SHE USED TO BE NINA, NOW THIS IS SUHAILAH AND OTHER STORIES.

A.) SHE USED TO BE NINA, NOW THIS IS SUHAILAH.

From the online edition of NRC Handelsblad, a leading Dutch newspaper:

The number of native young women converting to Islam is growing. The tight living rules offer "peace and certainty".

By Juliette Vasterman

Mariska becomes a muslima this evening. That is fairly simple, she only has to recite the shahada (religious testimony). In a living room in Eindhoven sit eighteen muslimas in pajamas around her, on cushions and air beds. Most women have blond hair and blue eyes. They are native Dutchwomen who have converted to Islam. Over the past years a growing number of women in Holland become muslim. On the moslima.nl website more than one hundred converts recall their story. And in tens of msn talking groups ("ben-op-zoek", "Islam voor jou", "Al Mutaqqun", "bekeerde Moslima's") converts search for each other. The Al Nisa organization for converted muslim women signalled an increasing interest already right after the attacks of 2001 in the United States. "Negative attention is apparently also attention" says a spokeswoman. There are no official numbers.

In the living room Mariska first speaks out the shahada in Arabic: "Asjhadoe an la ilaha ilallah wa asjhadoe ana Mohammadan abdoehoe wa rasoeloehoe." The text is on the Internet. There you learn to pronounce the arabic scripture in phonetics. In Dutch she repeats: "I testify that there is no God but Allah and I testify that Muhammad is his servant and messenger". The women kiss and hug her. Mariska: "I have wanted to be a real muslima for so long." The women have met each other earlier that day in the al-Furqaan mosque in Eindhoven. In this mosque the yearly Dutch-Islamic conference is held. Three days long men with beards and in long djellaba's talk to the gathered crowd. The veiled women sit separated from the men, they follow the speeches via a video screen. Of the two hundred muslimas, a quarter is native Dutch. This is the meeting point par excellence for new muslimas. After the conference they stay with each other.

Why do western women feel attracted to Islam? According to experts there are numerous individual motives. But what counts for almost everybody, according to Fred Leemhuis, Professor Koran sciences at the State University of Groningen, is that they want to belong to a group. "There they feel love and solidarity." The stringent religious rules appeal to the women, he argues. "It gives structure and hold in life". From American investigations we know that people who convert tot Islam don't do this in an emotional impulse, says Jacques Janssen, religion psychologist at the Radboud University in Nijmegen. "That's nearly impossible anyway, because you're jumping to another culture."

...

Rabia (a girl from mixed Catholic/Jewish parents, formerly known as Rebecca) gets a lot of angry glances on the street. She wears a hidjab (long gown), a niqaab (veil before the face) and a gimaar (a cloth over the head and tight under the chin and hanging till the hips). At home, young muslimas have to fight for their faith too. In a small house in Blaricum Suhailas father says that he thinks the headscarf is worse than the faith. "I don't like the idea that a woman has to cover herself". Suhailahs mother thinks that a small colored headscarf is still acceptabel. First her parents thought that this was a whim. But their daughter is now losing herself in Islam for two years, prays five times a day and learns arabic. "I do not do this to confront my parents or society", emphasizes the vwo-schoolgirl. "This is just my life".


If the Dutch really want to reintroduce nucular energy, I hope they won't let Suhailah sit on the control panels.



B.) EXPLOSIVES FOUND IN ROTTERDAM.

From the Brabants Dagblad, a regional Dutch newspaper:

Monday May 1, 2006. Rotterdam.

"Inhabitants of the Franselaan in Rotterdam-West are used to quite a lot. A cannabis farm is nothing special. But explosives, that's new. "It was really scary to have to sit inside, while outside men put on protective clothing and the police itself is withdrawing", says a man who lives under the floor where police found a large party of explosives during the weekend. The raid in the dwelling in question took place in the night from Friday to Saturday. The explosives, partly packed in yellow bars, appeared to be too dangerous to transport them. Military personnel of the Explosieven Opruimings Dienst (EOD) therefore ignited them on a small nearby field. Because of the large quantities and to keep the danger for the neighborhood as small as possible, this happened in four sessions. Ambulances and the Fire Department were at the ready.


Officers woke up fifteen inhabitants early in the morning and hosted them in a nearby police station. At the end of the afternoon they could go back home. When the second party of explosives was found, the neighbours were only told to stay inside. As for what kind of ordnance the explosives were, police didn't want to say anything yesterday evening. During the raid three men and a woman were arrested, but police refuses to give details about their identity. According to neighbours it's a Turkish man, his younger brother and a friend of the brother. The woman should be the Turkish man's partner. It is not known what the four of them wanted to do with the explosives. Police excludes however that they had terrorist plans."


Yup. Bet they wanted to blast some hole in the ground to look for gold.


C.) DUTCH URUZGAN TROOPS MAY BE PULLED BACK IN CASE OF RAIN.

The rain in Uruzgan falls mainly on the Dutchman.

"If it is impossible for the Dutch mission in the Afghan province of Uruzgan to substantially contribue to safety and reconstruction, it can be decided to withdraw them, said Defense Minister Kamp this weekend in the TV-program Buitenhof. Kamp did not say what criteria would be taken into account for such a decision. But he said that there is no relation with a possible numner of casualties among Dutch troops. "You constantly have to look at what you're confronted with and whether you can still succeed. [...] If we would not succeed than the negative effects for the world would be so great, we can't take the responsibility for that."


In May 1940, the Dutchies collapsed after 4 days against the Nazis. In May 2006, one cannot even be sure whether they would last 4 hours against Taliban goatfuckers taking potshots at them.



D.) DUTCH WORRY ABOUT RADICAL MUSLIMS IN THE MILITARY.

From The Brussels Journal:

"The Dutch secret services AIVD (state intelligence) and MIVD (military intelligence) are investigating an unknown number of Muslims within the Dutch army. Last Saturday, the Dutch newspaper Het Parool reported that a growing number of Dutch soldiers sympathizes with radical Islamists. The paper refers to the annual report of the MIVD, which states that it conducted a number of investigations into “alleged radicalisation of military personnel” as “there are signs that indicate a possible radicalisation of Muslim individuals or groups within the armed forces.”"


Ooops, turns out I was a bit too quick to blame it on the rain! The good Secretary of Defense Mr. Kamp may have had other reasons to consider withdrawing the Dutch Army.


E.) THE CURIOUS CASE OF DUTCH DISEASE REPORT.

These days, "Leveller", the fella behind Dutch Disease Report, looks like the only Dutchman with balls left. "Sorry, this website is temporarily closed". Don't want to jump to conclusions, but there is a GEDAPO in the Low Countries ya know.


MFBB.


N.B.: "GEDAPO" = GEDAchtenPOlitie = Thought Police. Happy thoughts to you out there in the wonderful but oh so distant Land Of The Free, Because Of The Brave. You there, across the Atlantic - never let it come as far in your country as over here.