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really worrysome that people in 21th century Europe feel the urge and the freedom to perform these 7th century totally outdated religious rituals outside the privacy of their homes in total disrespect of the fear, the iritation and the nuisance that they cause with the normal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.