Islam in the Netherlands. Another political murder

For the second time in two years a horrific murder has traumatised Dutch society

THE first time the Dutch hoped it was a freak incident. But a second political murder in the Netherlands in the space of two years has left this country, which has long prided itself on its tolerant, liberal values, in deep shock. Dutch people fear that they may now live in a place where violence has become a way of settling differences of opinion - especially over rocky relations with a growing Muslim minority.

An outspoken and provocative film director, Theo van Gogh, was murdered in Amsterdam on the morning of November 2nd. A 26-year-old Dutch Moroccan apparently emptied a magazine of bullets into his victim, knifed him as he lay dying and left a note stabbed into his body. He was arrested after a shoot-out with police. Ironically, Mr Van Gogh was killed as he was cycling to the studio to finish editing a film about the previous political murder, of the flamboyant anti-immigrant populist Pim Fortuyn in May 2002. Fortuyn, whom Mr Van Gogh admired, was killed by an animal-rights activist of ethnic-Dutch origin. At the time the fact that the killer was neither Muslim nor an immigrant was greeted with relief by politicians and public alike.

No such relief this time. The victim was an outspoken and often offensive critic of Islam, who once called radical Islamist immigrants “a fifth column of goatfuckers”. His killer was a jallaba-clad Muslim immigrant and associate of a radical group that Dutch intelligence has been watching. Police arrested eight more Islamist suspects the next day. The justice minister said the murder stemmed from “radical Islamic beliefs”. Mr Van Gogh was killed a few months after the screening on television of his film “Submission”. The film, based on a screenplay by a Dutch parliamentarian, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, features a Muslim woman in a see-through burqa telling a story of abuse within her marriage; she has text from the Koran condoning family violence written on to her naked body.

Ms Hirsi Ali is a Somali refugee who has made a career in Dutch politics by standing against radical Islam and defending her adopted homeland's liberal values. She even quit the Dutch Labour Party for the liberals because she thought it too soft on illiberal Islam. Both she and Mr Van Gogh received death threats after “Submission” was shown. She accepted protection, but he waved the threats away, saying he was just “a merry village fool”. Who would want to kill somebody like that?

The government labelled the murder an “act against freedom of expression”, and organised an Amsterdam rally against it. The protesters worried that the killing might be a sign that they are no longer free to express controversial views, or pursue the most outlandish lifestyles, without fearing for their personal safety.

Despite the speedy condemnation of the murder by most Muslim organisations, it could still provoke a sharper clash. This is more worrying since the Netherlands is a country where, at least economically, immigrants do better than in many others. Although they are worse off than the ethnic Dutch, there is no immigrant underclass, and no real ghettos exist. Some immigrants are, like Ms Hirsi Ali, already joining the Dutch middle class, both in incomes and in lifestyle.

Despite the harsh debate begun by Fortuyn three years ago, the country suffers from little overt racism. Fortuyn himself insisted that he was no racist, and bitterly dissented from comparisons between his party and France's National Front. Many immigrant groups, such as Surinamese, Chinese or eastern Europeans, fit quite happily into the Netherlands.

But the gulf between the ethnic Dutch and Muslims has widened (there are almost 1m Muslims in a total population of 16m). Misunderstandings tend to centre around slippery cultural values and social norms. To many Dutch people, the idea of building a multicultural society has failed. Fortuyn's rise to fame three years ago was a sign of how widespread this view had become. Integration is the buzzword now. Many Dutch feel that the time has come for the Muslim minority to adjust to where they live and adopt Dutch values - precisely the view espoused by Ms Hirsi Ali.

The debate is coming at a moment when the Dutch are fretting over a general weakening of their social cohesion. Many see immigrants as at best a symbol of this change, and at worst as one of its causes. After this week, more will feel threatened because their Muslim neighbours do not share their liberal values. Dutch hostility to the prospect of Turkish membership of the European Union may also intensify.

The hard-hitting policies of the current immigration minister, Rita Verdonk, have been adjusted to respond to such fears. They include such measures as limiting the influx of immigrants by arranged marriages and making more effort to integrate newcomers into Dutch society, for example by compelling them to learn the Dutch language.

Many immigrants say the government's aim is full assimilation. They attack what they see as a lack of knowledge and respect for their own cultural and social norms. And many Dutch of Moroccan and Turkish origin feel offended that they are still officially tagged as “foreign” despite being born and educated in the Netherlands. But that is not likely to change now. Instead, more public figures have been calling on Muslim groups to accept the liberal society they find themselves in - and on the government to force them to if they will not do so voluntarily.

For the second time in two years a horrific murder (that of Dutch filmmaker, Theo van Gogh) has traumatised Dutch society.