The Brief Dutch Sharia Eruption
How political expediency has replaced political correctness in the Netherlands
When Ayaan Hirsi Ali published her autobiography, entitled "My Freedom", last week she commented that immigration and integration issues in The Netherlands were far from being solved; that more confrontations by opposing sides in the debate were likely. It is therefore remarkable that the key players in the Dutch election campaign so far have stayed away from this particular hot button and focused on more mundane issues such as universal childcare and retirement benefits.
There are a number of possible reasons for this. One is that those that have initiated that particular debate are either dead (van Gogh, Fortuyn) or have left the country (Hirsi Ali herself). Their political heirs have not exactly been able to grab the limelight and if they did, it was often too controversial (Verdonk, Wilders). Other explanations are that the voters have opted for a more pragmatic "let's ignore it for now" approach, a position gladly mirrored by many Dutch politicians.
Nevertheless, the Dutch tension over immigration and integration remains palpable and it takes very little to let it erupt. A few weeks ago, Justice Minister Donner - known for his overly legalistic approach to most issues - said in an interview that if two-thirds of the Dutch population would support it, the Dutch constitution would have to be amended in order to introduce Sharia law. The immediate broad public outburst over the minister's remarks was, given their factual and legal basis in the principle of majority rule, surprising.
Nobody seemed to realize that when Donner was talking about a nation that opted for abandoning liberal democracy in favor of implementing Sharia it was one that would likely be very different from the one that the Dutch inhabit today. Donner's scenario was thus highly speculative and even if it were to come to fruition, would, to use Mark Steyn's estimate, not occur until the year 2050.
Even then the demographic projections of today would have to materialize, and we would have to assume that all Muslim immigrants in the lowlands would remain unintegrated, rejecting all the great things that a free democracy had to offer. So, Donner's theoretical approach should have given commentators some pause and most could have argued, "Well, the man is technically right, but we will have to ask ourselves if we should get all that excited about it today?" But that didn't happen.
Donner more than anyone - he was, after all, the man ultimately in charge of the prosecution of Van Gogh's killer and the jihadist Hofstad Group - should have realized how sensitive an issue like this is. In retrospect he should have qualified his statements to some extent. Still, the reactions to his statement revealed once more that the raw emotions over Islam run very deep in the Netherlands. They show that no matter how excellent the budget surpluses and tax reductions, the Dutch people remain, at the end of the day, deeply fearful over a future nation where Sharia law may indeed start to play a significant role in Dutch life. A good example of this occurred last week when a project developer in the city of Rotterdam launched a plan to build an Islamic hospital where men and women - staff and patients - would be strictly separated. It did not exactly receive a warm round of applause and caused some to dust off that long forgotten word of 'apartheid'.
What is even more interesting is the debate that ensued over the boundaries of voting in free democracies. If a situation could arise where a majority could agree to shred a constitution in favor of religious law - and one from the Middle Ages at that - than doesn't a democracy have an obligation to devise mechanism whereby such choices could be neutralized?
A democracy, it was argued by some, needs teeth, even if that means that democratic choices could somehow - a clear mechanism was of course never offered - be rejected. It was both interesting and surprising to see the nation's eminent historian, H.W. von der Dunk, float the idea of a 'qualified democracy' where citizens would have to pass a certain test before they could be eligible to vote. It would keep the easily influenced masses out of the voting booth and, so the argument goes, it would leave some wiser men and women in charge of the decisions that affect a society. Whatever the merits, it was for the Dutch to talk about extra-democratic measures to protect democracy. This discussion was unhead of until very recently and quite possibly something that will remain on the radar screen for as long as the prospect of Sharia law or more jihadist terror remains present.
Donner in the meantime has resigned, not over his Sharia commentary, but over his political responsibility for a fire on Amsterdam's Schiphol airport that killed eleven people, most illegal immigrants, in a cell block where fire regulations had been sloppy. His controversial remarks however have once more revealed the very deep unease and to some extent the cluelessness that continues to haunt Dutch society when it comes to the far reaching consequences of integrating a different culture into their own.
The fact that the storm over Donner's comments died down as quickly as it started either reflects their highly theoretical nature or the far reaching implications they have for defining the Dutch democracy of tomorrow. It is probably a combination of both, but I am tilting towards the latter.
When the times are relatively good, there usually is little appetite for politicians to wade into these unpredictable waters. It can turn against you, and in the Europe of today it could even kill you. No, it is not the now largely defunct political correctness that is covering up the debate over religion, culture and integration. It is political expediency. The price of which, as always, will have to be paid further down the road.
This article originally appeared on Pajamas Media on October 3, 2006
