<https://12.35.214.163/newswatch/news_list.asp?page=1&concept=ISLAMIC&line=1 6&linecolor=00D090&maxdate=060822+135724&mindate=000000+000001> Radical Islam and the Netherlands By Morley Safer xfdiw CBS-60-MINUTES-02
Show: CBS 60 MINUTES> Date: August 20, 2006> Time: 19:00> Tran: 082002cb.406> Type: Show> Head: Radical Islam and the Netherlands> Sect: News; International> Byline: Morley Safer> High: The story of Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Theo Van Gogh and their movie "Submission" is retold.> Spec: Netherlands; Racism; Islam; Theo Van Gogh; Crime> SAFER: In November, 2004 a brutal murder shocked Holland and the world. On a busy Amsterdam street, in broad daylight, a prominent film maker named Theo van Gogh was shot, stabbed and mutilated in front of dozens of witnesses.A young Muslim radical was arrested. What was described as a ritual slaughter set off alarm bells throughout Europe and the United States, where millions of devout Muslims live as minorities in this secular society. For the Dutch who have prided themselves for centuries on a tradition of tolerance, it was a painful awakening, the prospect of a homegrown jihad in the world`s most liberal state. As we reported 18 months ago, it all began with a movie called Submission, a 12 minute movie, which aired on Dutch television. The images were meant to shock. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) SAFER (voice-over): The opening lines of the holy book, the Koran, written across the naked body of a Muslim woman. Or here, Koranic verses about female obedience scrawled on the back of a woman beaten by her husband, while a female voice accuses Allah of condoning the violence. The movie was directed by Holland`s most controversial film maker, Theo Van Gogh, a descendant of the painter Vincent Van Gogh, and a national gadfly, who made a career insulting everyone, no matter their faith, race or gender. Submission was right up his alley, but it wasn`t his idea. The movie was written and conceived by this Muslim woman, 35-year-old Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a member of the Dutch parliament, and a relentless critic of the way Islam treats women. (on camera): The strongest statement you made was your movie Submission. HIRSI ALI: Yes. SAFER: Surely that must have been a gross insult to devout Muslims, to see those pictures. HIRSI ALI: It depends. If you`re a Muslim woman and you read the Koran, and you read in there that you should be raped if you say no to your husband, that is offensive and that is insulting. SAFER (voice-over): Such provocative interpretations of the Koran have made Hirsi Ali a lot of enemies among radical Muslims. She lives in hiding with round-the-clock security. She gave us an exclusive interview in a room in the Dutch parliament. (on camera): You called Mohammed a perverted tyrant. HIRSI ALI: He has said a few things that are not compatible with democracy. SAFER: You`ve also the Koran a license for oppression. ALI: A part of the Koran a license for oppression, yes, because that`s what it is. SAFER (voice-over): Even before the movie was broadcast, she worked in parliament under guard. After the broadcast, she received a new wave of death threats, and the government increased her security. There were threats against Van Gogh, too, but he laughed them off. This was Holland, after all, the world`s capital of free speech. (on camera): Van Gogh was murdered as he cycled to work on this bike path on Linnaeus Street in Amsterdam one morning last November. He was shot several times by a bearded young man. As he lay dying, Van Gogh was reported to have begged for mercy, and said, Can`t we talk about this? The man shot him again, slit his throat and stabbed him, pinning a letter to his body. (voice-over): Holland was in a state of shock. Tens of thousands massed in the center of Amsterdam to mourn Van Gogh`s death, a sense of lost innocence and enormous anger. There were fire-bombings of mosques and Muslim schools, and counterattacks against churches. Twenty-six-year-old Mohammed Bouyeri was charged with murder. Eleven other Muslim men were arrested and charged with conspiracy to assassinate Ayaan Hirsi Ali. That letter pinned to Van Gogh`s body was addressed to her. It said that she would be destroyed, along with Holland and the United States. SAFER (on camera): You realized that you were a target. Did you think that Theo would become a target as well? HIRSI ALI: Before we talked about making the film, I said Do you realize the danger? But he was adamant about making it. SAFER (voice-over): The Dutch government got Hirsi Ali out of the country while the people of Holland grappled with the aftermath of the murder. Almost overnight, this tolerant nation was transformed. Long-simmering resentment against the country`s Muslim minority erupted. THEODOR HOLMAN, COLUMNIST: The death of Theo was actually a kind of a smart bomb. Everybody threatens and they speak out. SAFER: Theodor Holman is a columnist and radio commentator. He was also one of Van Gogh`s closest friends. (on camera): Even though he did make a lot of enemies his death really shocked the country, correct? HOLMAN: Yes, of course, because the country did love him as well. He had his own television show. He had a radio show. He made movies. So he embodied what you can do in this country and what you can say. SAFER (voice-over): And that means just about anything goes. Coffee shops sell cappuccino, and hashish and marijuana, and it`s legal. In storefronts, prostitutes offer anything you fancy perfectly legal. Gay life and gay marriage also protected by law, all a reflection of a centuries-old tradition of religious and social tolerance that included, until very recently, a policy of openness to the world. For decades, Dutch immigration laws were the most easygoing on earth. Those laws have become more restrictive in recent years, but in the wake of Van Gogh`s death, there is a call for extreme measures, once unthinkable here. HOLMAN: A poor man`s Patriot Act is in the making I think. SAFER (on camera): A poor man`s Patriot Act. HOLMAN: Yes, a Dutch way of having a Patriot Act. SAFER: Holland has this reputation, historically, as being a welcoming country. HOLMAN: Yes. SAFER: Has that changed? Is that gone? HOLMAN: I think that is gone now. I hope it will return but it has gone now. SAFER (voice-over): Particularly for new Muslim immigrants. Out of a Dutch population of 16 million, there are 1 million Muslims, mostly Moroccans and Turks, now Dutch citizens. With high unemployment, with huge numbers who never learned the language, most Muslims live in a separate world, in barren suburbs known as dish cities, named for the satellite dishes beaming sometimes inflammatory Arab television into homes, and fostering a militant Islam. The man charged with killing Van Gogh grew up in such a place. Paul Scheffer, a professor of sociology at the University of Amsterdam, says people of faith of every kind are welcome, so long as they understand that in Dutch democracy, virtually nothing is sacred. PAUL SCHEFFER, PROFESSOR OF SOCIOLOGY: You can`t live here with a holy book that is above or beyond our democracy. Your holy book will be the object of criticism. It will be the object of interpretation, and sometimes of ridicule. And if you can`t accept that, you can`t live here. SAFER (on camera): But it`s not so easy, because what you`re asking these families to do is give up your tradition... SCHEFFER: No. SAFER: ...and become one of us. SCHEFFER: They could interest themselves more for this society and the other way around as well. We weren`t interested in their existence, never a question was asked because nobody was interested in the answer. SAFER (voice-over): On that Nabil Marmouch, a Muslim community leader, agrees with Scheffer. He says Muslims in Holland have been marginalized and worse. And the movie, Submission, is a prime example. NABIL MARMOUCH, MUSLIM COMMUNITY LEADER: You cannot emancipate women by insulting them, unless, of course, that is your hidden agenda, to insult them, and to create what happened here in the Netherlands. SAFER: Marmouch, who is starting a Muslim political party, says murder is wrong, but he was not surprised by the murder of Van Gogh. MARMOUCH: We could expect that from the beginning. SAFER (on camera): But Theo Van Gogh insulted Jews, insulted Christians and insulted Muslims. MARMOUCH: So that`s a good argument, Christians are being insulted, you Muslims should also be insulted? No, I don`t think so. SAFER: Well I think as a matter of fact in a democracy the extremes are indulged. This is what happens in a democracy. MARMOUCH: No, this -- this whole thing is being politicized by Ayaan Hirsi Ali. SAFER (voice-over): She is seen as a traitor to Islam, the faith she rejected as a very young woman. (on camera): What age did you feel that this was not for you? HIRSI ALI: Very early on, I mean from the time I started reading novels of Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys that I wanted to be like Nancy Drew. It`s cool. SAFER: Nancy Drew would not be wearing a veil. HIRSI ALI: No. SAFER (voice-over): Her rejection of the faith estranged her from her upper middle class Somali parents, who remain devout believers. (on camera): What did that make of you? HIRSI ALI: They just don`t get it. SAFER: But you`re their daughter. HIRSI ALI: Yes. SAFER: They love their daughter. HIRSI ALI: Yes, I think so. SAFER: And do they ever try to wrestle with these ideas that you speak of? HIRSI ALI: The last time I spoke to my father, he told me that he believes that one day I will return to the faith. SAFER: But does he think you`re ignorant or evil or misguided or what? HIRSI ALI: Misguided. SAFER (voice-over): She`s come a long way since she first arrived in Holland as a 22-year-old woman fleeing a marriage her father had arranged, and seeking asylum. Nowadays, she`s a kind of star, and the Dutch take pride in how she rose from menial jobs in factories and hotels to attend university, and finally, to get elected to parliament. (on camera): How do you go from being an asylum seeker to a factory worker to a distinguished member of Parliament? HIRSI ALI: The American dream. I think it`s in every individual, if you have the will to improve your life. SAFER (voice-over): She shook up Dutch politics by pointing to the blind spots in this tolerant democracy, like the murder of Muslim women who stray from the faith, so-called honor killings. HIRSI ALI: My accusation towards the Dutch society was, You think you are tolerant, but if you look behind those curtains in Amsterdam and Rotterdam, there are women who are abused. There are women who are taken to Morocco and Turkey and are killed there. They`re murdered. And there are no records of those murders. SAFER (on camera): I suppose some people would say we can`t impose our alien laws on these new citizens. HIRSI ALI: That was the definition of tolerance before I came. And now we are redefining that by saying, freeing these women, giving them a chance at life is not imposing Dutch will, or let`s say Dutch values, on others but it`s protecting these individuals. SAFER (voice-over): After the murder of Van Gogh, Hirsi Ali stayed in hiding for about three months. In January, she returned to parliament, to a democracy less sure of itself, a new anxiety in Holland, a feeling that it`s no longer safe to speak out or make art or movies about certain subjects. Organizers of the Rotterdam Film Festival, for instance, cancelled a showing of Submission, saying they feared violence. Hirsi Ali refuses to back down. SAFER (on camera): Are you going to make a sequel to Submission ? HIRSI ALI: Yes. SAFER: Even though the director of the first one was so brutally murdered? HIRSI ALI: By not making Submission Part II, I would only be helping terrorists believe that if they use violence, they`re rewarded with what they want. SAFER: You won`t submit to the threats? HIRSI ALI: Not me. (END VIDEOTAPE) SAFER: Perhaps not but last spring the whole issue of security just became too much for her and the Dutch government. She resigned her seat in parliament and this fall will join a think tank in Washington D.C. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) END Content and programming Copyright MMVI CBS Broadcasting Inc. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Transcription Copyright 2006 Voxant, Inc. ( http://www.voxant.com ), which takes sole responsibility for the accuracy of the transcription. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. 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