School segregation based on religious denomination is known since long ago and is characteristic for the Dutch educational system. School segregation that is now central in the contemporary educational debate however is ethnically based and is caused by several factors such as housing segregation, social economic background and the “white flight” due to ethnic rejection and avoidance of educational and behavioral problems existing in black schools.
For educational and social reasons, promoting mixed “grey schools” scored high on the political agenda in the last three decades. Unfortunately however, the realization and effectiveness of such schools are overestimated and are based on a number of inaccurate assumptions.

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It is commonly known that Dutch media’s reports on Islam and Muslims are subjective and prejudiced. Because of their overwhelming interest in sensational news, media make themselves guilty of a number of things such as concentrating on generalization and stigmatization when presenting events and statements. This also applies to the simplification of Muslim culture, dividing society ethnically into ‘we’ and ‘they’, the portrayal of Muslims as being dangerous, back warded, irrational and fanatic. As a result, Muslims have become contemned and mistrusted in society. Continue reading this post…

In the last four decades, the hostile attitude towards Islam and Muslims in the West has been often classified as Islamophobia or as anti-Islamism. In official (inter) national reports and in scientific publications as well, the two concepts have already became well established. As neologisms both terms have been developed in analogy with the existing phenomena of xenophobia and anti-Semitism, respectively. The former implies an excessive pathological fear of strangers cq. of Muslims and Islam, while anti-Islamism can be described as a hostile prejudiced attitude, psychological and physical violence, discrimination and exclusion of the groups concerned. Although the semantic of both concepts reflects the content of the phenomena, the term anti-Islamism is preferred. It reflects the dynamic and conscious character of the antipathy and hatred against Islam and its followers, unlike Islamophobia which is more a psychological and pathological fear of the religion. Continue reading this post…

Unemployment of immigrants in the Netherlands shows a capricious picture. According to the ‘Centraal Bureau voor de Statistiek’ {Central Bureau for Statistics} (CBS) 4% of the native Dutch were unemployed in 1999, compared to 13% of the immigrants. The ‘Sociaal Cultureel Planbureau {Social Cultural Planning Office} (SCP) showed in 2005 figures of 9 and 20% respectively, and even 40% of unemployment under immigrant youngsters.
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In response to Wilders’ film, Raed al-Saeed from Saudi Arabia has made a film of 10 minutes with the title ‘SCHISM’ by which he denounced the cruelties of the Bible and Christianity. He wanted to show that it is not difficult to select ‘black texts’ and ‘black pages’ from any ‘holy book’ and to relate these to horror activities of armies and wars as to demonstrate the cruelties of Christianity and its followers.
However, the end product, the video ‘SCHISM’, indicates that the producer of that film is much wiser than our MP Geert Wilders. He writes at the end that his film is just as reprehensible as that of Wilders. Furthermore, according to him he spent not more than 12 hours to search for video material on the internet and to construct the film, while Wilders spend 3 months completing his. The film is noticeably of an amateurish quality such as that of Wilders.
He ends his film with the statements that “There is only one God… And that is God”, and “Let us make the world a better place”. The producers’ apologies to every one who might feel insulted by his film ‘SCHISM’, indicate to my opinion that he himself, and therefore his culture as well, possess a high level of civilization and that the ‘freedom of expression’ by which topics and problems can be discussed, need not necessarily to be offensive or insulting.
Click here to see the film

Islamofobic episodes in which Islam in the Netherlands is either directly or indirectly involved as a subject, increased considerably in the last six months. A so-called ‘ex-Muslim’ for example compared the prophet Mohammed with Hitler and announced the production of a film about his marriage life. Politicians, journalists and even scientists assisted and defended him in order to be able to express his feelings and ideas.
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It has been repeatedly shown that the coverage of Western media of matters concerning Islam and Muslims is generalising, stigmatising and generally opportunistic. The recent report of the European Committee against Racism and Intolerance, published in Strasbourg on 12 February 2008, deals with the situation in the Netherlands. The Committee concludes that Islamic communities in the Netherlands are on large scale subjected to generalizations, and frequently connected to terrorism both by newspapers and radio and television. In addition, when reporting on Islam or Muslims, the media seldom apply self-regulation, the accepted code on appropriate media conduct. Islamophobic material is extensively available on Dutch internet sites.(p.28, 38).
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The Public moral in the Netherlands has obviously reached a stage where the stigmatizing and the insulting of others are considered to be normal and essential parts of freedom of expression. The film of the MP Wilders which is offensive to Muslims has therefore been received with statement such as “it is not so bad” and “is this all?” Representatives’ of Dutch Muslim communities declared that despite the film being offensive, they are still prepared to accept the invitation of Wilders for a debate. From a political point of view, this may be considered wise, in the after mate though it has developed its own negative dynamics.

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Selectivity of the media and its subjective presentation of the daily news are commonly well known phenomena. Thousands, if not millions, events worth mentioning take place daily, so that selection becomes necessary and inescapable. However, in their selection of news, journalists make use of the principle of ‘man bites dog’, which automatically leads them mainly to select exotic and sensational items. Such a policy is to a certain degree understandable, and even acceptable.
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In the past few months, many discussions have been directed towards the racist statements of the Dutch MP Geert Wilders concerning Islam and Muslims, and to his announced anti-Islam film ‘Fitna’. Not only did the film arose indignation internationally, but also the Dutch government condemned the film, though indirectly, as being insulting to Islam and Muslims. However, the general tendency in Dutch media and the public opinion is not to consider the Islam insulting activities of Mr. Wilders as racist, but are rather classified under the umbrella of ‘Freedom of expression’. This is in contrast with the situation in other European countries such as Belgium and Austria, where they also had to deal with comparable extreme-right political figures. The Flemish Block in Belgium (the former name of the present party Vlaams Belang) did not only suffer from a cordon sanitaire (and still does), but has been condemned and sentenced for their racist statement in 2004 as well. A comparable attitude was nationally and internationally observable against the Freedom Party in Austria when it joined the government coalition in 2000. Political leaders of the countries of the European Union ceased cooperation with the newly formed Austrian government, as they considered the Freedom Party as a right-wing extremist party which must be boycotted.
In order to shed some light on Wilders’ film and to explain how the film has been received in the Netherlands, the Radio Netherlands Worldwide produced a trilingual 9 minutes video (English, Arabic and Indonesian) which can be downloaded from the internet.

Click here to watch the video