el holandaman i i Two years later there was another murder, this time in the name of Allah. Suddenly the real Dutch people were setting fire to mosques and politicians were saying the weirdest things. Total freedom of speech manifested itself and there was suddenly a very different conception of tolerance. Boorishness was elevated to a kind of moral ideal, cynicism to a cultural ideal. We were no longer folks from other countries, we were the Moslems, terrorists. The clash of civilizations was in full swing in the Netherlands. Whatever the problem, Islam was the underlying cause. The authentic Dutchman set off in rigid pursuit of his native culture, the source of all things, and was soon ensnared in his Judeo-Christian roots. Freedom of speech was transformed into the right to offend. As if it was my fault there were so many manholes in the road to the secular liberal paradise. It was made clear to me I had to integrate all over again. Or was integration being confused with assimilation? At any rate, we had to prove we knew how to behave. They talked about our religious fundamentalism, our violent ways of avenging our honour and settling other matters, our custom of importing spouses from back home. It was time we abandoned those barbaric cultural customs. And expectations kept going one step further. Hybrid cultures didn’t seem to exist at the time. It was clear the picture wasn’t supposed to get all too complicated. Christians, atheists from a Moslem country? It was not the moment for contemplation about the relation between culture and religion. Islam was the Ultimate Evil and I myself a mere object. Could I still be myself, I wondered. Was I entitled to call myself Dutch? Or was I just the eternal Moslem? i i i el holandaman