The tolerance of intolerance is intolerable

However, the tolerance of intolerance lies at the root of terror attacks in Europe such as Charlie Hebdo.

Given the extreme inhuman brutality of the Paris attacks, it is easy to forget that there have been other Islamist attacks against freedom of expression in Europe. The most prominent of these came in 2004 With the brutal murder and attempted beheading of Dutch filmmaker Theo Van Gogh

It is not a coincidence that Charlie Hebdo and the van Gogh murder both occurred in countries with outstanding histories of tolerance, freedom and especially freedom of expression. In addition, both France and The Netherlands have large Muslim populations that have resisted integration and fostered violent Islamist radicalization as a result of the cultural isolation.

France and the Netherlands have also tolerated intolerant immigrant behavior because of Western liberal democracy’s concept that all cultures are equal, no matter how intolerant they might be.

However, this practice has led to governments which have tolerated cultural norms that demean and marginalize women, promote child marriages (often among girls as young as 10 or 12), and foster violence against women, gays and non-Muslims.

In the Netherlands, the concept of cultural equality has prompted authorities to tolerate illegal behavior by members of the Islamic community. There are instances where Islamist thugs have received light or no punishment for violence against gays or women they consider dressed immodestly.

Dutch authorities have also been guilty of taking no action when those communities have set up their own justice systems based on distorted versions of Islamic law –– Sharia. This has happened also in France and the United Kingdom.

In many of these cases, the intolerant behavior has been viewed as culturally acceptable because it was acted out by members of an immigrant community behaving as they would according to their cultural norms.

All of these factors, in turn, have offered safe haven to the sworn enemies of free expression, and cultural tolerance. And those safe havens provide a cultural breeding ground for violent Islamists. It has also created protected bases from which those violent Islamists can attack the very principles of western liberalism that allow them to exist.

For almost 35 years, I have watched the situation in the Netherlands, and seen the deterioration. Over those years, I have spent a great deal of time there. I have friends and relatives there, and have admired the backbone that the Dutch have shown in protecting free expression over the centuries.

That admiration and experience has prompted me to set part, or all, of my fact-based novels in the Netherlands. While works of fiction, all of my thrillers are based on extensive non-fiction research.

My dismay over Islamist-related events in the Netherlands prompted me to look more deeply into those issues, their consequences, and the reasons for their development.

I explored this in detail, through the point of view of Mira Longbow, the heroine in my novel, Die By Wire. Mira reflects much of my thinking and recollections of the Netherlands, as she is sent to eliminate a child-bride smuggling ring in Amsterdam. Along the way she reflects on the changes in society and reasons for allowing the problem to develop. All the while trying to eliminate the child bride smuggling operation, and discovering an even more devastating plot in the process.