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Extra police on the street in the Slotervaart district of Amsterdam on Monday evening around 2300.
Photo: ANP/Evert Elsinga
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It has been an unusually violent week for Amsterdam's western Slotervaart district. Cars were torched and youths clashed with police on several consecutive nights after a 22-year-old ethnic Moroccan was shot dead at a police station. He was killed by a policewoman he had just stabbed a number of times. The riots that followed reminded Amsterdam's Chief Commissioner Bernard Welten of a major nightmare for Western European cities: violence on a Parisian scale.
Every major town in the Netherlands has its share of so-called problem youths, the type of violent adolescents who gang up to terrorise the neighbourhood. Many of them are the children of migrant workers of Moroccan descent who arrived in the Netherlands in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The Dutch called them guest workers, the operative idea being that they would return to their country of origin when they were no longer needed. So nobody bothered to teach them Dutch, or much of anything else for that matter. The guest workers had their wives come over, but they, just like their husbands were not expected, or encouraged, to integrate into Dutch society.
The next generation
However, very few went back. What they did do, much to the government's surprise, was have children. These children were raised in a strange and often openly hostile environment, by parents who did not speak the language and tried to instil moral values completely at odds with those of the country they lived in. So, kids being kids, they began taking advantage of the language gap by playing off their parents against their teachers and pretending not to understand what any Dutch person in a position of authority was saying.
The situation was substantially exacerbated by successive governments that chose to ignore what people in the streets knew was an increasingly serious problem. For years, political correctness dictated that problems with migrant children could not be openly discussed. Anybody trying to do so would be accused of blatant racism and Islamophobia. So by the time the social climate began to change, in the late 1990s, the situation had spun well and truly out of control.
Violent incidents
Slotervaart, a district in the west of Amsterdam, is not very different from any other poor district in the Netherlands' major cities. What sets it apart from similar districts is a recent series of violent incidents. On 11 October, a 16 year-old Moroccan boy died of a stab wound he sustained in a fight with a 14-year-old classmate after the two got into an argument over a pen. Only three days later, a disturbed Moroccan man walked into the local police station and, without any provocation, stabbed and seriously injured a police woman and one of her colleagues. The man was shot dead by one of the officers.
In the following days, local Moroccan youths torched four cars in the district and smashed the windows of the police station. Since then, police have been intensively patrolling the district, which led to the arrests of eight youths who were detained when officers found jerry cans full of petrol in their vehicle. In the past few days, senior police officers have been making comparisons with the riots that raged in Paris in which more than 9,000 cars were torched two years ago.
Fundamental differences
However, both Interior Minister Guusje ter Horst and experts on the Moroccan youth gangs issue say that the two situations are fundamentally different. There is reportedly far more poverty, unemployment and racism in the Paris suburbs. Criminologist Frank van Gemert from the Free University said in today's
de Volkskrant that another major difference with the French situation lies in the fact that the Dutch government is spending millions of euros on aid to the Slotervaart district. And police are in regular contact with religious leaders and other representatives of the local community. Mr Van Gemert says these youths may feel frustrated, but they can't say that they are being abandoned by the government.
His argument that they are simply using the recent incidents as an excuse to raise hell is born out by police reports showing that they are dealing with a limited group of around 35 youths, all of them repeat offenders. In
NRC.Next, district council chair Ahmed Marcouch says that the vandalism in his district has nothing to do with emotions over the recent deaths:
"Emotions? That's giving them way to much credit. These punks have no emotions for anyone."
Tags:
Amsterdam,
Dutch Law,
Dutch Moroccans,
Dutch Police,
Guusje ter Horst,
Immigrants,
Islamophobia,
Migrant Workers,
Paris
John Timmermans,
26-11-2008
- Canada
Have you ever heard dumb Hollanders? I did, I was one of them and we went to Canada in 1950. We lost all our farming livestock and all buildings during the war.
The Dutch government would send us to Canada with only $100 per person from our own money the rest we had to leave there. We worked there, paid taxes and never received a dime from the Dutch govt, afterwards. Now they are stuck with millions of Muslims in a very small country mostly migrant workers and they let them stay. 2/3s are lazy don't work eat free get everything from the govt, and now they are stuck with a bunch of radicals, murderers robbers and smashing cars, they treat them as kings and their own people are being neglected. They can have all the migrant workers from Poland a good catholic country but one MP woman claims she rather have Moslims. I could not live in that country if they give me a million.
John Timmermans,
14-01-2008
- Can.
Have they ever made one of the biggest mistakes in the Dutch history in the last 40 years. They got these Maroccans into the country for seasonal work and then they let them stay. Canada wouldn't get tricked like that and we live in a very big country, you simply don't give them a passport, when the work is done send them back. Now, who is going to solve this terrible problem, the only man I can think of is G. Wilders and you Dutch people you better support this man.
Lyn Free,
31-10-2007
- USA
Racism. The word is a crutch, an excuse for those who can not earn their own way. I feel sorry for the Dutch and the Germans. Their countries' social welfare systems are overburdened by parasites. The Dutch, the Germans, the French, etc.: none of them owe these rotters anything. Let these 'underprivileged' foreigners go back to their homelands and see how well they fare. Good luck to you Europeans. Stop blaming yourselves for the failure of these other people.
Sandra,
30-10-2007
- Nederlands
I get sick and tired of the sorry excuse of racism for criminals and using that as a defense for their criminal acts. These thugs know right from wrong and there is no excuse to physically harm another human being or damage someone's property, or steal or rob etc. I will say it again, strip these thugs of their Dutch citizenship and send them back to their parents' country where they can live like barbaric animals freely.
vankollem,
30-10-2007
- usa
i am sitting here crying and my parents who died in aushwtiz must be turning over in their graves, to what is happening to my good old holland.wake up and take control and do not worry about world opinion.
silvio,
28-10-2007
- italy
The Netherlands has been known for being a tolerant country. Since the Golden Age, the idea of freedom has been part of the Dutch tradition. John Locke, considered to be the father of liberalism, lived in the Netherands. Thinkers like Spinoza, Descartes and Grotius contributed to shape the cosmopolitan flavour of the Netherlands. Dutch are business minded and pragmatic for obvious historical reasons.
For the sake of a enlightening tradition, The Netherlands must stop cultural polarization. I agree that the reason of violence has to do with civilization, with the mindset and origin of the people involved in the violence of these days. However, the greatness of the Netherlands consists in its liberal and tolerant tradition in which different cultures coexist without harming each other.
Therefore, the correct attitude towards the violence in the poor district of Amsterdam is to apply the Dutch laws without blaming the arabs because they come from backward societies.
I have read the autobiographical accounts of Ayaan Hirsi Ali. She has her freedom of expression. But I don’t like the space she has in the press. Every time there is a murder we end up talking about Hirsi Ali. She always says the same thing. If you say something which is true only one time, I agree with you. But if you keep saying the same thing one hundred times I start thinking that you are missing analysis. If a Moroccan kills a police woman, put him in jail. Please, but please, don’t start talking about genital mutilation. I am fed up. Stop it.
rhayat,
rhayat1@yahoo.com,
24-10-2007
- USA
Are European politicians stupid that they didn't know importing thousands of non-Europeans into their countries would bring strife? Perhaps, but more likely they knew this quite well and simply don't care.
Bugs,
23-10-2007
-
Were these kids 'immigrants' or were they born and raised in the Netherlands, understanding the language, recieving a Dutch education etc?
How much of this is an 'ethnic' problem and how much of it is a socio-economic problem?
When right-wing white Dutch teenagers participate in their anti-immigrant protest marches, when they burn down schools and vandalise mosques - is their status as 'Dutch' questioned? Is their nationality questioned? Is their religion blamed? Does anyone ask about 'their' level of integration and participation? So what's the difference?
Sandra,
22-10-2007
- Nederlands
These troublemakers that have dual nationalities should be stripped of their Dutch citizenship as well as their parents that migrated here because they cannot control their offspring so they should be held responsible for their misdeeds and sent out of the country for good! I am an American, and I am a guest in this country even though I have Dutch roots on my mothers side of the family, I respect the laws of this country as I would my own country. I feel that all outsiders that cannot respect the law here should be given their walking papers and leave the country. I feel that your laws are too easy for these thugs that terrorise innocent people.
Nabil,
21-10-2007
-
I would like to mention a typing "error" in the title:
Nine days in Slotervaart
"Dutch" youths turn to violence in Amsterdam.
No wonder why they don't feel 100% dutch.
Lucy Yang,
21-10-2007
- China
I just don't get it...a crazed Muslim man stabbed two policemen, Muslim youths rioted and vandalized. Nevertheless this article has an "islamophobia" tag...there is nothing islamophobic in this news story. How come those perpetrators are categorized as "victims" of islamophobia. This is an example of polical correctness running amok...
fafadfa,
21-10-2007
- fasfasdf
Armed police on the streets NOW.
bob,
21-10-2007
- md USA
The fact that you with political correctness call them "immigrant" youth --is part of the problem-- You Dutch don't value your own culture--and you will become in another few decades aj-Joumhouriyya al-Islamiyya al-Houlandiyya-- One does not need to be a right-wing fascist fanatic in order to love and respect his own country. The Netherlands has always been a unique place. Now you are becoming Islamified and don't seem to care. You will lose all your freedoms and your famous beer will become a thing of the past.
Connie,
20-10-2007
- USA
http://sioe.wordpress.com/
SIOE stands for Stop Islamisation Of Europe: Racism is the lowest form of human stupidity, but Islamophobia is the height of common sense
Crusades were self defense!,
20-10-2007
- Canada
'Immigrant workers', 'Morrrocan youth' - my dear Dutch friends they are rioting because they are MUSLIMS okay?
They are in the land of al-dar al-haram, non-islam and it's OKAY according to hadith/quran.
Why dont you bring in Mexicans (ie Catholics) and Chinese (ie Buddists etc) to be your new immigrants and guest workers? Then these things will SIMPLY NOT HAPPEN.
Wake up my Dutch friends, wake the f**k up before it's too late.
