Docents

Ian Buurma, in a fascinating book titled Death in Amsterdam, attributes at least some of the problems associated with multi-culturalism in the Netherlands to a guilt-ridden regard for any and all “others” in the late 20th century, post-World War II. Once the rubble was cleared, Holland looked at itself and what remained, and realized that 100,000 of its 140,000 Jews were not returning, the highest percentage of Jewish Holocaust victims of any of the occupied country. What happened was a national disgrace. People swore so vehemently that it would never happen again, that traditional Dutch liberality, now brimming with guilt, found it impossible to say no to anyone, anytime, for any reason.

So it accepted hordes of immigrants.

Today, many, many Dutch people feel that the Netherlands has an acute problem with its immigrant masses, including—and perhaps most importantly—those immigrants who’ve arrived in the Netherlands lugging along their Islamic faith with a religious ardor the Dutch themselves long ago abandoned.

No single event served the highlight the problems of immigration here, and Muslim immigration especially as the center-of-the-city Amsterdam murder of Theo Van Gogh, a strident anti-immigrant voice. When Van Gogh’s murderer was led off, right at the scene of the crime, he was brazen about the attack, confident that his God had blessed him and the murder he committed.

Our first day in Holland—what some of us could see of it, at least, fuzzied by jet lag—included a couple of long-standing traditions—the almost obligatory Amsterdam canal trip winding through the city's old blood lines, and an audio tour of the Rijksmuseum, presently being remodeled, where Rembrant’s famed Nightwatch stands guard over everything else and makes the rest of the collection somehow diminutive.

But what I saw happening—and caught on a surreptitious shot here—was several Dutch women—which is to say blonde and blue-eyed Arian types—lecturing excitedly to a dozen or so Dutch kids, children far more swarthy than their teachers, and little girls in veils. What these women were talking about was the work of the Dutch masters hanging from the museum’s walls. Those lectures were in Dutch, so I missed most of what was said; but there was no question about what was going on: a couple of energetic teachers were doing their best to encourage those Muslim kids to appreciate something of the glories of Dutch painting—which is, let me tell you, glorious.

Those women were holding forth with the intensity of an ancient dominee, yet conscious of their audience, engaging them, smiling, trying their best—like Holland itself—to get those kids to love what they love—Dutch history and culture.

We’re not talking here about a national project that’s elective. The truth is, this country is ripped apart by a very difficult question: how many of “them” can it adopt without the “them” becoming the “us,”—or, worse, erasing the “us,” and closing up institutions like the Rijksmuseum because it does not honor Allah.

Who will win? No one knows. Some believe it’s already a war. Theo Van Gogh is dead, after all.

What they are, those highly interactive museum guides, is peacemakers. Truly.

But some may think not. Some probably believe they're war-mongers in the camo of museum guide badges, out to destroy a godly Islamic culture.

We were in the museum that recounted Holland's Golden Age in painting; but with what was going on inside, it was impossible not to miss what’s clearly going on today too, front and center, in Dutch life.

History is still being made, still being written.