The mistakes on Geert Wilders by the foreign media-My reflections

[Arnold Yasin]

The mistakes on Geert Wilders by the foreign media-My reflections

By Arnold Mol

I have been reading some foreign news articles about Geert Wilders and it astonishes me every time how little people know about the real situation in Holland.

Let me quote the first sentence from an article who starts with:

"Geert Wilders, the popular MP".

Popular with whom? Wilders is far from popular in Holland. Many people see him as a childish hatemongering man who has no real contribution to Holland. He got so many votes in the last election as Rita Verdonk, minister of Integration, wasn't party leader of the Liberal right VVD party.

This caused many voters to end up at Wilders, but many of them later regretting the vote. There are many factors involved that caused his so-called popularity, and this is mainly because of the internal struggle within the VVD party.

Last November finally a break emerged within the VVD and Rita Verdonk created her own party "Trots op Holland", meaning "Proud of Holland". A census was held which already showed that Wilders will lose as many as half of his voters to Rita Verdonk who is right winged concerning immigration, but has never said anything about Islam. She is only concerned with people abusing the liberty given to migrate to Holland by mainly Moroccan and Turkish families. She raised the bars of integration higher then was ever before and made sure Moroccan and Turkish families could not easily import new husbands and wives to Holland for their children.

One of the biggest problems in Holland had emerged around men and women imported straight from the mountain villages to marry a Dutch-born Moroccan or Turkish male or female. They didn't invest in learning Dutch, nor were educated in Dutch values. This caused also many differences and problems with the straight-from-the-village husbands and their Dutch-born liberal highly educated wives. A clash which is of course completely understandable.

This is what Rita Verdonk  focuses on. If you want to "import" a wife or husband. The person must first learn the Dutch language, values and history in their home country and the person must prove it can find a job immediately and not just jump straight into welfare.

Although many Muslims acted as if this was an attack on Islam, as it took away the power to pre-arrange marriages, this was a great blessing for many Dutch-born liberal Muslim women who belong to the largest group of highly educated women of all minorities in Holland. Now they would not be "matched up" that easily with a never-educated nephew straight from the mountain villages.

This is what most Dutch people really care about. That people do not abuse the freedom to immigrate to Holland and abuse the welfare system. As sadly, the Moroccans are the largest percentage of all minorities who make use of the welfare system, and are also the largest group who are frequently caught abusing it.

Geert Wilders only really started making his anti-Islamic rantics after he was elected. Before the election he had never said such radical things as destroy and ban the Koran and throw out the Muslim population, so many of the people who voted for him were shocked as for them it was more about cleaning away the abusing of the welfare and get the minorities better integrated.

Now suddenly it turned out they had voted on a mini-me version of Hitler. This is why Wilders will lose power and votes in the new election. His rantics are harming the economy. Many highly educated young Muslims born in Holland are immigrating to Morocco or Turkey as they feel Holland is losing its values. Holland has turned in the world media from the most liberal country in the world to an Islam-hating country.

Yes, there are many misunderstandings about Islam within Holland, as it is in almost every Western country. But this makes many people not hate Islam, but the wrongs things that are committed in its name. Be it terrorism, abuse of wives, lack of education, superstition and lack of progress concerning democracy or freedom of people. But this is also hated by many Muslims who reflect on the old Muslim states who were the pinnacles of freedom and knowledge in the Middle Ages and the social message found in the Koran and early Islamic history. So this is a battle that must be fought together with Muslims, as the demand for reform within Islam is growing in large numbers day by day.

When it comes Wilders, people must first know he doesn't know anything about the Koran. He maybe has read a few books by Islam-haters here and there. But when it really comes too mentioning verses, he will fail immediately as he has done many times in the Dutch media when asked about which verses should be banned. During these debates on Dutch TV, it is never Wilders himself sitting there. No, it is mostly a reformist-protestant Dutch Arabist professor who really selective in what to quote from the Koran, Wilders is not the mind behind this campaign but a few people with a certain anti-Islam agenda who whisper in his ear. It is better to see him as the Dutch parliament version of Bush, quick to repeat the whispers and shout them out in the most radical form, but having no real knowledge on the matter of his own. The only thing Wilders will have contributed to his movie will be the propaganda and his name below the title, do not expect more to come from the brain beneath the blond bleached waves.

The Wilders fire will die out soon and he knows this, so he is using every scrap of time he has to do as much damage as possible.

[Wilson]

Peace,

Wilders on FOX: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j0jUuzdfqfc

[Arnold Yasin]

In the Netherlands we have a different groups of immigrants then for example in America. Most of them were selected in Morocco and Turkey and then shipped over to Holland to work in the factories in the 1960's. Many of these laborers came from the poor regions of the countries, had little education and were mostly from the Berber or Kurdish regions.

They always had the idea they would only stay in Holland for a couple of years and then go back with the money to build a house or a farm, but as the economy in Morocco was growing worse and the racism towards non-Arabs, they stayed. This went on and on, and before they knew it, they were stuck here in Holland. As the Dutch government also thought the laborers would go back, they never invested in any integration projects or teach them the language.

Between the 80 and 90's many of the wives and families of the laborers were shipped over to Holland. Hundreds of thousands of people who grew up in mountain villages with strong traditions and little education suddenly ended up in one of the most liberal countries in the world.

In Europe we always focus on how hard it is for us to deal with the 'foreigners', but for them it must have been a much harder culture shock.

In the mountains a social structure had emerged over the thousands of years with strict hierarchies and ways of family structure to survive in these hard and unforgiving surroundings. This is where pre-arranged marriages come from. To create certainty of survival, it is important you can predict as many factors as possible in your surroundings, you must control as many as you can.

This is why in tribes people are married only to other tribal people as your nephew is predictable, he knows his place within the social structure, he has a emotional bloodline connection and he is used to listening to you. In the mountains you cannot ask for a better husband for your daughter.

We in the West are easy in codemning pre-arranged marriages, but for them it is survival, not egoism.

But suddenly, people with this strict social structure in their mind ended up in the liberal individualistic societies of the West. It is logical the first generations cannot adapt that fast. Mostly it will not go beyond the wives being allowed to go to the market, a thing which is a male duty in the mountains as it is to dangerous for women to just go alone.

The second generations were more liberal, but in a sense were living in 2 worlds. In holland when they went outside to school or play. But experienced the strict social structure when at home or family.

Many of these ended up in an identity crisis, when this happens, it is easier for the psyche to choose the more stricter outlined way of thinking. And so the strict social structure was upheld.

This is also by the way why many young Muslims are attracted to the strict harldiner Wahabi Islam as it sets out hard strict clear lines of what is Islam. For young Muslims this is very attractive as it creates a stabil support in a confusing world.

The third generation is mostly for 60-80% liberal Dutch then really Moroccan. But they are still under the supervision of the 2nd generation strict social structure which doesn't approve of this liberal thinking. And so the family mostly chooses to inter-marriage the 3rd generation with nephews and cousins to keep them in control.

But also because of losing social connections with the family in Morocco, Holland and other parts of Europe where family members have immigrated to, an urge to re-unite them through marriage is also sought.

The 3rd generation is also in a larger identity crisis then the 2nd, as in Morocco they are not accepted as Moroccons but seen as Dutch, and in Holland they are seen as Moroccons.

What are they then? This creates a lot of frustration among many youths, and this is also why some choose the Wahabi Islam instead of the Berber Maliki Islam of their parents.

It is a way to rebel against the family, the West and to have a feeling that atleast God is accepting you.

Mohammed B. who killed the director Theo van Gogh a couple of years ago was such a youth. Highly educated, very social, but then couldn't find a job. Was dissatisfied with the passiveness of the family's way of thinking. His identity surpressed by the Moroccan and Dutch society and his Muslim identity surpressed by seeing misery in the Muslim world and oppression in Iraq and Palestine.

And then suddenly a man makes a movie attacking the Quran and saying the Prophet was a childmolester.

This was the finally push that made him go over the edge and kill Van Gogh in the brutal way he did.

All of these circumstances are ignored by people as Wilders and Hirshi Ali. They abuse the weak position many 1st and 2nd generations are in as they were never educated. How can they defend themselves against professors and politicians?
And the 3rd genereration is busy to find steady ground for their identity.

It is an easy group to pick on....

This is why it is important educated Muslims who have a good insight in Islam, and thank God there are many emerging in Holland, are creating information platforms that present an alternative to Wahabism and the supersitious Islam of the 1st generations.

[Norski]

Thank you all very much for this background on Dutch culture and recent history.

This post, and the replies, have given me a look at the current situation in the Netherlands, and probably other places in Europe, in greater depth than we see in the news. No surprise there, I'm afraid.

While I'm here, a combination of unabashed, blatant, self-promotion - and a request for input.

One of my blogs, "Another War-on-Terror Blog," http://anotherwaronterrorblog.blogspot.com/, is my attempt to sort out the communication (sometimes using words, sometimes using swords and high explosives) between the 'Islamic world' and the western world.

I'd appreciate (informed) feedback.

Thanks again, and I intend to be back.

[jankren]

Very nice blog man.