you will never understand this. You can not. If I am released, and I had the opportunity to once again do what I did on 2 November, wallah (by Allah, ed.), I would have done exactly the same.
Perhaps you know... I am not here to evoke pity or to make reproaches. Perhaps that can be a little comfort to mrs. Van Gogh. Otherwise I do not care, to be honest."
SHOT TO KILL
The Volkskrant prints the words that Bouyeri addressed in court yesterday to the policemen who arrested him. "I shot to kill you and to be killed." The Volkskrant says, "These words came down like a sledgehammer on the eleven police officers who were involved in his arrest. Weeping, they embraced and consoled each other."
In a commentary the Volkskrant writes, "Bouyeri was handed over to the authorities alive. He was thus deprived of dying the martyr's death he desired so fervently - and this should make it amply clear that this course of action is not rewarded in the Dutch penal system."
You don't think he went too far?
