The Dutch and Their Tolerance of Evil

My visit last week to Holland (the Netherlands) was interesting. It was fun to see ancient places, other kinds of architecture, use a different currency (Euros) and eat different kinds of food. All in all, I like Holland. I saw ancient cathedrals with families buried in the floor of the church, their epitaphs chiseled into the stone, their dates of death in the 1680's. I saw some of the famous windmills that were used to pump water out of Holland, since much of it is below sea level. That old tale of the boy with his finger in the dike is based on fact. As we drove along the seacoast, we noticed that the sea to our right was higher than the land to our left, the two separated by the earthen mound which supported the road.

The Dutch largely struck me as people who keep to themselves and are very laid-back. They do not get easily upset. I saw no one on the streets raising his voice. In the morning hustle to work and school, people avoid eye contact with each other. They were neither overly friendly nor hostile. We felt safe walking along the streets, though I might not have felt that way if my last name was Van Gogh or Fortuyn. Theo Van Gogh was murdered in 2004 on the streets of Amsterdam by a Muslim fanatic after making a film critical of Islam's treatment of women; Pim Fortuyn, an elected official, was murdered on the street by an animal rights kook in 2002.

Rod Dreher of National Review Online wrote this about Pim Fortuyn's murder:

Fortuyn's legion of enemies denounced him as a fascist and a racist, partly
for his tough-on-crime policies, but mostly for his belief that immigration
should stop, and that immigrants — particularly Muslims, whose views on women
and gays he considered barbaric — should be pressed harder to assimilate into
Dutch life.

While in Amsterdam, I read an English language pamphlet about the region, written for tourists. It was openly and unabashedly political, stating that after the last elections, the Dutch had voted for the Labor Party in droves, "turning Pim Fortuyn's party out of power." "Holland is tolerant again" it bragged. Obviously the writer had never read the observation of Thomas Mann, a German social critic whom the Nazis opposed, that "Tolerance becomes a crime when applied to evil."

Some Dutch have long been tolerant of evil. They were tolerant of the Nazis who occupied Holland during World War II; some of them turned in the Franks, which resulted in the deaths of three family members in a concentration camp. No doubt some Dutch citizen wanted to curry favor with the tyrants in the hope they would kill him last. Today some Dutch citizens want to curry favor with Muslim fanatics through appeasement and looking the other way when the innocent are murdered.

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In a third example of Holland's rubber backbone, there is the story of Aayan Hirsi Ali, a former Muslim who fled Islam to become a member of the Dutch Parliament. She collaborated with Theo Van Gogh on his film and became the object of a Muslim death threat. The brave Dutch didn't exactly rally to her side: they tried to get her kicked out of the country in a brazen act of appeasement to intolerant barbarians.

Slate tells the story:

To give a brief back story, it will be remembered that Hirsi Ali, a refugee from
genital mutilation, forced marriage, and civil war in her native Somalia,
was a member of the Dutch parliament. She collaborated with Theo van Gogh on
a film—Submission—that highlighted the maltreatment of Muslim immigrant
women living in Holland. Van Gogh was murdered on an Amsterdam street in
November 2004; a note pinned to his body with a knife proved to be a threat
to make Hirsi Ali the next victim. Placed inside a protective bubble by the authorities, she was later evicted from her home after neighbors complained that she was endangering their safety and then subjected to a crude attempt to deprive her of her citizenship.

Islamic appeasement by the Dutch is now in full bloom. When I visited Anne Frank's house in Amsterdam, there were various rooms set up in the annex next door with films to educate the public about the Nazi pogroms and what happened to Anne Frank. However, I wandered into one room where a rapt audience stood watching a film about the Islamic cartoon flap of two years ago. The narrator of the film sounded outraged at the "disrespect" shown to Islam, noting that "depictions of the 'Prophet' are forbidden," while the scene on the screen showed angry Muslims burning a Danish flag. I was outraged that Anne Frank House would be showing a pro-Muslim propaganda film. I said out loud, "What has this got to do with Anne Frank? Islam sucks!" and walked out. No one even looked at me.

The Dutch have learned nothing from the lessons of history. They repeat the same errors over and over. Tolerance becomes a crime when applied to evil. That should be the new motto of Holland and replace windmills and wooden shoes as its most oft depicted logos.

UPDATE: Aayan Hirsi Ali warns the West: we must defeat Islam.

Photo: A canal in Holland