The Dutch disease
Razib over at Gene Expression has posted a brilliant analysis, emailed by a Dutch friend of his, of the deeper meaning of recent events in the Netherlands.
I would like to point out that, in contrast with 9/11, the murder of Van Gogh is everything but an isolated incident whose reaction you can measure. Any comparison between the two is, as we say over here, like comparing apples with pears. The attack on the World Trade Center was made by a foreign enemy, suddenly and unannounced, as it happens orchestrated by some rich boy from Saudi Arabia who got pissed off about the Americans supporting Israel and having soldiers on 'holy ground' (a good thing, mind you).
On the other hand there is the Dutch population, who have been attacked, harrassed, intimidated and made to feel a stranger in our own country for decades. This isn't a case of one man or a group of extremists who held a grudge against Theo Van Gogh, since nearly every Muslim in Holland disagrees with his given right to criticize, or 'insult' Islam. They don't "approve" of the murder, but they "understand why it happened". In other words, a silent consent. Made by people who, be it by violence or by openly rejecting violence, already know that it doesn't matter.
If supporting freedom of speech is the common opinion in Holland now, it won't be in 40 years time. What's happening in Holland, and in the rest of Europe (think of France and its 300 lawless ghettos) is a fundamental invasion of one of the most free and social societies in the world, by those making use of those very same liberties and privileges to cause a demographic, and eventually a theocratical revolution. You're being attacked by Islam; we are becoming Islam.
UPDATE: Dutch leftie Mark Spaan offers tacit agreement in the Guardian:
Few are aware that in the near future as much as 15% of the Netherlands' population will be Muslim. The old Dutch society so craved by Pim Fortuyn no longer exists. We will have to live with the one we've got.
Expect those who now react with pretend hilarity to the idea of other European countries being Islamified to end up giving just such resigned answers in a decade or two.