Thanks for the link, JW. It's all in English, so, a good source for all you Americans. I'm glad you found it.
It's a pretty standard introduction to the topic from an abroad perspective, and I mean that as a good thing - as in, a regular enough take on things (which I'm already quite happy with after that Fox column just now). Most of whats said is fair enough and overall it gives a pretty full and balanced picture of the current situation. And the report does include a variety of viewpoints.
On that latter count tho, I do - unsurprisingly - have a few asides to make (hey - I was keeping notes).
First off, note that the very first person who is interviewed or quoted in the report is Michiel Smit. He's the one who gets to introduce the question of the troubles young Moroccans are causing ("there are quite big groups who are trafficking drugs", etc). Forsure, next up will be Samira Abbos, which is all fine, but - back up the truck here just for a second. The Danish report introduces Michiel Smit simply as "Party leader The New Right". Which he is. But just in case you might be thinking that - what, with him being the first guy to be interviewed and all - we are talking a significant player here, let me add that the New Right, in the only nationwide elections it's taken part in thus far (the European ones), was:
a) the party furthest to the right of all of the some fifteen parties on the ballot and
b) despite Smit being a most charismatic young man, successful in winning just 0,3% of the vote.
Before that, Smit was #2 on the list of the Conservatives.nl in the last parliamentary elections - which got 0,0% of the vote (rounded off).
Now the person who did the English subtitling did add some extra info, introducing Smit as a "Rotterdam city councillor for the List Pim Fortuyn". And he was indeed one of the some 16 or 18 councillors elected there two years ago in the landslide election victory of Liveable Rotterdam, then fronted by Pim Fortuyn himself. But he has since been expelled by Livable Rotterdam because he was too radical even for
them - and specifically, because he refused to cut his ties with neo-nazi groups.
Just to put his appearance in a bit of context, here.
Smit's appearance as the first expert to speak does betray a certain slant in the report. Not necessarily a slant to the
right, mind you. More a bit of a sensationalist slant. I mean, most of the time the report is fair, forsure - and you cant say it doesnt include people from all sides. But just to give another example: later in the report they cover a conference, which is introduced as including "moderates as well as more extreme participants". Now I remember that conference I think (tho I didnt go myself); it was a well-intended but rather bold move by MZine, the rather trendy magazine for young Dutch Moroccans, and the idea was to really get even the most extremes talking together. So everyone was there, all the far fringes. And I find it a tad disingenuous for a report to observe that it's perhaps become too hard to build bridges between the communities in Holland anymore, and then by ways of proof use the occasion to interview someone from the Arab-European League and someone from a group called Forza Holland. I mean, the AEL is the Moroccan-Dutch (and Moroccan-Belgian) equivalent of Malcolm X. And Forza Holland is a nationalist and
highly obscure group - even I've only ever heard of it once. So I mean, you can also just go
find the evidence you need to support your assertion, of course. Its kinda like a Dutch TV crew interviewing David Duke and Al Sharpton (provided the two would ever be able to meet at a conference), and concluding that "the problem of racism in America might not be solvable anymore".
Check: nine minutes into the report, we have happily seen many different Moroccan/Turkish voices with a range of views, but the ethnic Dutch have only been represented yet by two extreme rightists who among them represent just about 0,2% of the Dutch electorate.
So that on an aside. I must admit it was compensated somewhat by hearing Rita Verdonk, our right-wing minister of integration and asylum and, apart from Geert Wilders, the politician to most fiercely have taken the strict line on Muslims and immigrants, address a direct message to Hirsi Ali. Not just because it was interesting and even moving (if a bit gratuitous), but also - I'm admitting a guilty pleasure here - because it included the line "I am fighting for all our liberal rights" - which must have confused American conservatives watching the video no end
The one thing that did annoy me, of course, was the occasional remark added by the subtitler. For example, when the report interviews that Arab-European League guy and he talks about how the Dutch are now just going on and on about how everyone must integrate, and he's "against that", the person doing the subtitles has inserted "What about emigrate?". Err, well, the guy in question is from a generation that was
born in Holland. So emigrate
where, exactly? It gets worse in the ninth minute, when an articulate young Moroccan girl talks about how the Dutch like to
think they're tolerant, but they're only tolerant as long as you dont "enter their comfort zone", at which the subtitler inserts, "Exactly, when you are raping our daughters, and robbing our grandmothers".
Anyway, the subtitlers declare themselves sufficiently at the end, when they superimpose this caption: "This was Horisont [..] a production by Danmarks Radio. A State owned company which has been promoting the multicultural society through many years. As well as defaming Nationalists. Although a certain change in attitude has been made, The daily brainwashing routine keeps going as usual. Father forgive them for they know not what they are doing." Well, in turn I'll forgive the Nationalist subtitler for his two inserts, for there were just two and fair's fair, they did translate all of this report. And laying it next to Fox's take, that surely must be a useful thing. They even included Horisont's web address in that last caption, the sweethearts.
