Flames engulfed a mosque in southeastern Netherlands early Saturday, in the latest series attacks following the murder of a controversial Dutch filmmaker. Meanwhile, tensions are continuing to rise as fears of Islamic extremism permeate through the country.

Since the Nov. 2 killing of filmmaker Theo van Gogh by a suspected Muslim radical, there have been more than 20 incidents of fires and vandalism at Muslim buildings—and a handful of retaliatory attacks on Christian churches, reported by the Associated Press.

In the latest incident on Saturday, which occurred in the village of Helden near the German border, a Muslim mosque was largely destroyed.

There was no immediate word on the cause.

Van Gogh’s murder last Tuesday, which has been linked to Islamic extremists, has brought calls for a crackdown on fundamentalists and renegade preachers, the UK-based Scotsman reported on Nov. 7.

Van Gogh, who had made a controversial film about Islamic culture, was shot and stabbed to death in Amsterdam as he cycled to work. A note pinned to his chest with a knife threatened Islamic holy war, or Jihad, against non-Muslims.

Since then, racial tension and hostility towards foreigners has been on the rise leading to calls from the white Dutch community for Muslims either to accept “Western ways” or leave the country. Even once liberal commentators now want Muslim hardliners to be thrown out of the country, the Scotsman reports, even if they have Dutch passports, and greater surveillance of the wider Islamic community.

"If this is what has happened to this man, who did nothing but express his opinion, then one can no longer live decently in this land," said Justice minister Piet Hein Donner, regarded as a stern Calvinist with little in common with the ultra-permissive outlook personified by van Gogh.

The Netherlands-based Volkskrant newspaper declared that while Muslims might be infuriated by Van Gogh’s film, they should have taken the filmmaker to court rather than engaging in acts of violence.

It said, "Muslims will have to learn that, in a democracy, religion, too, is open to criticism—this applies to Islam no less than to Christianity. Theo van Gogh, in this respect, always purposefully went to the limits of decency.

"Many have regularly had reason to feel hurt or offended by him. In a democracy, those who want to defend themselves against this can go to court. Any other curtailment of free speech is inadmissible."

The Dutch cabinet, meanwhile, has made it clear that it is considering new ways to tackle Muslim extremists, including stripping criminals with dual citizenship of their Dutch nationality, increasing police powers and boosting the budget of the security service.

Van Gogh, whose great-great-grandfather was the brother of artist Vincent van Gogh, has been described as the Netherlands’ Michael Moore.

His ten-minute film, “Submission,” which criticised the treatment of women under Islam, caused uproar in the country when it was broadcast at the end of August.

Van Gogh claimed that he had been deliberately cautious, and would have made the film differently if he really had wanted to shock.

Nevertheless, death threats were soon received up until the time of his death.

The 26-year-old Dutch-Moroccan accused of van Gogh’s murder, identified by Dutch media as “Mohammed B,” is said to have been a peripheral member of a Netherlands-based international network of Islamic radicals called the "Hofstadnetwerk" which Dutch security services have been trailing since the summer of 2002, according to a Financial Times correspondent in Amsterdam.

Subsequent arrests have given European security officials important new insights into the fragmented and localised character of the terrorist threat.

According to the correspondent, experts fear they are witnessing the start of a new phase of the threat that bears little resemblance to the original al-Qaeda network.

Most recently, Dutch police raided sites across the Netherlands and arrested 37 people suspected of training to become paramilitary members of the Kurdistan Workers' Party, a group labeled a terrorist movement in the European Union.




Kenneth Chan
Ecumenical Press