The Dutch, Up-Close

R. Scott Rogers has a fascinating and persuasive post on big picture of Theo van Gogh's murder. Rogers is an American living in Amsterdam and his observations are must-read.

Among his conclusions:

* "The problem today is not Dutch tolerance. It is that, for the first time since the Inquisition, a significant religious minority actively rejects pluralism and wishes to use violence to force others into submission. Dutch pluralism is not the problem. It is the victim."

*"Almost all of the 'reprisal attacks' committed against the Muslim community in the Netherlands have amounted to penny-ante vandalism. The 'firebombs' described in the American press have been the sort of ineffective improvised devices American high schoolers regularly build for pranks. These have mostly been dead-of-night events, the breaking of a few windows here and there when no one could get hurt (or caught). . . . There have been a few cases of serious arson, but those have been committed by Muslims against Christian churches and schools."

* "In the United States, we have had terrorist attacks and we have popular resentment of unassimilated immigrants. But we have not had terrorist campaigns waged against us by resented immigrant groups. Imagine that Mexican Zapatistas assassinated the governor of Texas. Of course there would be reprisal attacks against Mexican immigrants if that happened. . . . how much worse would it be if the Mexican community harbored a massive fifth column of terrorists and their sympathizers bent on overthrowing the U.S. government and destroying Western civilization? So the 'reprisal attacks' and rising resentment of Muslims in general does not prove European moral hypocrisy. It simply demonstrates the greater immediacy of the terrorist threat in Europe."