Mutual respect” “

After the murder of film director Theo Van Gogh on 2 November, many attacks on Moslem buildings, but also on Catholic schools and churches, have been reported in the Netherlands. There was an arson attack on a Catholic school at Eindhoven on the afternoon of 10 November and one classroom was set alight. On the same day there was a silent march to protest against an arson attack on an Islamic elementary school at Uden, which had been almost completely destroyed the previous day. Prime Minister Jan-Peter Balkenende had visited the school on the same morning and appealed to the Dutch not to let themselves be sucked into the spiral of violence. In this fraught social climate, the Dutch bishops issued an “open letter” on 11 November. dialogUE WITH MUSLIMS. In their open letter to Dutch society, published by the Dutch Bishops’ Conference at Utrecht on 11 November, the Dutch bishops urge “close contacts between Muslims and non-Muslims in Holland” “to gather all the forces that may contribute to the pursuit of the common good”. “The Dutch bishops, at their assembly on 9 November – the letter reports – agreed to set up a Council for inter-religious dialogue” to “reinforce the dialogue of the Catholic Church with the non-biblical religions in our country”. The fact that this decision was taken at this time assumes a particular significance. “After the death of the director Theo van Gogh, assassinated in a barbarous fashion – write the bishops – we recognize that a negative attitude is hardening towards the Moslem community in Holland. It is bearing in mind this social situation”, the letter continues, “that we are writing this open letter to Dutch society, so that it be, remain and increasingly become a society in which mutual respect reigns”. “Multicultural and multireligious society poses questions that are foreign to us; many good things have derived from it, other questions still remain unanswered.” FUNDAMENTALIST terrorism. The bishops make a clear reference in their letter to fundamentalist terrorism, “supported only by a small group of extremists. The overwhelming majority of Moslems – they continue – “abhor the spilling of blood”, with a reference to the murder of Theo van Gogh. “The Moslem community however ought to ask itself whether it clearly decides between a true or false interpretation of the Koran. In Christianity too errors have been committed by appealing to the Gospel” . TOLERANCE AS SOCIAL COHESION. The Dutch bishops further ask all members of Dutch society to be temperate in their behaviour, and explicit reference is made to the director Van Gogh, who had turned “polemic, insult and provocation” into a mode of expression. But no type of provocation – the bishops insist – is great enough “to justify violence and murder”. “A society that does not tolerate dissidents shows weakness, not strength”, write the bishops in their letter, but they also express a doubt whether the fundamental right of man to freely express his own opinion may be taken so far as to deride what others hold sacred”. “The answer to this question is not to be found in laws but in the conscience of the individual”, they say. “vocaTION TO MODERATION”. Calling for the integration of Moslems in Dutch society, the bishops reject the task of “claiming a moral or ideological view”, since that “would be in contradiction to the fundamental right to freedom of expression and opinion. The penal law offers sufficient scope for sanctions to protect us from false steps”. The bishops further recall that the co-existence of different religions was already present in Holland in the nineteenth century and that in the past Catholics too were classified as second-class citizens. From this historic fact a disposition to moderation emerges”. THE COUNCIL OF THE CHURCHES APPEALS FOR DIALOGUE. The Dutch Council of the Churches has also appealed for dialogue. A telephone hotline will be activated from 16 November, open from 9.00 to 21.00 to enable citizens who are frightened by recent episodes of violence in the country to contact, if they wish, exponents of the Christian or Moslem churches.