Radical Islam in The Netherlands: A Case Study of a Failed European Policy (JCPA-JERUSALEM CENTER FOR PUBLIC AFFAIRS) JERUSALEM ISSUE BRIEF by Manfred Gerstenfeld Vol. 4, No. 14 2 January 2005)
Source: http://www.jcpa.org/brief/brief004-14.htm
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On December 23, 2004, the Dutch Ministry of the Interior
published a 60-page report entitled From Dawa to Jihad. Prepared by
the Dutch general intelligence service (AIVD), it describes radical
Islam and examines how to meet its threat to Dutch society.
Among the close to one million Dutch Muslims, about 95 percent
are moderates. This implies that there are up to 50,000 potential
radicals.
Since September 11, 2001, phenomena such as the growth of radical
Islamic groups, polarization between Muslims and the surrounding
society, limitations in the process of integration, and Islamist
terrorism have increased in The Netherlands.
The capability of Dutch society to resist the threat of radical
Islam is considered low, though recently a greater desire has become
apparent among the Dutch population to become more resistant. Also
within the Dutch Muslim community resistance against radical forces
is low. The moderate organizations and individuals are not able to
counterbalance the radical forces.
An earlier AIVD report dealt with Saudi influences in The
Netherlands, mentioning a number of mosque organizations that
originated from Saudi missions and financing. The Amsterdam Tawheed
mosque, which in the past has put extreme anti-Semitic statements on
its website, is linked financially, organizationally, and personally
with the Saudi Al Haramain Foundation. Several other mosques are
supported financially by Saudi charities.
The Dutch report places the blame for the origins of the problem
squarely on the deeply-rooted ideology of fierce opposition to the
Western way of life among certain Muslim groups. It does not claim
that the problem of radical Muslims would disappear if there were
peace between Israelis and Palestinians. Israel and Jews are not
mentioned in the report.
Dutch Intelligence Report Examines Radical Muslim Threat
On December 23, 2004, the Dutch Ministry of the Interior published a
60-page report entitled From Dawa to Jihad.1 It was prepared by the
AIVD, the Dutch general intelligence service, and examines how to
meet the threat of radical Islam to Dutch society. Although the
report is conceptual in nature, it is evident that to achieve even a
part of its goals, substantial legal and behavioral changes in Dutch
society will be necessary.
This also became clear during the parliamentary debate that followed,
in the statement by Maxime Verhagen, faction chairman of The
Netherlands´ largest party, the middle of the road Christian Democrat
party (CDA) of Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende, which has 44 of
the 150 seats in the Chambers. He proposed that judges should be able
to take away constitutional rights, such as freedom of speech and
assembly, from radical Muslims.2 No other party supported him.
The Minister of the Interior, Johan Remkes, observed that the
prevention, isolation, and limitation of increasing radicalization is
important. He added that this should be done by "all layers of Dutch
society."3 There is, however, no way that this can be realized in the
current societal climate of The Netherlands.
Understanding Dutch Culture
The general attitude of Dutch society over the past decades can be
characterized by two Dutch words. The first is "gedoogcultuur," which
literally means "a culture of permissiveness" but has become
synonymous with "closing one´s eyes" to multiple transgressions of
the law. These include disparate matters such as soft drug use,
immigration policies, safety of industrial and commercial operations,
as well as many other subjects. It reflects a basic anti-
authoritarian attitude that is quite common in Dutch society.
The second key word is "poldermodel," which means that efforts are
made to reach a very broad national consensus on important issues.
Though mainly used in the economic arena, this approach reflects
Dutch society at large. The Dutch like to find solutions to problems
through discussions without defining positions too sharply. This
model can be explained as a legacy of Dutch history. In the past,
people living behind dikes, at below sea level, had to cooperate with
each other when there was danger of flooding. Both the gedoogcultuur
and the poldermodel have already come under major criticism in recent
years.
The AIVD report attempts to be as factual as possible. On such a
problematic subject, however, this means that it cannot be
politically correct as it defines part of an identifiable ethno-
religious community as a danger to society. One may wonder whether
the ministry would have found it politically convenient to publish
the report had not Muslim radical Mohammed Boyeri cruelly murdered
provocative Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh in an Amsterdam street on
November 2, 2004. In the following weeks there were tens of arson
attempts against Muslim institutions and Christian churches. Prior to
the murder, it was almost unthinkable for a government agency report
to single out the Muslim community. The AIVD justified its
publication by noting that it was responding to complaints by local
authorities that they did not have enough information about radical
Islam.
The Report´s Key Elements
The AIVD report explains that the key ideological aim of radical
Islamic groups is to target the Western way of life, and to confront
alleged Western political, economic, and cultural domination. Such
groups may be either nationalistic or religiously-oriented. The
report notes:
Among the close to one million Dutch Muslims, about 95 percent
are moderates. This implies that there are up to 50,000 potential
radicals.
Recruitment in The Netherlands for the armed radical Muslim
struggle - mainly among descendants of immigrants - is not incidental
but rather a trend.4 This issue was discussed in an earlier AIVD
report published in 2002,5 that mentioned that there had been at
least ten recruiters at work in The Netherlands and assumed that
there were several tens of Muslim youngsters in various stages of the
recruitment process.
In recent years, and in particular since September 11, 2001,
phenomena such as the growth of radical Islamic groups, polarization
between Muslims and the surrounding society, limitations in the
process of integration, and Islamist terrorism have increased in The
Netherlands.6
Of the eight categories of radical Islam defined, four aim at
dawa [proselytizing], which from the report´s perspective goes beyond
proselytizing to the undermining of the democratic order through
abusing democratic means. Four others are of a jihadic [holy war]
nature, i.e., they use or promote violence. Most of these are present
in The Netherlands.
In The Netherlands one finds types of dawa in the political Arab
European League Movement (AEL),7 in a limited number of Salafist
mosques,8 in Islamist missions, some of which are financed by Saudi
Arabia,9 as well as among individual Muslim preachers.10 Other types
of dawa are promoted on the websites of foreign radical Muslim
scholars11 and in chatrooms.12 Teacherless autonomous radicalization
takes place, inter alia, in jails, in some Muslim schools, and in
mosques.
In The Netherlands one also finds various forms of support for
jihad. For example, the international radical organization Hizb ut
Tahrir, which promotes jihad in a hidden way, has a presence.13 There
are also local Muslim terrorist networks.14
The capability of Dutch society to resist the threat of radical
Islam is considered low, though recently a greater desire has become
apparent among the Dutch population to become more resistant.15
The resistance within the Dutch Muslim community against radical
forces is low. The moderate organizations and individuals are not
able to counterbalance the radical forces.16
Measures Proposed
The report also indicates in broad terms how the threat of radical
Islam should be combated. It suggests a continuous legal check on the
activities of radical Muslims regarding discrimination, hate-
promotion, and incitement. However, this kind of surveillance is
largely alien to the Dutch legal and police culture of the last
decades. The report also repeats earlier proposed measures such as
checks on the movement of money. Furthermore, while noting that
improvement in the economic situation of the Dutch Muslim population
is laudable, it notes that there is no proof that this limits
radicalization.17
Other measures proposed are mainly medium and long-term strategies,
including the distribution of better information on radical Islamic
groups, collaboration with moderate forces in the Muslim community,
encouraging more moderate forms of Islam, and the promotion of
identity-creation among Muslims.
Other recommendations mentioned, without any concrete proposals
regarding their execution, include the development of positive role
models for young Muslims to replace the criminal role models that are
positively viewed by some Muslim youth, as well as democracy
education.
Mention is also made of the need to consider working with the
authorities in those countries that send out radical Islamic
missionaries, but this issue has not yet been discussed in The
Netherlands.18
Why is the Report Important?
While many elements in the report have appeared in the media over the
years, its importance lies in being an official document of the Dutch
government. In the past, the Dutch government has largely avoided
confronting the overall threat of Islamic radicalization to which its
predecessors´ policies on immigration, integration, and neglect of
law enforcement have contributed.
Equally important are some issues that the report fails to mention,
which are the inevitable outcome of its conclusions. Radical Muslims
can, by definition, only be found in the Muslim community and are
dispersed throughout it. To be effective in the struggle against
radical Islam, Dutch Muslims will have to be watched and scrutinized
by the police and the intelligence services much more intensively
than most other sectors of Dutch society. This singling out implies
giving less priority to Dutch equality and privacy laws. In addition,
since radical Muslims mainly interact with other Muslims, a crucial
element of success will be the collaboration of moderate Muslims with
the police in informing on suspected individuals.
The main foreign promoters of dawa and jihad who influence their
Dutch disciples are not analyzed in the report in any detail, nor are
the most influential foreign Muslim preachers of anti-Western hatred
and violence named. There is little specific mention of the role of
foreign governments and charities.
Saudi Influences
An earlier AIVD report, however, dealt with Saudi influences in The
Netherlands.19 It mentioned that in The Netherlands there were a
number of mosque organizations which are Salafist in nature, that
originated from Saudi missions and financing. The Amsterdam Tawheed
mosque, which in the past has put extreme anti-Semitic statements on
its website, is linked financially, organizationally, and personally
with the Saudi Al Haramain Foundation. Three other mosques are linked
with the private Saudi mission, Al Waqf Al Islami, that is related to
key figures in the Saudi establishment.
Though not explicitly Salafist, there are several other mosques in
The Netherlands which are supported financially by Saudi charities,
private philanthropists, or government bodies. Sometimes the payments
are not made to the mosques directly but to the imams. The report
considers both the origin and destination of this financing to be
obscure.
Most of the radical imams come from Egypt, Syria, Sudan, or Somalia.
Many have studied in Saudi Arabia. For a long time in a number of
ultra-orthodox mosques, extremist sermons have included saying that
secular people, socialists, or democrats were allies of Satan.
Stoning was preached as a punishment for extra-marital relations, etc.
While it has not been proven that jihad has been openly promoted in
Dutch mosques, there have been sermons with jihadic tendencies, such
as requests to Allah to kill "the enemies of Islam" such as Bush and
Sharon and the enemies of Islam in Kashmir and Chechnya.
The ambassador of Saudi Arabia in early 2004 promised full
transparency on financing. However, since then, very little has
happened on that matter. While there has been some recent moderation
in the sermons, the AIVD now believes the incitement takes place
elsewhere in smaller, closed meetings. The report concluded that
there were no indications that the risks and size of Islamic
radicalism and jihadism in The Netherlands had changed in any way
recently.
Israeli Aspects
From an Israeli perspective, the report is most important for what it
does not say. It places the blame for the origins of the dawa and
jihad problem squarely on the deeply-rooted ideology of fierce
opposition to the Western way of life among certain Muslim groups. It
does not attempt to hide behind the frequent Western escapist claim
that the problem of radical Muslims would disappear if there were
peace between Israelis and Palestinians. Israel and Jews are not
mentioned in the report.
Accepting the report´s findings and conclusions means that the Dutch
political system admits, de facto, that its societal model of
excessive tolerance for intolerance and crime has failed. In this, it
could become a European paradigm. However, whether a more realistic
domestic policy in The Netherlands and a better insight into the
extreme forms of Muslim culture will also mean a better understanding
of the Middle Eastern reality remains to be seen.
Dr. Manfred Gerstenfeld is Chairman of the Board of Fellows of the
Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs. He is an international business
strategist who has been a consultant to governments, international
agencies, and boards of some of the world´s largest corporations.
Among his nine books are Europe´s Crumbling Myths: The Post-Holocaust
Origins of Today´s Anti-Semitism (JCPA, Yad Vashem, WJC, 2003), The
New Clothing of European Anti-Semitism (Editions Cafe Noir, 2004) [in
French], co-edited with Shmuel Trigano, and American Jewry´s
Challenge: Conversations Confronting the 21st Century (Rowman and
Littlefield, 2004). (JCPA.ORG 01/02/05)
Notes
1. "Van dawa tot jihad. De diverse dreigingen van de radicale islam
tegen de democratische rechtsorde," Ministerie van Binnenlandse Zaken
en Koninkrijksrelaties, 2004 [Dutch]. (Hereafter "the Dawa Report.")
2. "CDA: Ontneem extremist rechten," Trouw, 24 December 2004
[Dutch].
3. "Nota AIVD: ´westerse leefstijl doelwit radicalen,´" NRC
Handelsblad, 23 December 2004 [Dutch].
4. The Dawa Report, p. 6.
5. "Rekrutering in Nederland voor de jihad van incident naar trend,"
AIVD 2002 [Dutch].
6. The Dawa Report, p. 23.
7. The Dawa Report, p. 40. This movement is strongest in Belgium, but
also has a Dutch branch.
8. The Dawa Report, p. 42.
9. The Dawa Report, p. 43.
10. The Dawa Report, p. 43.
11. The Dawa Report, p. 43.
12. The Dawa Report, p. 43.
13. The Dawa Report, p. 46.
14. The Dawa Report, p. 47.
15. The Dawa Report, p. 50.
16. The Dawa Report, p. 50.
17. The Dawa Report, p. 58.
18. The Dawa Report, p. 57.
19. "Saoedische invloeden in Nederland, Verbanden tussen salafitische
missie, radicaliseringsprocessen en islamistisch-terrorisme," AIVD,
2004 [Dutch].
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