Go take the camel...

[Abraham]

Last Wednesday, the international train from Frankfurt to Amsterdam was stopped, just before entering Amsterdam Central Station, on order of the police and security services after several alarming phonecalls from passengers. Several passengers reported two Arab-looking young men in jhebalah' (long white ceremonial robes) with backpacks entering a toilet together.

There was a terror alarm, the train was evacuated, all railroad traffic to and from the Eastern entrance of Amsterdam Central Station was blocked and a SWAT team arrested the two and led them away, handcuffed, over the rail emplacement. The train was searched for explosives but nothing was found. After hours of delay and heavy inconvenience for thousands of passengers the railroad traffic was resumed.

Amsterdam is a place of tolerance, where, untill recently, the fact that two young Muslim men would enter a toilet together would hardly have raised an eyebrow. Its only after the events in Madrid and especially London that the Dutch are more aware they belong to the enemies of radical Islam and that terror attacks might occur in Holland as well.
However, this time it was false alarm. After questioning the suspects the Police reported them to be fundamental Muslims in religious dress, coming back from friends in Germany where they had celebrated Ramadan. They felt obliged to conduct a ritual cleaning of themselves and therefor entered a toilet. No sweat...

Well, no sweat...?
In a sense it is really worrysome that people in 21th century Europe feel the urge and the freedom to perform these 7th century totally outdated religious rituals outside the privacy of their homes in total disrespect of the fear, the iritation and the nuisance that they cause with the normal passengers. That fear was quite rational and installed among normal people by their extremist Muslim brothers after the recent string of suicide bombings in public transportation services abroad.

Go figure this:
1. Backward 'progressives', who still can't let go the multi-culti-soci-fairy, called the passengers "stupid" for thinking that these people would commit a terrorist act, being so obviously dressed as devote Muslims... the lesson apparently being to consider anybody with Arab features a threat.
2. The lawyers of the two innocent Muslims are considering a legal claim for damages against the Dutch Railroad and/or the Dutch police...
3. The lawyers of the Dutch Railroad are not considering a legal claim for damages against the two Muslims... which would really be the long term solution for the problem: they are obviously in Holland because they prefer the better living to their own country, so let them pay for the damages that introducing their own country's habits caused the Dutch society.

When I read this story it reminded me of a posting of Skybird several months ago, in which he reported seing an RTL TV item about the in the reopened Mont Blanc tunnel. According to Skybird an surveillance camera captured a car driver stopping his car at an emergency stop in the tunnel in order to perform his daily prayers...

Few things do more to express the gaping cultural divide between modern Western society and fundamental Muslims.
My personal reaction was: if they really want to re-enact a 7th century desert society why not take a horse or a camel. That's what Mohammed (peace be upon him) would have done. It certainly adds to the immersion and as an incidental circumstance it doesn't scare normal passengers.

[Gizzmoe]

Originally Posted by Abraham

they are obviously in Holland because they prefer the better living to their own country, so let them pay for the damages that introducing their own country's habit causes Dutch society.

Why are you saying "better living to their own country"? Maybe they were born and raised in Holland? Dutch muslims, they do exist and they are part of the Dutch society.

In the part of Düsseldorf were I live almost 20% of the population are Muslims. I have never see them as a danger, they are an important part of our society since more than 40 years. I love cultural diversity, it can be a great gift.

[Abraham]

Originally Posted by Gizzmoe

Why are you saying "better living to their own country"? Maybe they were born and raised in Holland? Dutch muslims, they do exist and they are part of the Dutch society.

If so, they have a lot to learn...
They might or might not have been Dutch in nationality. If so, they had certainly a double nationality. More important, they were not adapted to the current demands of Dutch society. I bet if you asked them what they were they would probably not have answered: "Dutch."

I love cultural diversity as much as most Dutch and consider it a historic acquisition of our society. It has added to what we Dutch have become as a people. And the funny thing is most cultures therefor hardly pose any problem in Holland. Race in Amsterdam we hardly notice.

But you are right to make a critical remark, because practicing these rituals in public transportation in these times did really snap something with me: the total disdain and indifference towards public sentiments in their host society really pizzed me off more than is characteristic for me!

[Gizzmoe]

Originally Posted by Abraham

the total disdain and indifference towards public sentiments in their host society really pizzed me off more than is characteristic for me!

You said it again. "Host society"! Sorry, but I slowly get the feeling that you have a problem to accept that Muslims can be an integral part of Holland or Germany or any other "western" country! They don´t have to be 100% like "us", they can do whatever they want as long as it isn´t against the law. It has not much to do with "disdain" and "indifference".

I admit that it maybe wasn´t a very wise decision to wear such a religious outfit in those times, but they probably wore them every Ramadan before 9/11, Iraq, Madrid and London, why should they change it now? Because it makes (as you put it) "normal" people feel uncomfortable? It´s a religious thing! We are not in a position to tell them what to wear or not. That incident only shows that a part of our society is f*cked up. Not those two guys have a real problem, the others have!

If it was one of the terrorists goals to try to divide Muslims and Christians they had a partly success, as the train example has shown.

[Col7777]

The thing that caused the alarm was not what they were wearing as such but because they were seen entering the toilet with backpacks.
Plus they were only going in to get a wash which other people are allowed to do and in relative privacy.

[Abraham]

Originally Posted by Gizzmoe

You said it again. "Host society"!

Ooops, I was politically incorrect?

Originally Posted by Gizzmoe

Sorry, but I slowly get the feeling that you have a problem to accept that Muslims can be an integral part of Holland...

Muslims? Not at all! Fundamental Muslims? Only if they express their culture in a way that really isn't accepted by Western culture. Of course

Originally Posted by Gizzmoe

(t)hey don´t have to be 100% like "us", they can do whatever they want...

neither is it very relevant if I have a problem with it. The point is that certain outdated cultural habits (it has nothing to do with freedom of religion) are not acceptable or not accepted by modern Dutch society. Take the newest hype of radical Muslima's of covering themselves completely by accepting the burqua as standard clothing, in public and during work...

Originally Posted by Gizzmoe

That incident only shows that a part of our society is f*cked up. Not those two guys have a real problem, the others have!

Yep, I fully agree. Muslim extremists caused a real problem, now we have it!

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by Gizzmoe

You said it again. "Host society"! Sorry, but I slowly get the feeling that you have a problem to accept that Muslims can be an integral part of Holland or Germany or any other "western" country! They don´t have to be 100% like "us", they can do whatever they want as long as it isn´t against the law. It has not much to do with "disdain" and "indifference"..

You illustrate what exactly the West's problem in realizing Islam is: "they can do as they want as long as it is not against the law". That way you reduce Europe to a bureaucratical meaning only. But I understand Europe as a cultural sphere in the first, and it's history was heavily influenced - sometimes for the good, sometimes for the worse - by the religion that has become typical for Europe since the empire of Rome: and that is not Islam that started to constantly attack europe since the 8th century until the 16th century and brought it two times to the brink of brakedown, but Christianity. Even after the Turk's attack on Vienna the relation between Europe and the weakening Muslim Ottoman empire were fragile and focussed on the possebilites of more wars to come. The theory that Islam and Europe peacefully coexisted in past times in history is a complete myth. Their relation has been dominated by war and violance from the defeat of Roderich in 711 (just 80 years after Muhammad's death - the whole African coast lies beyond both events!) until today's heavily damaged relations between both spheres. Islam never has had a historical tradition in Europe, and where it is present in minor regions (Balkans, Hungary), it has been enforced there by violance (Ottoma empire), and has conserved enthnical tensions that every couple of decades light up, since centuries.

I expose myself to critizism of beeing politically uncorrect, but I put it clearly: Europe ends where European Christianity in the tradition of Western Rome's history ends, and it is here where I want to see Islam's drive into the West beeing brought to a halt - period. The orthodox Christian tradition reaching far into the russian and Middle East direction already is critical, but some of it's territories that do not reach too far to the East I do accept and think of as Europe., nevertheless, becasue of shared history. The line is somehwere in the Eastern half of the Baltic states, Belarus, wstern Ukraine, western Romania, the Northern part of the Balkans, the Eastern part of Greece.

This is not about my personal confessions. I am no Christian. It is about realizing the importance of religion as a deciding factor for one's own culture - and identity. And the ideology of Islam does not work well with that typical identity of Western culture and the values that emerged from that.

Empires of the past did not have solid borders, just peripheral territories near their defined borders where their cultural and administrative influence started to phase out and became the weaker the farther away these territories were from the empire's coreland and center. In this understanding Europe is is desperate need to think of it self in an imperial understanding. The idea of solid borders where it ends is idiotic - it has never been like that. There needs to be a belt of Europe phasing out, and non-Europe phasing in. Current policies of the EU do not reflect thios need, thus their headless rushing to the East.

[Abraham]

I was really missing your contribution, Skybird...

Originally Posted by Abraham

When I read this story it reminded me of a posting of Skybird several months ago, in which he reported seing an RTL TV item about the in the reopened Mont Blanc tunnel. According to Skybird an surveillance camera captured a car driver stopping his car at an emergency stop in the tunnel in order to perform his daily prayers...

[caspofungin]

@abraham

In a sense it is really worrysome that people in 21th century Europe feel the urge and the freedom to perform these 7th century totally outdated religious rituals

i thought the modern judaeo-christian tradition was all about individual freedoms. are those freedoms limited to certain segments of society?

Outdated religious rituals -- like baptism, or using a rosary in prayer, or kneeling to pray, or singing in church? Religious rituals are an integral part of any religion.

they are obviously in Holland because they prefer the better living to their own country, so let them pay for the damages that introducing their own country's habits caused the Dutch society.

maybe that's part of the problem. maybe those 2 guys were born and raised in holland. maybe they served in the dutch military. maybe they see themselves as good dutch citizens. but yourself and the majority of your countrymen will never see them as dutch -- they'll always be "immigrants" even if they've been born there, or at best "dutchmen of arabic origin." a lot of people have brought up isolationism as part of the problem of having a muslim minority i a country, but isolationism can come from both sides of a cultural divide.

i've only visited holland once (nice place) but i was born and raised in the uk. but if i walk into a pub, with my dark skin and my "funny" name, the first assumption that some people -- probably the majority -- leap to is that i'm from somewhere else. No matter what ive done for or feel for my country, there's always going to be that element of being a stranger in your own home.

is it any surprise that some people are going to fill that vacuum of needing to belong to something greater than your individual self by identifying more strongly with a rreligios community than the secular society that seems to "reject" them?

[caspofungin]

@skybird

i understand and respect your opinion. but cultural isolationism is hard to implement, and even harder to maintain.

The theory that Islam and Europe peacefully coexisted in past times in history is a complete myth

absolutely agree with you there. any time you have 2 cultures with different viewpoints, there's going to be friction -- either simmering just below the surface or exposed as all-out war. That friction occurs whether it 2 empires abutting, or a minority culture in the midst of another.

How do you ease that friction?

Islam that started to constantly attack europe since the 8th century until the 16th century and brought it two times to the brink of brakedown

whatever i think of that comment's accuracy, answer this -- what has happened since the 16th century? what has happened in the last 100 years? The history of aggression is not unilateral. but this is a digression...

[Abraham]

Originally Posted by caspofungin

@abraham

i thought the modern judaeo-christian tradition was all about individual freedoms. are those freedoms limited to certain segments of society?

No Caspofungin, those freedoms are for all to enjoy. Therefor nobody will stop these young Muslims from going to a mosque and perfroming their religious duties. What they did is not even frobidden by law and they were of course set free. But it shows total indifference and lack of understanding of Dutch culture to confront others with religious rituals especially under the current circumstances. Some passengers were really scared. If you want to integrate and behave like a 'proper' Dutchman, you keep your personal religion where it belongs, in your personal domain and/or your local house of worship. They could have washed themselves at home, couldn't they?

Originally Posted by caspofungin

Outdated religious rituals -- like baptism, or using a rosary in prayer, or kneeling to pray, or singing in church? Religious rituals are an integral part of any religion.

I wouldn't call baptism, praying and singing outdated rituals. And they are very much allowed, of course, for any religion.
Though it would not scare other passengers if somebody would start praying a rosary in the middle of a traintrip, because the obvious connection with terrorism wouldn't be there, it would certainly raise eyebrows and lack of understanding, just as most spontanous public displays of religious rituals would.

Originally Posted by caspofungin

maybe that's part of the problem. maybe those 2 guys were born and raised in holland. maybe they served in the dutch military. maybe they see themselves as good dutch citizens.

That's a real long shot, with all those maybe's...

Originally Posted by caspofungin

... but yourself and the majority of your countrymen will never see them as dutch -- they'll always be "immigrants" even if they've been born there, or at best "dutchmen of arabic origin."

If they do not integrate - which is not the same as assimilate, yes. If they try to be Dutchmen they will be regarded as such by most Dutch.
Just as the new generation of blacks and Hindustans from Surinam origin is almost totally integrated and regarded as real Dutch.

Originally Posted by caspofungin

i've only visited holland once (nice place) but i was born and raised in the uk. but if i walk into a pub, with my dark skin and my "funny" name, the first assumption that some people -- probably the majority -- leap to is that i'm from somewhere else. No matter what ive done for or feel for my country, there's always going to be that element of being a stranger in your own home.

I sincerely think that's very much up to yourself and your behaviour, as far as Holland is concerned. If you would speak Dutch and be dressed in a casual way, nobody would give a damn about the colour of your skin or your "funny" name. If you would add that you are Muslim, people would say: "Well, nice" and continue to talk about Ajax and the weather.
You would however attrack some mild attention if you would speak Arab and walk around in 7th century re-enactment gear and you might certainly experience the feeling of being a stranger in your own place, but then, if you behave like that it's not your own place, because you have not made the cultural connectionand make a statement of it.
By the way, if I would make a habit from walking around in futuristic Star Trak-clothing I would probably experience the same reactions.

Originally Posted by caspofungin

is it any surprise that some people are going to fill that vacuum of needing to belong to something greater than your individual self by identifying more strongly with a rreligios community than the secular society that seems to "reject" them?

No, but then again, knowing the Dutch attitude towards immigrants over the past decades - which has been leaning backwards to make people feel at home and equally treated - I am deeply convinced that the rejection came from those fundamentalists first and foremost and then triggered a predictable response from the average Dutchman. As you said pointedly: "isolationism can come from both sides of a cultural divide."

[caspofungin]

But it shows total disdain and lack of understanding of Dutch culture to confront others with religious rituals especially under the current circumstances. Some passengers were really scared. If you want to integrate and behave like a 'proper'Dutchman, you keep your personal religion where it belongs, in your personal domain and/or your local house of worship

but they stepped into the toilet, right? how is that confrontational? weren't they performing their rituals in private?

I wouldn't call baptism, praying and singing outdated rituals.

i wouldn't either -- but washing or ritual cleansing is?

the obvious connection with terrorism

no, there's an obvious connection with islam. your fellows are the one making the "logical" leap.

That's a real long shot, with all those maybe's...

but not impossible. after all, who could anyone know? i mean, the cops knew, once they'd actually spoken to them...

if you behave like that it's not your own place, because you have not made the cultural connectionand make a statement of it.

fair enough...

knowing the Dutch attitude towards immigrants over the past decades - which has been leaning backwards to make people feel at home and equalLY treated - I am deeply convinced that the rejection came from those fundamentalists first and foremost and then triggered a predictable response from the average Dutchman.

i honestly don't know enough about holland and other european countries to make a judgement. my only experience has been in the uk. and i agree that some immigrants, at least in recent years, take the easy route and just melt into their little ethnic enclaves. but some don't, some try to assimilate, and while ssome may do so successfully, others won't, for a variety of reasons.

it all depends on your perspective.

"isolationism can come from both sides of a cultural divide.

at least we can both agree on that. [/quote]

[bradclark1]

Several passengers reported two Arab-looking young men in jhebalah' (long white ceremonial robes) with backpacks entering a toilet together.

If I saw this my anxiety level would skyrocket. Why would two men enter a toilet together? Well, besides being gay. Arabs in religious dress with ruck sacks would send my alarm bells ringing. They wanted to dress nice to meet Allah? Sad? Yes but thats the state of the world we live in. To me the arabs should have known better. And then, perhaps they wanted to freak people out. It has been arabs commiting acts of terrorism. Not midgets but arabs.
If it looks like a duck Walks like a duck. Quacks like a duck. Its a duck until proven otherwise. Thats reality.

[Abraham]

@ Broadclarck1:
They moved around from one toilet to the other, speaking Arab among them. It later turned out that they were checking which toilet was clean enough for their ritual...

Originally Posted by caspofungin

but they stepped into the toilet, right? how is that confrontational? weren't they performing their rituals in private?

Dear caspofungin, are you pulling my leg? First of all a toilet in a train is not a private place, but a private in public transportation. Rightly or wrongly their behaviour attracked attention and scared several passengers. There have been bombings in means of public transportation recently...

Originally Posted by caspofungin

i wouldn't either -- but washing or ritual cleansing is?

Yes, certainly. Very hygienic and necessairy in the desert, but most people in Holland have the opportunity to take regular showers or baths nowadays. That outdates the ritual cleaning.
But again, it's not forbidden. But if you want to integrate, do it in your home.
How about the situation on the other side of the hill? If I would be a Minister or a Priest, walking in my traditional religious clothes with a cross or a crucifix around my neck and a Bible under my arm in any orthodox Muslim country, could I call on any understanding if I was preaching, praying or performing religious rituals in the public arena? Posing the question is answering it.
We should realise that the often criticized West gives all religions a level of freedom that is unheard of in other cultures. This is guaranteed by the separation of State and Church, because no religion or religious law can effectively guarantee the freedom of others to practize their religion.

Originally Posted by caspofungin

i honestly don't know enough about holland and other european countries to make a judgement. my only experience has been in the uk. and i agree that some immigrants, at least in recent years, take the easy route and just melt into their little ethnic enclaves. but some don't, some try to assimilate, and while ssome may do so successfully, others won't, for a variety of reasons.

I would suggest you sniff up the atmosphere for a long weekend or so. It only takes a 40 minutes flight to Schiphol or a ferry to Hook of Holland. You'll like Amsterdam and I'ld certainly like to share a drink with you...

[caspofungin]

Rightly or wrongly their behaviour attracked attention and scared several passengers.

i appreciate that, and understand it, and maybe they could have been more tactful or something. all i'm saying is that it seems funny to me to blame the public response on those 2 guys -- i understand the response, and i guess if my anxiety level was high and i was in their position i might do the same -- but all they were doing was practising their religion, which they're entitled to do.

have the opportunity to take regular showers or baths nowadays. That outdates the ritual cleaning

that's why its ritual.

We should realise that the often criticized West gives all religions a level of freedom that is unheard of in other cultures...

i do realise it, and appreciate that freedom.

If I would be a Minister or a Priest, walking in my traditional religious clothes with a cross or a crucifix around my neck and a Bible under my arm in any orthodox Muslim country, could I call on any understanding if I was preaching, praying or performing religious rituals in the public arena?

it's not against the quran, but illegal in many countries -- not all -- that's the law those countries have decided to enact and enforce. that repression is conducted against their own citizens, too, which is one of the many reasons people choose to emigrate to the west.

I would suggest you sniff up the atmosphere for a long weekend or so. It only takes a 40 minutes flight to Schiphol or a ferry to Hook of Holland. You'll like Amsterdam and I'ld certainly like to share a drink with you...

i'd love to take you up on it-- unfortunately i'm in the u.s. for now, on a visa, so if i left i'd have issues getting back in. maybe soon, though.