The Dutch educational system as it exists now is a relic the vertical regimentation of society that existed throughout much of the 20th century. What we've ended up with is a hybrid system, which is state funded yet has elements of independence. Most publicly funded schools are religious, with catholicism and various offshoots of protestantism dominating. Most schools do retain that religious element in their character, although the intensity of the religiosity is diminishing as society has become more secular. This was the compromise that the various soceital groups had managed to work out that enabled them to live peacefully with one another, although there was substantial segregation between the columns of society. newly-built schools in newly-built areas still generally are affiliated with a religion even in these secular times.

With the influx of migrant workers from north Africa there are now, inevitably, also Islamic schools. Since the issue of immigration and integration of these migrant workers was shorn of the taboo that had been cast over it, more attention has been focused on these Islamic schools. Of particular concern is whether they promote anti-western and anti-semitic (aren't those two synonymous these days?) sentiment. An investigation by the "Education Inspectorate" concluded that it is impossible to check on what's going on in the religious classes offered in these schools. Of the 37 schools investigated, they were unable to ascertain what was being taught in religious classes in 14 of them. There is for instance the As Siddieq school in Amsterdam, which the Inspectorate criticized as follows: "The school must find a better balance between the transmission of identity-determined values and mores, and the transmission of values and mores which facilitate the pupils' ability to participate [in society, ed.]" This is bureacratese for "they're cramming the kids full of anti-western propaganda." In the As Siddieq school, boys and girl are separated in class and in the playground. The head of the school, who has never denied that the school gets money from Saudi Arabia has also written a pamphlet, in which he said that "Jews, the erring, the Christians are the fire wood of Hell." You can imagine what the children are being taught. It is hard to pin down exactly what is taught though. In the presence of the inspectors, no radical or extremist language was used. However, they also note that there are no books or syllabi for the religion classes which are often taught in Arabic. So other than bugging them there's no way of knowing what's really going on.

The melting pot needs to have the fire stoked, because not much melting is going on here. The phlegmatic tolerance of these seeds of destruction and strife has to end. It pains me greatly to say this, because I have always felt that people should be left alone to educate their children as they deem fit without interference. Yet I find myself now advocating a position that I find very troubling, leading on a path I would rather not travel down. However, being left alone works two ways, and September 11th was the wake-up call that showed the West that the Islamofascists are not going to leave us alone. Not addressing this problem of anti-western hate being taught in Dutch Islamic schools is the ostrich response.

At its heart, the problem is that the current wave of immigrants is fundamentally different from previous waves that the Netherlands has seen. Although not an immigrant country like the US, the country has had a long tradition of being a save haven for the persecuted. In 1620 a group of such refugees, having spent 11 years in this country preparing, set out from the port of Delfshaven to seek a new life, cross the Atlantic and lay the foundation of what was to become the United States. The wave of immigrants that has come to the Netherlands and western Europe as a whole is different. It is also different from the traditional immigrants to the United States. They were not fleeing persecution, but were invited as "guest workers" to fill jobs that few natives were willing to fill in the 1960s. The difference is crucial: rather than being emigrants who seek a new and better life, partake of a new culture and liberate themselves from their past, these guest workers brought their culture with them with no intention of abandoning it. After all, they were not expected to stay very long, nor did they themselves expect to stay very long. Few of them sought the clean break with their past which drove millions of Europeans to America. So right from the start, integration was not really an issue. Why integrate, why fire up the melting pot if they're going to be gone soon? Thus the pathologies of Arab culture and society have been transplanted into segments of the West European population.

Another complicating factor is that those who did come here were the least educated, most marginalized members of their own societies. The rich elite, the rulers, the well-connected had no need to leave countries like Morocco. They were doing OK. The uneducated and unskilled were the ones who answered the lure of European guest worker status; it is exactly this group which is now most susceptible to the call of Islamofascism.

"Guest workers" did not work out that way. Many stayed, started families (or brought them over), and became a permanent part of society. Or rather, they formed their own parallel society within Dutch society. The Islamic schools are a reflection of the unwillingness and inability to adapt. This lack of integration is being encouraged of course by the sinister forces of Wahhabi petrodollars, which lubricate the machinery of anti-Western extremism. It must be stopped.

But it would be wrong to treat the Arab immigrants as a monolithic block. Amongst the second and third generation Arabs, there are plenty who have become part of western, secular Dutch society. It is hard to tell how many of them fall into this category, as the immigrant community is defined in peoples' minds not by the assimilated but by the Islamic fanatics and the criminal Moroccan youth gangs. There is a danger that by tarring all of them with the Islamofascist brush, the formerly moderate and assimilated will be driven into the arms of the fanatics. Any strategy to deal with the fifth column in our midst must be two-pronged: encourage the westernized assimilationists to assert themselves, while dealing harshly with those who spread the gospel of anti-Western hatred.