PETER VAN DER VEERexperiences or because of an insecurity about their expertise beyond these experiences.
Certainly in a political climate that favors ‘‘the personal,’’ an attractive black woman with
good media presence who accuses the prophet Muhammad of having been a pedophile
can be a political, though controversial, asset. The Liberal Party, which she represents
in parliament, is generally conservative and rather staid, and Hirsi Ali’s position is not
unchallenged within it, but, as with Fortuyn, it is precisely the controversy and media
attention she generates that has kept her political career going.
Recently, tensions within the Liberal Party over the issue of immigration have come
to the surface. In May 2006, Minister of Immigration Rita Verdonk, a prominent leader
of the Liberals, collided with Hirsi Ali when she found out that Hirsi Ali had lied about
her name and other details when applying for asylum in the Netherlands. Hirsi Ali had
to step down from her membership in parliament. In the row that followed, it was unclear
whether she could retain her citizenship, since on similar grounds others had been sent
back to where they came from. In the end that did not happen, but Hirsi Ali accepted an
offer of work from the Enterprise Institute, a neo-conservative think tank in Washington.
She was vehemently defended by Richard Perle, one of the architects of Bush’s foreign
policy in the Middle East, Salman Rushdie, and Mario Vargas Llhosa, an interesting group
of anti-Islamists.
Conclusion
In a recent national survey, a majority of Dutch respondents declared themselves satisfied
with their own lives but very unhappy with society at large and pessimistic about the
future.^5 They worried about a decline in norms and values in social life and about the
decline of social welfare. Sixty percent of the autochthonous Dutch felt uneasy about the
presence of ethnic minorities, and 75 percent perceived Muslim fundamentalism as a
threat. The general picture is one of considerable fear for the future, fear of a globalization
that will disturb the arrangements of Dutch society. Migrants are made to stand for the
major transformations in Dutch society and are felt to be part of a threatening phase of
globalization. Many Dutch are ambivalent about the freedoms brought to them since the
1960s; they want these freedoms to be preserved in the private sphere but complemented
with more restrictive regimes in the public sphere. Religious traditions disturb such dis-
tinctions. Islam is a public religion, and it manifests itself both within and outside of the
private sphere. It reminds the Dutch too much of what they have recently left behind.
My argument has been that one must look at broader Dutch cultural transformations
in order to understand recent events in the Netherlands. These transformations, while
typically Dutch, do not necessarily distinguish the Netherlands from the rest of Europe.
Similar processes can be recognized in other European societies, where the arrival of
primarily Muslim immigrants has triggered strong emotional and political responses. In
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