Dutch Culture Wars

(Ellen Vroegh's banished painting)

There's a breed of stories coming out in the Dutch press lately with the theme "man, can you believe how backward those Muslims are?!"

Personally, I have my doubts about how accurate these stories are: they are suspiciously well-suited to a readership eager to be outraged by anything un-Dutch done by Muslims.

The most recent is the story (Telegraaf, Dutch) of how the city hall of Huizen removed the painting above because of complaints from "Muslim men."

A week ago, when there was a heat wave, there was a similar story (Telegraaf, Dutch) that said _ or so the story goes _ several Muslim men asked (white) Dutch construction workers not to wear t-shirts and shorts to work. Too revealing.

The foreman "said there was a complaint from Islamic neighbors. They thought our clothes were too naked and too short." The well-muscled men registered the remark (i.e. and didn't act on it).

-Construction worker Robin Willemsen, as quoted by De Telegraaf.

I guess somewhat surprising if true.

The Telegraaf's wording ("well-muscled men") ensured that the basic tone of responses (23 pages worth on the paper's website) would focus on the sexual undertone here: how Muslim immigrant men must feel worried that their women will be led into temptation by the sight of white male flesh.

Yeah, right.

Here are the two basic types of Dutch construction workers:

(flickr: malingering)

(flickr:geoff coupe)

Neither one of them is likely to pull a lot of Muslim chicks.

What if _ and I'm just speculating here _ one of the workers were taking a leak on the site, and that bothered the locals?

What I'm saying is, as surprising as it seems that Muslims were complaining about men in shorts on a hot day, I sure wish I could hear their side of the story, rather than reading a version derived 100% from the perspective of the construction workers.

More deconstruction:



On the removed painting:
Reading other reports fills out the picture a bit.

NOS writes that actually "several female employees also didn't feel comfortable" with the paintings either. But it doesn't mention what religion they were.

De Volkskrant (via ANP?) says there were actually two paintings, and they were moved from the main lobby. More interestingly, a city spokeswoman is quoted as saying complaints came from "a couple of Muslims, as well as people of other spiritual convictons."



I would add that Huizen is a small, politically conservative town where the Dutch Reform Church (Calvinists) is by far the largest.
I wish I could put a number on how many Muslims live there, but I can summarize it thusly: not many.

If this were just a plain old "some people are prude" story, would we even be reading it?

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No sex before marriage = no sex...ever?

(photo: thomas hawk)

This post exists for the sole purpose of republishing a radio piece done by a friend of mine in Berkeley, Anrica Deb:

No sex means no sex...



Curious what people's reactions are (Flurtissimo, keep it clean...)

Personally I think it's kind of sad that things turned out the way they have for the young woman in the story. Though I guess the ending maybe hints that she's changing her mind?

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Work supercedes Blog

(I had to pull my earlier post because it seemed like a conflict of interest for me to put the photos on my site while it's not clear who owns the copyright to them and they are newsworthy. Hopefully I'll restore it when this is "old news" again.)

AP story on Joran van der Sloot

Screen grabs of the incident are available on Francisco van Jole's flickr feed:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/fvjole/2188558424/in/photostream/

The film (in Dutch) is on:

http://www.novatv.nl/

Watch minutes 3-4.

Van der Sloot's mother was left to try to smooth things over:

Corrie Gerritsma http://www.camathome.com/



For a nice website on evidence in the Holloway case without any nutso raving, I recommend:

http://www.hollowaycase.com/


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Joran van der Sloot loses temper after Dutch TV interview

(photos are copyrighted by francisco van jole, at full resolution on his Flickr feed http://www.flickr.com/photos/fvjole/2187264074/in/photostream/)

Friday night was supposed to be Joran van der Sloot's "final" goodbye interview with the Dutch press. He appeared with both his parents and left most of the talking to them. Nothing much interesting was said, or done, until the moment the "live" cameras stopped rolling.

Then, Joran threw his glass of wine in the face of one of the show's other guests, crime reporter Peter R. De Vries.

De Vries had zeroed in on several uncomfortable inconsistencies in Joran's story, and hammered on him being a liar. Of course Joran himself has admitted he lied to police in the early part of the investigation into Natalee Holloway's disappearance, but it apparently angered him to have his nose rubbed in it.

For background, De Vries is known in the Netherlands as kind of a real life "Tintin." He has a TV show where he cracks cases where the police have given up or failed. He went to Aruba to solve the Holloway's disappearance, but didn't unearth much new.

He does say he believes Van der Sloot knows what happened to Natalee.

An eyewitness account of the incident:
"There really wasn't very much discussion, because De Vries wasn't given any room for it by the hosts.
"Joran presented himself very calmly, but apparently he was boiling with rage within and couldn't control himself."
...
(after the wine was thrown:) Panic. De Vries yelled that it was stinging his eyes, his wife went to get water. Joran disappeared quickly from the studio with his father, and the audience was saying 'ooh' and 'aah' and 'why on earth'?"

Van der Sloot's mother was left to try to smooth things over:
(Quotes and photo from Corrie Gerritsma http://www.camathome.com/ but it's Dutch language; http://www.flickr.com/photos/camathome/2185737245/ for full resolution. De Vries is on far left.)

NOS news interviewed De Vries about the incident.

"This says something about Joran of course...he can't doesn't have complete control over his behavior. His parents did their best during the program to underline that he had manners, that he treated girls properly, and that there are some things that he really wouldn't do. Now, this is something that if you had asked them before the show, they probably would have said, 'my child wouldn't do that'."

Joran declined to be interviewed about the incident.

"His mother of course, looked very foolish. She had just done her best to protect him, to portray him as a well-raised boy; and at the moment that he does something like that, all their efforts are negated in an instant."
-De Vries.



De Vries was strongest when questioning why Joran decided to lie, and co-ordinate a lie, with his friends, from the very start.


Again, for a nice website on evidence in the Holloway case without any nutso raving, I recommend:

http://www.hollowaycase.com/


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New Years Eve attack in Rotterdam foiled?

(photo: miriam mannak)

Another day, another massive front page story by De Telegraaf somewhat spoiled by an outright denial.

The gospel truth is that three men were arrested in Rotterdam on suspicion of preparing a terrorist attack.

De Telegraaf was way, way ahead of the pack, reporting in this morning's paper _ on the basis of anonymous sources _ that the attack was targeting Rotterdam's landmark Erasmus bridge.

However, after the men were arraigned today, prosecutors released the following statement:

"The suggestion in De Telegraaf this morning that the possible violent act was supposedly directed at the New Year's party in Rotterdam was fabricated out of thin air."

After the escaped gorilla story, you have to wonder what De Telegraaf _ the largest daily in the country _ is doing.

I wonder if this could be related to the latest data out today showing all major daily papers losing more subscribers (though declines were smaller this time).

Anyhow, watch out for those anonymice!
(photo: alBaqir)

(huees)

That said, it's too bad to hear that the Dutch secret service thinks there are people out there trying to mount an attack. Just when things appeared to be cooling down a little in this country...

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Bokito Bezerk! Gorilla Goes Gonzo Again!

(photo:mrs. jolanda)

This is certainly the way to sell newspapers.

But was that banner headline and massive spread on the front page of Saturday's edition of De Telegraaf a tad too tabloid?

Bokito escaped from the Rotterdam Zoo in May and mauled a woman who was convinced she had a psychic connection with the ape. She had spent hours staring at him from behind the glass-walled indoor part of his enclosure, which primate experts say the 400-pound gorilla interpreted as provocation.

When a tiger got out and killed a young man in San Francisco last week, De Telegraaf decided it needed to do a follow-up story on Bokito.

The teaser:

"The Gorilla Bokito went crazy again when he saw his victim Yvonne de Horde for the first time after his escape at Rotterdam's "Happy Village Animal Nursery" in May. The woman, from Zoetermeer, has now had two meetings with the silverback since the attack."

The story quoted De Horde's husband describing the first meeting between Yvonne and Bokito.

Bokito "went completely crazy. He ran outside and Yvonne was in a panic, scared to death that he would attack her again. She wanted only one thing, and that was to flee the zoo as fast as possible. She squeezed my hand very hard with her broken fingers,