Posted on 11/12/2004 6:23:42 PM PST by Ginifer
The Muslim woman adjusted her head scarf and gazed wearily at her daughters' elementary school Friday, one of many Islamic sites attacked since a Muslim radical allegedly murdered a Dutch filmmaker who criticized Islam.
An explosion earlier in the week not only shattered windows and doors - it damaged the Muslim community's faith in the tolerance of their neighbors.
One mother said the attack made her afraid. "I always thought the Netherlands was the safest place in the whole world, but if you see all that's happening, I don't know anymore," said the woman, who didn't want to be quoted by name for fear of reprisals. "I didn't know what to tell my daughter. She asked me: `Mommy, why us? All we did was go to school.'"
In Amsterdam, meanwhile, Queen Beatrix made her first public appearance since the slaying of Theo van Gogh and sought to assuage Muslims' anxieties by reaching out to Islamic youths.
One woman who met the monarch, 26-year-old Naziha Daoudi, said she had not felt safe on the streets since the Nov. 2 killing.
"We have to watch a lot of Dutch people watching us like we're criminals," said Daoudi, who works at the Argan Moroccan youth center. "The Dutch community doesn't know much about Islam. They think (Muslims) are all the same."
The arrest of Muslim militant Mohammed Bouyeri, 26, as the main suspect in the killing has been followed by what seems to be a cycle of retaliation between Christian and Muslim extremists. A half-dozen arson attacks on Muslim buildings were answered by fire bombings that caused minor damage at churches in Rotterdam, Utrecht and Amersfoort.
After Monday's pre-dawn attack on the Islamic school in this sprawling southern industrial city of 200,000 people, another Muslim school was gutted by fire in the town of Uden. On Wednesday, Dutch youths brawled with Turks and Moroccans in the first direct ethnic confrontation since Van Gogh's murder.
For Muslims, the conservative government's reaction to the slaying has been almost as disturbing as the violence: Officials have moved swiftly to tighten controls on the nation's Islamic minority.
On Friday, parliament asked the government to draft legislation that would compel Dutch mosques to employ only imams who have studied Islam in the Netherlands. Legislators are also considering laws that would enable the closure of mosques that spread non-Dutch values.
Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende promised "a hard-line approach to those who want to wreck" Dutch society. He also pledged more money to combat terrorist groups, stricter monitoring of foreign funding for Holland's roughly 500 mosques, and new government powers to revoke Dutch nationality for terrorism suspects with dual citizenship.
As legislators met in The Hague, hundreds of neighbors, students and parents of children who attend Eindhoven's damaged Tarieq Ibnu Zyad Islamic school staged a protest against anti-Muslim violence.
"Because the killer is a Muslim from Morocco all Muslims are now being blamed for the act of one person," said one father, who also feared being quoted by name.
Wisam Akhzane, 11, nervously clung to a friend's jacket when talking about the attack. "I hope everything gets better. I'm really sad and my family is very worried about what's happening."
Ethnic tensions have become increasingly evident in recent years. About 6 percent of the Netherlands' 16 million people are Muslim, and the proportion is around a third in major cities like Rotterdam, Amsterdam and The Hague.
Van Gogh, whose movie "Submission" sharply criticized the treatment of women under Islam and who aimed other criticisms at Muslim, was stabbed and shot to death on an Amsterdam street. Authorities claim Bouyeri, a Dutch-Moroccan charged in the killing, was part of a radical Muslim network.
Anti-terror squads have made dozens of arrests in recent days, claiming to have picked up members of an international terrorist network with ties to the Van Gogh case. An Amsterdam court on Friday extended the detention of five other alleged conspirators.
Officials also said Friday that a 43-year-old Syrian believed to be the head of an Amsterdam terror cell had eluded arrest. The Syrian's name was not released, but he was said to have stayed at Bouyeri's home and led spiritual meetings there.
Younes Abiyaala, 21, of the Argan Moroccan youth center in Amsterdam, said that every time a Moroccan is accused of a crime, he feels many Dutch people blame all Moroccans.
"Personally, I'm tired that every time I have to give answers," he said. "Please open your eyes ... We are one community and one people, and we have to overcome this together."
Yo...Dutch Muslims..."No sh!t, Sherlock...welcome to the real world.
These folks can reduce the sense of personal tension by returning to their homelands.
Quote: ""We have to watch a lot of Dutch people watching us like we're criminals," said Daoudi, who works at the Argan Moroccan youth center. "The Dutch community doesn't know much about Islam. They think (Muslims) are all the same."
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Well, was there any organized Muslim outcry or protests over this killing?
None that made it to press as far as I can tell.
Welcome to the world they have created.
Fear works both ways. Deal with it.
I don't notice any grief for Van Gogh's murder, just grief that the Dutch don't seem quite so friendly.
Because we are Muslims, dear. It's just like us hating the Jews. You know, the hatred that you learn to do in school.
"The Dutch community doesn't know much about Islam. They think (Muslims) are all the same."
DUH
maybe their finaly waking up, Burka Biach
...it's a Muslim thing...
Hope their a$$ they fear backlash. Now maybe they'll police their own ranks.
Someone in the Netherlands should crank up Pink Floyd's "You Better Run." That'll get their attention all the more.
Gee, Ya' Think!?!
It's about time they started to learn that they can't act like savages and assume it's a one-way street when it comes to Western Culture.
Not only the Netherlands, but soon enough France and Germany will all have very tough decisions to make - fight back against this brutal intolerance of this "religion of peace" or kiss their culture and society farewell.
Only then will they appreciate and understand what the United States, Britain, Poland and our other steadfast allies have been fighting for.
Has anyone noticed that whenever there is some new Islamic outrage, the only thing we hear from them is fear of reprisals, not remorse over what was done?
Be afraid! Be very afraid!
You thought wrong. Now get the hell out.
"We have to watch a lot of Dutch people watching us like we're criminals," said Daoudi, who works at the Argan Moroccan youth center. "The Dutch community doesn't know much about Islam. They think (Muslims) are all the same."
You are, Islamic dirtbag murderers; you are.
I think the center-left government is just "looking busy". They need Pim Fortuyn's party in power to take care of business with the Muslims.
Yeah go to a terrorist supporting Madrassa school. Until the Moslems rise up and cleanse themselves of the current situation, I think they should all be dealt with in the harshest possible manner
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