Gov’t advisors: Netherlands is muslim country historically
If the Dutch criticise Islam, they should realise that they themselves were for years the world’s biggest Muslim country. This remarkable conclusion comes from a book published by the Scientific Council for Government Policy (WRR).
“In the debate on Islam in the Netherlands, it is much too easily forgotten that the Netherlands as coloniser of the present Indonesia was in fact for centuries the biggest Muslim nation in the world. Most Dutch people see the encounter with Muslims as something from recent years. This is (…) a disregard of the history of their country.”
The conclusions come from James Kennedy, professor of modern history at the Free University, and Markha Valenta, academic staff member at the same university, in the book Religion in the public domain (Geloven in het publieke domein) launched by the WRR yesterday. In the book, more than 20 experts try to indicate what changes have taken place in the area of belief and religion in the Netherlands and what these can mean for the government.
The idea that the encounter with Muslims is a recent event has led to “moral panic” among politicians and other opinion-leaders, according to Kennedy and Valenta. One result of integration panic was the court verdict banning the government subsidy for the orthodox Christian party SGP, because this party discriminated against women. Although there had been tension for years between Dutch jurisprudence and the SGP’s position, it only became a problem when the state saw it as necessary and in its own interests to put pressure on Muslims to end discrimination against women, the two researchers write.
The book tries to answer questions such as whether there are limits to the influence of the state on organisations and forms of expression of religions and “how can we deal with the differences in beliefs about the organisation of the private life and society.” The publication will be available in bookstores and at Amsterdam University Press.
One chapter is about the ‘transformation of the religion’ of the Dutch. Seventy percent are not a member of any church any more. “The sensitivity to religious ideas is however increasing. One-third of the population prays daily and two-fifths describe themselves as religious. The number of people that believe in life after death and in angels is growing.”
The ‘unattached spiritual’ are actually the biggest religious group at 26 percent. “They have a great interest in the transcendental and an above-average belief in a higher world (paranormal gifts, spirits and spiritual beings, reincarnation).”
Source: NIS News, ANP, 19 December 2006
