Amsterdam is no longer the open and tolerant place it has been famed for the past several centuries. Instead it has become the hotbed of jihad in Europe and a place where any debate about Islam is silenced in order to appease violent Muslim immigrants.
Without asking the the Dutch what they wanted, the multicultural elite in government opened the dikes of the Netherlands and flooded the nation with tens of thousands of Muslims who do not share the liberal values that have served the Netherlands so well. Ironically now those tolerant values are tolerating the very intolerant and that’s bad and, of course, suicidal.
Now the Dutch tolerate Gay bashings, members of Parliament being driven from the country or put on trial for daring to say a bad word about Islam. Equally tolerated are rape, violent crime, and beatings of Jews and Christians by Muslims, along with the other accoutrements of having large numbers of Muslims in your midst. These crimes in the name of Islam are going largely unpunished and ignored by non-Muslims in the spirit of Dutch toleration. Complacency, fear and indifference have paralyzed a once brave and culturally confident people.
What happened at this talk mirrors the current state of Dutch society. Poor Irshad Manji is a brave woman but fighting a losing battle to reform Islam.
An Islamist group called for a Muslim lesbian author to be killed and invaded a discussion on Islam in Amsterdam last week.
A December 8 debate, which included the Canadian Muslim lesbian author Irshad Manji and MP Tofik Dibi on a panel, was disrupted when extremists from the group Sharia4Belgium stormed the event, held at the De Balie theater in Amsterdam. The mob threw eggs and called for Manji’s neck to be broken.
The group of about 20 men and boys arrived halfway through the evening, chanted slogans and pelted the audience with eggs. A police mobile unit had to be called to eject the rioters, and two Belgian men aged 19 and 22 were arrested.
The people who disrupted the debate were members of the Belgian group Sharia4Belgium, an offshoot of Sharia4Holland. Irshad Manji has experienced death threats for several years since her outspoken attack on traditional Islam in her book, “The Trouble with Islam Today.”
Dibi is a young, gay Dutch-Moroccan GreenLeft (GroenLinks) MP. In September, he launched a campaign calling on Muslims around the world to stop blindly following decrees issued by a handful of extremists, and to start thinking for themselves.
Manji was in Europe to promote her new book, “Allah, Liberty and Love.” She says that the key teaching of the book is “moral courage, the willingness to speak up when everyone else wants to shut you up.”
The mob made clear that they felft that Dibi and Manji had no right to talk about Islam because they were too liberal, said Dibi. When the riot started, the audience made efforts to protect both speakers.
“What was really nice to see, and I have never seen, was that the whole audience stood up for us. And we have said, while they were shouting: ‘We will not move. We do not go off the stage, we continue to stand here. You only have to listen to us. And if you do not like to hear us speak, then you zapping’” said Dibi.
Manji said, “I never felt afraid. Not once. Neither did Tofik. In fact, all of us refused to leave, even when police asked. We wouldn’t play on Jihadi terms. Some things are simply more important than fear.”
Said Dibi, “The disruption shows that even in the Netherlands it is necessary to continue the debate on reforming Islam.”
oogenhand 