Dutch politician Geert Wilders wants the Netherlands to cancel plans to celebrate 400 years of relations with Turkey. He says Turkish president Abdullah Gül is not welcome here on a state visit this week. But Mr Wilders’ arguments are an insult to adult intelligence, says Radio Netherlands senior editor Robert Chesal.
In 2009 I travelled to Manhattan to cover the NY-Amsterdam 400 celebration, marking four centuries of shared history between the United States and Holland dating back to the days of the New Amsterdam colony. An event for which Dutch taxpayers largely footed the bill. Secretary of State Clinton and Dutch crown prince Willem Alexander stood on the deck of a decommissioned World War II aircraft carrier, extolling the long-standing friendship between the two nations.
Complex reality
Today it all comes back to me as I read Geert Wilders argue that another 400-year celebration, marking Dutch relations with Turkey, should be cancelled. Turkey’s Islamic regime, he says, is no friend of the West and therefore no friend of the Netherlands. President Gül, who begins a state visit to our country tomorrow (Tuesday), should stay home.
Mr Wilders’ argument is that the current regime led by Prime Minister Erdogan is destroying the secular Turkish state and re-islamising the country. Wilders argues that ‘Islamic Turkey’ does not fit into Europe’s liberal, democratic community of values. His reason? That Islam is fundamentally intolerant of Judaism, Christianity and humanism.
Mr Wilders speaks as if there is only one Islam, one Turkey, one Europe. But the reality, fortunately, is far more complex. Islam has its militant and, yes, dangerous factions. But it has its thinkers, democrats and voices of peace too. Likewise, Turkey has very serious downsides: the jailing of many critical journalists, the repression of minorities, the denial of the Armenian genocide.
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Categories: Europe, Netherlands
I’m sorry for the merchants of hatred.
Me too!
There are two ways to look at it:-
1. It is true that the Jihadi Factions have tarnished the façade of Islamic Glory; yet the followers of “Factual Islam” – who are scholars, scientists, doctors, students, business executives, lawyers, judges, politicians and so forth, should not be victimised in the same stance.
2. Also the truth is that Turkey during the Ottoman Caliphate lead the western societies with trade, culture, knowledge and protection.
Its naval fleet under the command of Admiral Barbarossa Hayreddin Pasha {1478 – 4 July 1546}; established the Ottoman supremacy in the Mediterranean, which lasted until the Battle of Lepanto in 1571.
Furthermore, the Ottomans ventured into the northern Atlantic Ocean between 1585 and 1660 and continued to be a major Mediterranean sea-power for three more centuries.
The excellence of Dutch-Turk relations over the last 400 years deserves commemoration worthy of the period and a “Joint Communiqué of World Peace” marking the requisites of modern day.
This age demands that everyone should be called to embrace PEACE. And I am sure the Dutch Government will do its duty in this regard.