Category: News and politics

I see that Baroness Warsi believes that Christianity in the UK is under threat from “militant secularisation” and worries “that at its core and in its instincts it is deeply intolerant”. Music to the ears of the Pope, it would appear.

It seems to me rather that the established religions are finding that they are no longer getting a right to control in the public sphere, and are finding it hard to adapt to being given an equal voice alongside everyone else.

Personally, I have no problem with the established religions putting forward their points of view – that’s what it means to live in a secular society – but they, in turn, should accept the fact that some of their views will attract ridicule and robust rejection. So it’s no surprise that the Baroness is attracting much of the same for her ridiculous hyperbole: Ophelia and John are both worth reading on the subject.

The Baroness is behaving like a bully, and is being called out on it.

Five years ago, I thought that news that the Dutch government were considering a burka ban to be a very bad idea.

Fast forward to today, and now the current Dutch Cabinet has voted in favour of the ban, despite advice from its most important advisory body, the Council of State.

As I said five years ago, this is taking a sledgehammer to crack the metaphorical nuts of between 150 and 200 women in the whole of the Netherlands (population: over 16.7 million):

While I happen to think that the garments say more about the odd ways in which women are viewed by one religion (and gawd knows, it ain’t the only one), I don’t think that banning them is going to help one bit towards the avowed intent of integration into Dutch society. It’s more likely to drive the “us and them” wedge further into this society’s hearts and minds.

What would be far more helpful is for public order to be preserved by coming down hard on extremists such as the Islamists who attempted to break up a public meeting in Amsterdam last December.

I read this in the New Statesman today. It reminded me of the scene in Terry Gilliam’s Brazil where armoured police break into the flat of Archibald Buttle, terrorising his wife and children and ultimately bringing about the death of the innocent Buttle.

I’ve never been a fan of Boris Johnson. This makes me like him even less. This is not how community policing should be.

The Dutch media is currently full of the case of Mauro Manuel, a refugee who arrived here from Angola when he was nine years old. Now that he is 18, the Dutch Government want to deport him back to Angola. The Dutch Immigration and Asylum Minister Gerd Leers has ruled that Mauro had no right to stay in the Netherlands.

Mauro’s case has been debated in parliament today, but the motion calling on Minister Leers to grant him a residency permit has been defeated by 78 votes to 72.

Another victory for the baleful influence of Geert Wilders in his process of changing this once-tolerant country into an intolerant one. I don’t feel proud to be Dutch today.

Update: Abigail R. Esman (also living in the Netherlands) has an opinion piece in Forbes that sums up pretty well my feelings of shame and anger over this case.

The inestimable Adam Curtis has another blog entry that stops the heart, if not the tears. Such a steadfast view of humanity’s foibles is often more than I can bear. But bear witness, we must.

I was born in the Isle of Man and, as a result, hold a British Passport. Having lived in the Netherlands since 1983, I also became a Dutch citizen in 2006 – so I currently have dual nationality.

Today, the minister for home affairs, Piet Hein Donner, has introduced proposed legislation that will mean that anyone who wants to adopt Dutch nationality will soon have to give up their original nationality if that is legally possible.

Obviously, the question in my mind is: will this also apply retroactively?

Frankly, I see this move by Donner as a step backwards – a sop to the burgeoning nationalism fanned by the likes of Wilders and the PVV. I actually feel proud of the fact that I am able to hold dual nationality – I feel it gives me a broader horizon – a step towards being a citizen of the world. If Donner has his way, I’ll be forced to retreat to a narrower view of the world. I’m not happy about this.

Addendum: a friend of mine who’s in much the same boat (born a Scot, lived in the Netherlands for years and now has dual nationality) wondered if he could add a new word to the English language:

Wilderize
– to change a tolerant country into an intolerant country.

I think he has a point.

While I don’t pretend to be an economist, I do have this nagging doubt that the economic policy being pursued by the current UK government is not, shall we say, the wisest course.

Johann Hari puts it rather more forcefully, and a good deal better. Example:

I doubt there was a single person who woke up on Wednesday morning, looked out across Britain, and thought: “I know what’s wrong with this country. Vodafone pays too much tax.” But George Osborne has acted on this belief all the same – in part because he genuinely seems to have no idea what life in Britain is like. He said recently that his school, St. Paul’s (annual fees: £30,000 a year) was “incredibly liberal. It didn’t matter who your parents were. Your mother could be the head of a giant corporation – or a solicitor in Kew.” That’s his internal vision of the social spectrum in Britain, with those pauper solicitors in Kew begging at the bottom. No wonder he doesn’t understand that (say) slashing Housing Benefit will turn 200,000 poor people out of their homes in London alone. He thinks they can take it: the rich need more.

Johann Hari has another thought-provoking article posted. This time it’s on our addiction to cheap oil. Worth a read.

Following hard on the heels of the murder of Salman Taseer comes the murder of Shabaz Bhatti.

I see that the Archbishop of Canterbury is reported as condemning the murder of Bhatti, and quite right too. But I did find one statement of his slightly jarring. He is reported as saying that there was a faction in Pakistan:

“wholly uninterested in justice and due process of law, concerned only with promoting an inhuman pseudo-religious tyranny.”

Er, excuse me, but what’s that word “pseudo” doing in that sentence? The sentence is just as true without it. I suspect that the good Dr. Williams just cannot face up to, or is not willing to state in public, the simple fact that there’s nothing pseudo about religious tyranny, and that Bhatti’s murderers sincerely believe that they were doing the right thing.

On a related note, it’s worthwhile reading Eric MacDonald’s piece today. The key quote:

It is simply foolish and foolhardy to dismiss these extremists as merely extreme, as marginal expressions of their respective believing communities. What they stand for is always at the centre of the religious systems they espouse. Most people, with lives to live, and other goals to pursue, pay little attention to the intrinsically extremist language of their faith communities. But the language is always there. That’s why there are faith communities, because religions are essentially tribal and divisive.

Today is polling day for the provincial elections here in The Netherlands. It appears that us oldsters may have an effect on the outcome and impact the position of the current coalition government.

Meanwhile, the young appear to have swallowed the anti-Islam propaganda of the appalling Geert Wilders and his PVV party. You can guess who I won’t be voting for today.

I’ve written before that I worry about the popularity of Geert Wilders and his Freedom Party (the PVV) here in the Netherlands. While I find the demagoguery of Wilders extremely disturbing, I take some comfort from the fact that others in the PVV seem to be little more than political clowns.

We’re about to enter into an election for seats in the provincial governments. So all the candidates are out there and using every opportunity for campaigning. No problem about that. But when one of the PVV candidates for the Gelderland province (where I live) calls for repatriation of Highland cattle back to Scotland and Polish ponies back to Poland, then I have to wonder why anyone should take clowns like this seriously?

Since some people have commented that surely no-one could be that stupid; I give you PVV candidate Olov Wullink, in person, uttering his inanities (from 1:10 in the second video linked on this page here). Sorry, the full absurdity is only intelligible to those of us who understand Dutch.

However, I think it’s worthwhile to remember that, while events like this have their humorous side, the politics, and subsequent impact on all of us, are deadly serious. The rise of Wilders continues to concern me. I don’t think it is good for us.

The serious assault on a CBS journalist, Lara Logan, in Tahrir Square has rightfully drawn widespread condemnation from many quarters, including women’s rights activists and pro-change protesters in Eygpt.

Of course, there were some commentators, such as Debbie Schlussel, who got into the “blame the victim” game, saying that the attack was partly Logan’s fault. That deserves the contempt that Schlussel got for her comments.

However, there was a reaction from Heather Blake, of Reporters Without Borders, reported in the Guardian’s story that I found rather interesting. She said:

“At the moment, female and male journalists have the same training. The truth is that female journalists need to be taught about different cultures and the ways in which men behave in those cultures. They need to know about gender-specific expectations in different countries, from what they wear to how they interact with those they met.”

I’m not sure that I agree with that. I think that both men and women journalists need to be taught about different cultures and the ways in which men behave in those cultures. It seems to me that consciousness-raising is just as important, perhaps even more so, to members of the male gender, who are often blithely unaware of, or complicit in, the various forms that oppression of women can take.

Very depressing news from Pakistan about Salman Taseer being shot by one of his own bodyguards. While the bodyguard was clearly influenced by his religious beliefs to commit cold-blooded murder, it would seem that he’s had ample encouragement from his religious leaders as well:

A prominent group of Islamic scholars said that the funeral prayers should not be offered and warned that anyone who expressed grief for Taseer could suffer the same fate.

The Jamaat-e-Ahl-e-Sunnat Pakistan group represents scholars from the mainstream Barelvi sect of Sunni Muslims. Although considered moderate, they have led protests in favour of the blasphemy law.

“More than 500 scholars of the Jamaat-e-Ahl-e-Sunnat have advised Muslims not to offer the funeral prayers of Governor Punjab Salman Taseer, nor try to lead the prayers,” the group said.

“Also, there should be no expression of grief or sympathy on the death of the governor, as those who support blasphemy of the prophet are themselves indulging in blasphemy.”

At times like this, it’s hard to disagree with Christopher Hitchens’ view that “religion poisons everything”.