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Protected: Reformatorisch Dagblad – Internet Editie

Posted on June 28th, 2005 by martijn.
Categories: Murder on theo Van Gogh and related issues, Young Muslims.

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Protected: nu.nl/algemeen | Lid Hofstadgroep in Amsterdam opgepakt (video)

Posted on June 24th, 2005 by martijn.
Categories: Murder on theo Van Gogh and related issues.

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Protected: nu.nl/algemeen | Lid Hofstadgroep in Amsterdam opgepakt (video)

Posted on June 24th, 2005 by martijn.
Categories: Murder on theo Van Gogh and related issues.

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BBC NEWS | UK | Terror arrest ‘link’ to killing

Posted on June 24th, 2005 by .
Categories: Murder on theo Van Gogh and related issues.

BBC NEWS | UK | Terror arrest ‘link’ to killing

A man wanted in the Netherlands for terrorist-related offences has been accused of links to a group suspected of killing film-maker Theo van Gogh.

Racid Belkacem appeared at Bow Street Magistrates’ Court following his arrest in London on the back of an extradition request from the Dutch authorities.

Prosecutors alleged the 32 year-old Dutch national “maintained contact” with members of Hofstad group.

He was remanded in custody ahead of a further hearing on 1 July.

Mr Van Gogh, 47, was shot and stabbed to death in Amsterdam in November last year.

He had received death threats after making the film Submission which accused Islam of promoting violence against women.

Computer files

Mr Belkacem was held by officers from Scotland Yard’s extradition unit in a street in Whitechapel, east London, on Wednesday. He had arrived in the UK in January.

Police said the alleged offences against him involve firearms, forged documentation and terrorist-related recruitment.

Rosemary Fernandes, who detailed the allegations against Mr Belkacem in court, said computer files were found at his house in the Netherlands suggesting “the recruitment of persons for the Jihad”.

She said the authorities also discovered live ammunition and a blank-firing gun which could have been converted to take real bullets.

His lawyer, Mark Summers, indicated the defence would seek to challenge the validity of the extradition warrant.

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BBC NEWS | UK | Terror arrest 'link' to killing

Posted on June 24th, 2005 by martijn.
Categories: Murder on theo Van Gogh and related issues.

BBC NEWS | UK | Terror arrest ‘link’ to killing

A man wanted in the Netherlands for terrorist-related offences has been accused of links to a group suspected of killing film-maker Theo van Gogh.

Racid Belkacem appeared at Bow Street Magistrates’ Court following his arrest in London on the back of an extradition request from the Dutch authorities.

Prosecutors alleged the 32 year-old Dutch national “maintained contact” with members of Hofstad group.

He was remanded in custody ahead of a further hearing on 1 July.

Mr Van Gogh, 47, was shot and stabbed to death in Amsterdam in November last year.

He had received death threats after making the film Submission which accused Islam of promoting violence against women.

Computer files

Mr Belkacem was held by officers from Scotland Yard’s extradition unit in a street in Whitechapel, east London, on Wednesday. He had arrived in the UK in January.

Police said the alleged offences against him involve firearms, forged documentation and terrorist-related recruitment.

Rosemary Fernandes, who detailed the allegations against Mr Belkacem in court, said computer files were found at his house in the Netherlands suggesting “the recruitment of persons for the Jihad”.

She said the authorities also discovered live ammunition and a blank-firing gun which could have been converted to take real bullets.

His lawyer, Mark Summers, indicated the defence would seek to challenge the validity of the extradition warrant.

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BBC NEWS | UK | Dutch terrorism suspect arrested

Posted on June 22nd, 2005 by .
Categories: Murder on theo Van Gogh and related issues.

BBC NEWS | UK | Dutch terrorism suspect arrested
A 32-year-old Dutch man wanted in the Netherlands on suspicion of raising his “own private army” has been arrested by anti-terrorism police in east London.

Racid Belkacem was arrested in a street in Whitechapel following an extradition request from the Dutch authorities.

He is accused of terrorist-related recruitment, firearms offences and forging documentation – all believed to have taken place in the Netherlands.

Mr Belkacem will appear before Bow Street magistrates on Thursday.

Mr Belkacem was arrested by officers from the Metropolitan Police’s extradition unit, aided by anti-terrorist police, at 1515 BST on Wednesday.

The alleged offences are not thought to have targeted the UK.

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BBC NEWS | UK | Dutch terrorism suspect arrested

Posted on June 22nd, 2005 by martijn.
Categories: Murder on theo Van Gogh and related issues.

BBC NEWS | UK | Dutch terrorism suspect arrested
A 32-year-old Dutch man wanted in the Netherlands on suspicion of raising his “own private army” has been arrested by anti-terrorism police in east London.

Racid Belkacem was arrested in a street in Whitechapel following an extradition request from the Dutch authorities.

He is accused of terrorist-related recruitment, firearms offences and forging documentation – all believed to have taken place in the Netherlands.

Mr Belkacem will appear before Bow Street magistrates on Thursday.

Mr Belkacem was arrested by officers from the Metropolitan Police’s extradition unit, aided by anti-terrorist police, at 1515 BST on Wednesday.

The alleged offences are not thought to have targeted the UK.

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Amsterdam University Press – Nederlandse moslims. Van migrant tot burger

Posted on June 22nd, 2005 by .
Categories: Important Publications, Islam in the Netherlands, Multiculti Issues, Murder on theo Van Gogh and related issues, My Research, Religious and Political Radicalization.

Verschijnt binnenkort:

Nederlandse moslims. Van migrant tot burger onder redactie van Dick Douwes, Martijn de Koning en Welmoet Boender.

Nederlandse moslims is een prikkelend themaboek, over geloof, dagelijks leven en integratie van Nederlandse moslims en is geschreven als leidraad voor iedereen die een genuanceerd oordeel wil vormen in het debat over moslims in Nederland.

Het boek gaat over migratie en integratie, islamitische organisaties en geloofsbeleving, jongerencultuur en het islamdebat. De auteurs bekijken welke rol religieuze en andere waarden spelen en hoe deze veranderen.

Als aanvulling bevat het boek een cd-rom met geluids- en videofragmenten met onder meer Hirsi Ali en Ali B. Ook krijgt de lezer een kijkje in een moskee.

Om dit boek te bestellen, stuurt u een e-mail naar bestellingen@aup.nl
(more…)

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Protected: Binding met Nederland vermindert…

Posted on June 17th, 2005 by martijn.
Categories: Murder on theo Van Gogh and related issues, My Research, Religious and Political Radicalization, Young Muslims, Youth culture (as a practice).

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In the Aftermath of the Van Gogh Assassination: The Future of Islam in the Netherlands

Posted on June 17th, 2005 by .
Categories: Important Publications, International Terrorism, Murder on theo Van Gogh and related issues, Religious and Political Radicalization, Young Muslims.

On ICT – Terrorism & Counter-Terrorism an article of one of my VU co-workers Jeffrey Schwerzel. He cultural anthropologist at the Vrije Universiteit of Amsterdam. He is currently working on his PhD thesis.

The assassination of filmmaker Theo van Gogh rocked Dutch society and politics. In the aftermath of the murder, the government has set about a process of fundamentally changing its policies towards Islam, Muslims, and integration. These issues have become issues of national security. Vice Prime Minister Zalm stated that �We will wage war against extremism.�[1] The impact of the new policies will be immense. Other countries in Europe are closely watching the Netherlands, and will likely follow suit with similar policy changes.

The preoccupation with security may skew the resulting policies in ways that may further antagonize groups in Dutch society. For example, the new legislation proposed will only be applied to Muslim extremists and this will confirm to some Muslims that these policies are targeted against them as a group. The processes the government has set in motion are not as predictable as the government may wish; integration can be stimulated but not enforced. The combined effect of the government�s policies may thus serve to speed up the rapid and unpredictable social changes in Dutch society, rather than calm tensions down. Further upheaval awaits us.

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Protected: NRC Handelsblad – Binnenland: Nieuwe verdachte bij Hofstadgroep

Posted on June 15th, 2005 by martijn.
Categories: Murder on theo Van Gogh and related issues.

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The Dutch-Muslim Culture War – Yahoo! News

Posted on June 12th, 2005 by .
Categories: Gender, Kinship & Marriage Issues, Internal Debates, Islam in the Netherlands, Murder on theo Van Gogh and related issues, My Research, Religious and Political Radicalization, Young Muslims.

In The Nation an article of Deborah Scroggins (placed on Yahoo! News) on The Dutch-Muslim Culture War

It has become a nice article that centres around Hirsi Ali. I have a small contribution in it (in italics) and for the record, no I do not investigate jihadi-groups. And I also do not work at Leiden University but at ISIM in Leiden.

Meanwhile, Hirsi Ali focused her broadsides more and more plainly on Islam itself. She wrote that the Prophet Mohammed was a “despicable” individual who had married “the 9-year-old daughter of his best friend.” “Mohammed is, by our Western standards, a perverse man,” she wrote. “A tyrant. He is against free speech. If you do not do what he says, then you will have an unhappy ending. It makes me think of all those megalomaniac rulers in the Middle East: bin Laden, Khomeini, Saddam.” By this point, Hirsi Ali had gravitated further to the right; she left the Labor Party for the center-right Liberal VVD Party and won a parliamentary seat in 2003.

Hirsi Ali’s many critics contend that far from being a revolutionary, she brings a message that the West is all too willing to hear. They say that in calling for European governments to protect Muslim women from Muslim men, she and her admirers recycle the same Orientalist tropes that the West has used since colonial times as an excuse to control and subjugate Muslims. “White men saving black women from black men–it’s a very old fantasy that is always popular,” Annelies Moors, a University of Amsterdam anthropologist who writes about Islamic gender relations, said dryly. “But I don’t think male violence against women, a phenomenon known to every society in history, can be explained by a few Koranic verses.”

Moors and others don’t dispute the existence of the social problems Hirsi Ali identifies. Many Dutch Muslim women do live in segregated “parallel cities” where Islamic social codes are enforced. Muslims make up only 5.5 percent of the Dutch population, but they account for more than half the women in battered women’s shelters and more than half of those seeking abortions. Muslim girls have far higher suicide rates than non-Muslim girls. Some Muslim girls, mostly African, are genitally mutilated. But in putting all the blame on Islam, they say, Hirsi Ali ignores the influence of patriarchal custom as well as the work of a generation of Muslim feminists. They point to thinkers like Fatima Mernissi and Amina Wadud, who have shown that Islam’s sacred texts can be interpreted in a more female-friendly way. And they say Hirsi Ali avoids mention of the role the West has played and continues to play in assisting the rise of the Islamist movements. “The rightist forces and the radical Islamists feed on each other, and she contributes to that,” Moors said.

Karima Belhaj is the director of the largest women’s shelter in Amsterdam. She’s also one of the organizers of the “Stop the Witchhunt!” campaign against what she sees as anti-Muslim hysteria. On the day we talked, she was despondent. Arsonists had set fire for the second time to an Islamic school in the town of Uden. A few days later a regional police unit warned that the rise of right-wing Dutch youth gangs potentially presents a more dangerous threat to the country than Islamist terrorism. “The rise of Islamism is not the problem,” Belhaj said. “The problem is that hatred against Arabs and Muslims is shown in this country without any shame.” With her message that Muslim women must give up their faith and their families if they want to be liberated, Hirsi Ali is actually driving women into the arms of the fundamentalists, said Belhaj: “She attacks their values, so they are wearing more and more veils. It frightens me. I’m losing my country. I’m losing my people.”

If Belhaj was sad, another “Stop the Witchhunt!” organizer was angry. Like Belhaj, Miriyam Aouragh is a second-generation immigrant of Moroccan background. A self-described peace and women’s activist, Aouragh was the first in her family to attend university. She’s now studying for a PhD in anthropology. She scoffs at the idea that Hirsi Ali is a champion of oppressed Muslim women. “She’s nothing but an Uncle Tom,” Aouragh said. “She has never fought for the oppressed. In fact, she’s done the opposite. She uses these problems as a cover to attack Islam. She insults me and she makes my life as a feminist ten times harder because she forces me to be associated with anti-Muslim attacks.”

Aouragh accuses Hirsi Ali and her political allies of deliberately fostering the hostility that has led to the attacks on Islamic institutions and to police brutality against young Muslim men. “I’m surprised the Arab-Muslim community isn’t more angry with her,” Aouragh said. “When she talks about Muslims as violent people, and Muslim men as rapists, this is very insulting. She calls the Prophet a pedophile. Theo van Gogh called the Prophet a pimp, a goat-fucker. Well, no, we don’t accept that.”

Although the press has focused on the threats against critics of Islam like Hirsi Ali and Geert Wilders, Aouragh says that there have been many more attacks on Dutch Muslims than on non-Muslims. She suspects that what the Dutch really fear is not Islamic fundamentalism but the prospect of having to deal with a new generation of highly educated young Muslims who demand a fair hearing for their values. “We are telling them, ‘We have rights, too. You have to change your idea about freedom or face the consequences.'”

Whatever happens to Hirsi Ali, the debate she helped polarize over women and Islam is sure to spread and intensify all over Europe in the next few years. As Ronald Inglehart and Pippa Norris have argued in their book Rising Tide, the true clash of opinions between Islam and the West is not about democracy but sex. Successive World Values Surveys, in which social scientists polled public opinion in more than eighty countries between 1981 and 2001, have shown that people in Muslim countries share broadly the same views on political participation as people in the West. What they disagree strongly about is gender equality and sexual liberalization.

In the United States the distinction is not as sharply drawn. Conservative Muslims are not the only religious group here opposed to what they see as sexual license; it’s their opposition to Israel and US foreign policy, not their sexual politics, that sets American Muslims apart from the rest of the right. But in Europe, acceptance of gender equality and homosexuality have become core values across the political spectrum, said Jocelyne Cesari, a Harvard research associate and the author of When Islam and Democracy Meet. “Here it is part of a national debate that doesn’t involve immigrants only,” Cesari said. “In Europe, this is seen as proof that Muslims are still outsiders whose values are in contradiction to ours.”

Islamist thinkers have often argued that women are the key to culture, since they have the responsibility of raising children. An emerging coalition of European feminist and anti-immigration forces seems to be adopting the same view. In France, Belgium, Germany and Scandinavia, as in the Netherlands, the “woman question” is at the center of the debate over how to integrate the Muslim community. “I know most of my Muslim friends will disagree with me, but in my opinion the gender issue is the most important issue,” says Martijn de Koning, an anthropologist at Leiden University who studies jihadi groups. “The head scarf, the Islamic schools, the policy of family reunification–every debate here more or less concerns the position of women.”

Hirsi Ali is only the most prominent of a number of young Muslim women who have lately begun to criticize their own communities for their treatment of women. In Sweden, Fadime Sahindal campaigned against forced marriages before her father killed her in 2002 for having a relationship with a Swedish man. In France, Fadela Amara heads the Ni Putes ni Soumises (“Neither Whores nor Submissives”) movement against Islamist groups she calls “the green fascists.” In Germany, where six honor killings have taken place just this year, Seyran Ates, a Berlin-based lawyer, has charged the government with allowing Islamic fundamentalism to flourish under a policy of false tolerance.

I really do think the gender-issues is the key-issue, at least in Europe (as Cesari also acknowledges in this article) It is for Muslims as well as for non-Muslims. That is not very surprisingly. Gender-issues are often the most important boundary-markers between insiders and outsiders for all groups. Of course it is more than a boundary marker. There are some real issues like domestic violence. It isn’t true however that half of the women in women’s shelters are Muslim. It is probably about one third; still too much of course. I don’t know exactly about the suicide rates, but they are higher among most of the immigrant girls compared to native dutch. Also all these statistics don’t include Muslims but ethnicity and nationality. So it is implied that every Turk or Moroccan woman is also a (practising) Muslim.

(more…)

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Protected: de Volkskrant – Ronselen voor jihad gaat door in de cel

Posted on June 11th, 2005 by martijn.
Categories: International Terrorism, Murder on theo Van Gogh and related issues, Religious and Political Radicalization.

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Protected: NRC Handelsblad – Binnenland: Kabinet wil haatzaaiende zenders weren

Posted on June 11th, 2005 by martijn.
Categories: International Terrorism, Murder on theo Van Gogh and related issues, Young Muslims.

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Uitzending gemist – KRO Profiel

Posted on June 9th, 2005 by .
Categories: Murder on theo Van Gogh and related issues.

Het KRO-programma Profiel begint, voor mij dan, een mooie serie te worden met korte, interessante docu’s. Gisteren een uitzending over Mohammed B. die is terug te vinden nu bij Uitzending gemist
Profiel: Mohammed B. gijzelde zusje
(KRO)

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Expatica – Mohammed B. kidnapped 'dishonourable' sister

Posted on June 9th, 2005 by martijn.
Categories: Murder on theo Van Gogh and related issues.

Expatica – Mohammed B. kidnapped ‘dishonourable’ sister

AMSTERDAM — The Islamic man arrested for the murder of Theo van Gogh last year briefly held his younger sister captive in 2001 because she allegedly brought dishonour to the family.

Mohammed B.’s sister was having a relationship with a Moroccan man without the family’s knowledge, public broadcaster KRO will report on Wednesday night.

An Amsterdam police spokesman confirmed B. had refused to allow the girl to leave the family’s Amsterdam West home. The spokesperson declined to provide further details.

The kidnapping took place shortly after B. served time in jail for a violent offence.

The girl alerted police to her captivity and two officers visited the family home
to seek a resolution to the dispute.
The situation blew over when the friend of the sister officially introduced himself to the family.

Mohammed B. was arrested shortly after the 2 November murder of van Gogh in Amsterdam. The Dutch-Moroccan 27-year-old has confessed to the killing.

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Expatica – Mohammed B. kidnapped ‘dishonourable’ sister

Posted on June 9th, 2005 by .
Categories: Murder on theo Van Gogh and related issues.

Expatica – Mohammed B. kidnapped ‘dishonourable’ sister

AMSTERDAM — The Islamic man arrested for the murder of Theo van Gogh last year briefly held his younger sister captive in 2001 because she allegedly brought dishonour to the family.

Mohammed B.’s sister was having a relationship with a Moroccan man without the family’s knowledge, public broadcaster KRO will report on Wednesday night.

An Amsterdam police spokesman confirmed B. had refused to allow the girl to leave the family’s Amsterdam West home. The spokesperson declined to provide further details.

The kidnapping took place shortly after B. served time in jail for a violent offence.

The girl alerted police to her captivity and two officers visited the family home
to seek a resolution to the dispute.
The situation blew over when the friend of the sister officially introduced himself to the family.

Mohammed B. was arrested shortly after the 2 November murder of van Gogh in Amsterdam. The Dutch-Moroccan 27-year-old has confessed to the killing.

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Protected: nu.nl/algemeen | Jongeren vervolgd voor racisme tijdens carnaval

Posted on June 7th, 2005 by martijn.
Categories: Multiculti Issues, Murder on theo Van Gogh and related issues, Religious and Political Radicalization.

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Protected: nu.nl/algemeen | Jongeren vervolgd voor racisme tijdens carnaval

Posted on June 7th, 2005 by martijn.
Categories: Multiculti Issues, Murder on theo Van Gogh and related issues, Religious and Political Radicalization.

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OM: two Chechens held in Van Gogh murder inquiries

Posted on May 27th, 2005 by .
Categories: Murder on theo Van Gogh and related issues.

OM: two Chechens held in Van Gogh murder inquiries

AMSTERDAM � Two Chechen men have been arrested in recent weeks in connection with inquiries into the murder of Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh.

French police arrested 25-year-old Bislan I. at the request of Dutch justice officials earlier this month. His fingerprint was allegedly found on a document among the belongings of Mohammed B., the man who has confessed to Van Gogh’s murder.

Another Chechen man was arrested mid-April, the Public Prosecutor’s Office (OM) in Amsterdam revealed on Thursday. Marat J., 22, was arrested in Schiedam.
(more…)

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Expatica – Islamic school arsonists might escape jail terms

Posted on May 18th, 2005 by .
Categories: Misc. News, Murder on theo Van Gogh and related issues.

Islamic school arsonists might escape jail terms

The Bedir Islamic primary school in Uden was burnt to the ground in a blaze caused by a Molotov cocktail
on 9 November last year. An attempt had been made to burn a mosque in Uden three days earlier.

The attacks were preceded by the murder of filmmaker Theo van Gogh in Amsterdam by a suspected Islamic militant on 2 November. The killing sparked a series of retaliatory attacks against Muslims

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Protected: 'Ik zou graag met Mohammed B. praten'

Posted on May 17th, 2005 by martijn.
Categories: Murder on theo Van Gogh and related issues.

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Protected: ‘Ik zou graag met Mohammed B. praten’

Posted on May 17th, 2005 by martijn.
Categories: Murder on theo Van Gogh and related issues.

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Mak in het 'Land van Ooit'

Posted on May 15th, 2005 by martijn.
Categories: Important Publications, Misc. News, Multiculti Issues, Murder on theo Van Gogh and related issues, Uncategorized.

Op 27 november publiceerde Geert Mak ‘een kleine geschiedenis van november‘ over Nederland van en na Van Gogh. Een zeer interessant en lezenswaardig stuk vooral als je in ogenschouw neemt dat het zo snel na de moord is geschreven. Goed, er zaten wel wat missers in, en niet iedereen deelde zijn kritiek op de term ‘moslimterrorisme’, maar ik vond het een goed stuk. Juist ook vanwege de kritiek op de term ‘moslimterrorisme‘.

Mijn verbazing was dan ook groot toen zijn pamflet Gedoemd tot kwetsbaarheid verscheen. Ongekend veel fouten (met groot enthousiasme gezocht door velen en gevonden dus ook)en zeer boude vergelijking tussen Submission en ‘Der ewige Jude’. Dat Mak stelt dat het hier om een technische vergelijking gaat en hij beide films niet op het zelfde plan plaatst, ok daar ga ik in mee aangezien dat ook wel mijn indruk was bij het lezen van dat (overigens zeer kleine) deel. Probleem is natuurlijk dat hij daarmee de schijn wekt dat het een neutrale vergelijking is en dat is het niet. WOII en de nazi’s vormen een soort moreel ijkpunt, een brandpunt van alles wat slecht is en iedere vergelijking krijgt dat automatisch mee.

Nu is er dan eindelijk zijn reactie o p schrift en bij het programma Rondom Tien. Oordeel zelf maar:
(more…)

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Mak in het ‘Land van Ooit’

Posted on May 15th, 2005 by .
Categories: Important Publications, Misc. News, Multiculti Issues, Murder on theo Van Gogh and related issues, Uncategorized.

Op 27 november publiceerde Geert Mak ‘een kleine geschiedenis van november‘ over Nederland van en na Van Gogh. Een zeer interessant en lezenswaardig stuk vooral als je in ogenschouw neemt dat het zo snel na de moord is geschreven. Goed, er zaten wel wat missers in, en niet iedereen deelde zijn kritiek op de term ‘moslimterrorisme’, maar ik vond het een goed stuk. Juist ook vanwege de kritiek op de term ‘moslimterrorisme‘.

Mijn verbazing was dan ook groot toen zijn pamflet Gedoemd tot kwetsbaarheid verscheen. Ongekend veel fouten (met groot enthousiasme gezocht door velen en gevonden dus ook)en zeer boude vergelijking tussen Submission en ‘Der ewige Jude’. Dat Mak stelt dat het hier om een technische vergelijking gaat en hij beide films niet op het zelfde plan plaatst, ok daar ga ik in mee aangezien dat ook wel mijn indruk was bij het lezen van dat (overigens zeer kleine) deel. Probleem is natuurlijk dat hij daarmee de schijn wekt dat het een neutrale vergelijking is en dat is het niet. WOII en de nazi’s vormen een soort moreel ijkpunt, een brandpunt van alles wat slecht is en iedere vergelijking krijgt dat automatisch mee.

Nu is er dan eindelijk zijn reactie o p schrift en bij het programma Rondom Tien. Oordeel zelf maar:
(more…)

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