by Joe Mitchell

If someone had told me last month that Holland was going to be the epicenter of a new right-wing insurgency in Europe, I would have laughed that person right off his respective continent. After all, The Netherlands is the epitome of laid-back tolerance, a country so open to a plurality of cultures, politics, and ideas, that it has inspired the phrase, "The only thing the Dutch won't tolerate is intolerance." It is the land of "Bourgeois Red Light Districts" and Space Shops that "Play the Game."

Yet my visions of Holland as lefty Eurodisney were based upon ignorance of Europe's present severe illness. The recent assassination of filmmaker Theo Van Gogh is but a symptom of this chronic malady. Perhaps his death will finally awake the world to Europe's self-imposed dire straits.

Van Gogh had no compunction about publicly denouncing the shortcomings of Islam and its incompatibility with au fait Dutch culture. His film "Submission," about Islam's institutionalized oppression of women went too far for Mohommad B., a 26-year-old Muslim Extremist. Mr. B knifed Van Gogh to death on November 2nd. A letter calling for Muslims to rise up against western infidels was taped to Van Gogh's body.

Many fans of Mr. Van Gogh felt the filmmaker was trying to warn Holland about the dangers of Radical Islam. A banner flown near a makeshift memorial for Van Gogh read: "Theo rests his case."

Following the assassination, retributive anti-Islamic violence erupted throughout the lowlands. Politician Geert Wilders proclaimed: "We are a Dutch democratic society. We have our own norms and values. If you choose radical Islam you can leave, and if you don't leave voluntarily then we will send you away. This is the only message possible." True to form, Islamic extremists put a price on Wilder's head. Wilders is now under 24 hour state protection and cannot return to his home.

Wilders is a disciple of Pim Fortuyn, the well-dressed, openly gay, anti-Muslim professor-cum-politician who was assassinated in 2002 during his campaign for Dutch Parliament by an animal rights activist with pro-Muslim sympathies. Fortuyn coined the phrase "Holland is Full," and advocated an absolute end to immigration from non-Western countries. Such views made him very popular.

This may not sound like the Holland most people know and love. But before you shed a tear for the death of the world's most liberal nation, you must understand a few things about Europe's present crisis.

Holland's, and much of Europe's, growing anti-immigration stance is not racist, but pragmatic. It is intolerance of intolerance. A clash of cultures has erupted in consequence of the wave of immigration from Muslim countries that has flooded Europe over three decades. Fortuyn's home city of Rotterdam is estimated to have a 45% foreign-born population, mostly from Muslim countries. In France, Marseilles' population is 17% Muslim. The Muslim population of all Western Europe is estimated to be at least 13.5 million. The Balkans boasts another 6 million-plus. With a high percentage of illegal immigrants, these estimates are very conservative. The Muslim and Arab populations are increasing at a rate two to four times greater than indigenous Europeans. It is forecast that these groups will be the dominate population in Europe by 2100.

What many like Wilders see as a problem among Muslim and Arab populations is assimilation, or rather, a lack thereof. As many as three generations of Muslims living in many parts of Europe have refused to learn the local language, much less its customs. Half the Muslim and Arab population in France haven't bothered to apply for citizenship. Britain has seen a recent spate of young Islamic women killed by male family members in purported "honor killings."

According to author, Bat Ye'or, whose upcoming book, Eurabia, examines this phenomenon, Europe's present culture clash was set in motion by Charles de Gaulle. De Gaulle, after WWII, wanted France to return to the status of "world power." Yet he needed a way to counter the influence of the United States. De Gaulle's solution was to unite Europe and form alliances with Arab nations in opposition to America's Israeli allegiance. Yet the coup that formalized a symbiotic relationship between Europe and the Arab world occurred after de Gaulle's death.

In 1973, in the wake of the Yom Kippur War which led to the Arab Oil Embargo, the European Economic Community, the forerunner of the EU, signed a pact with the Arab League to keep oil flowing to its member states. The initial name of this devil's pact was the Euro-Arab Dialogue. In 1974, it became the Parliamentary Association for Euro-Arab Cooperation. This association still exists today and has over 600 members.

But there was more to the pact than oil:

1) Immigration from Arab lands to Europe would be open. Europe needed cheap labor;
2) A cultural, economic, and political symbiosis would be developed between Europe and Arab nations-
a) teaching of Arab culture and religion within European universities,
b) other Arab cultural institutions would be created (L'Institut du Monde Arabe in Paris),
c) transfer of Nuclear Technology.

The most alarming aspects of the Euro-Arab accord are anti-American and anti-Israeli:

1) European policy would be opposed to that of the United States;
2) Recognition by Europe of a "Palestinian people," and the creation of a "Palestinian" state;
3) European support for the PLO (which includes terrorist activities)
4) The designation of Yasser Arafat as the leader and spokesman of the Palestinian people;
5) The de-legitimizing of the state of Israel.

What Europe did was join forces with the Arab World in a quasi-War against the United States and Israel. It saw the PAEAC as the only hope for Europe to have any leverage in the world to rival that of the United States. However, Europe is beginning to pay a heavy price for this misguided alliance. A once-dominant culture is falling under Islamic dhimmitude. This explains France and Germany's reluctance to join forces against Saddam Hussein. More cultural defenders like Wilders must come forward before it's too late, and Europe irreparably becomes Eurabia. Gee, North Korea and China don't seem so scary anymore.