Dutch Liberalism Stares Into A Troubled Future As Anti-Muslim Backlash Grows Dozens Of Arson Attacks After Van Gogh’s Murder
Ian Traynor in UDEN, the Netherlands Kneeling in the sodden, charred remains of the primary school, Hari Boukameans took a Stanley knife to a melted computer. He twisted and he gouged – trying to recover the hard drive, hoping to salvage a little bit of the precious Dutch culture of live and let live from the flames of hatred that consumed his workplace. The Moroccan gave up. He slumped in the smelly, black mass of ashes. “This is really evil,” he groaned. Spray painting a white cross and White Power slogans on to the grey brick walls of the Muslim school the previous night, Dutch racists had set the place ablaze. The fire gutted the school and traumatised this comfortable town of 40,000 in the middle of the Netherlands.