Anti-Muslim right-wingers say they represent Dutch public opinion

The Netherlands has nearly a million Muslims, mostly Turkish and Moroccan. There’s tension there between them and the native Dutch population. This has held up two huge mosque projects in the country--one in Rotterdam and one in the capital Amsterdam.

An appeal court in Holland ruled last week that the final objections to the building of Amsterdam’s huge project to better integrate Dutch Moslems, the Westermoskee, should be set aside. So construction can now begin. Not so fast!

Although Amsterdam city council approved the project 2 years ago, the 1 square km plot of canal-side land in the west of the city lies vacant – the only hint of what might be is a large billboard picturing the imagined mosque and attached community centre complex.

So why is nothing happening?

According to Akram Karadins from Milli Gurus, the Moslem organization running the project, Amsterdam’s city authority has some issues with the young Turks, so to speak, now in charge.

Whatever the reason for the hold-up the opposition to the large new mosques in Rotterdam and Amsterdam is loud. Although it’s unclear how many people are unhappy with them. Ronald Surlensen is a local Rotterdam politician who complains that the minarets are too big.

Some politicians say Holland is being islamised. And that following the murder of Dutch film-maker Theo van Gogh, 3 years ago, by a radical Islamist, people woke up to see over-arching Moslem ambition

The accusation that Moslem groups in the Netherlands are in danger of being radicalised is often mentioned in the context of Amsterdam’s Westermoskee project.

In fact, it’s believed by many to be the real reason the project up to now amounts to little more than a square kilometre of rubble – Amsterdam council doesn’t want a breeding ground for new radicals on its doorstep. Akram Karadins says this doesn’t add up.

Down at the Westermoskee site a couple of Amsterdam students give the kind of opinion you’ll often hear in Dutch cities and that you could transpose to a whole range of issues – if it doesn’t bother me it’s ok.

It’s integration of a kind but it remains to be seen whether the project progresses unhindered. It seems certain that there’ll be plenty more objections raised before a minaret is the tallest structure in the Dutch capital.

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With Europe quickly becoming a melting pot, cities and towns are starting to see mosques being built alongside churches. They generate fierce debate. And it’s not about building codes and architecture—though the talk is usually focused around that. It’s not really about the buildings themselves at all, but about the people who worship in them. We bring you stories this week about mosque building projects across the continent, and reactions to them. The programme is presented in Marseille, in the south of France, where almost a quarter of the population is Muslim, and which should soon see a grand mosque built. 

A project in London has been forced to scale down its plans following bitter protests lead by a local councillor. It was originally billed as “the biggest mosque in Europe”. Now, even though the plans have changed—and it may not quite live up to the name—opposition remains strong. The Tablighi Jamaat, the conservative Muslim missionary group that’s behind the proposal is seen by Western intelligence agencies as providing a recruiting ground for extremists. 

Critics of mosque projects often bring up the spectre of minarets eclipsing church steeples. In Germany Chancellor Angela Merkel made a comment that mosque “cupolas” shouldn’t be built “demonstratively higher than church steeples”. Work on a mosque in Cologne, whose most famous landmark is its cathedral, is set to start this spring. The plans have made people question the role of Islam and the success of integration in Germany. Most of Germany’s Muslims are Turkish who came as “guest workers” starting in the 1960s. Many stayed and settled. Peter Phillips says the reason there is resistance to mosques in Germany is because Germans don’t know much about Islam and the Muslims who live among them. 

It’s hard to get an accurate figure of how many Muslims there are in Europe. France has the most—5 or 6 million people, who make up nearly 9% of the population. In the UK, they’re about 3%. But some countries, like Poland, have barely enough to make a blip on the radar. In the southern city of Krakow, some question the need for an Islamic Cultural centre because the community is so small. 

Another country with a small Muslim population is Slovenia, though Islam is the second largest religion there, after Orthodox Christianity. And yet, there’s no mosque. And the story of trying to get one built in Ljubljana, the capitol, has been long and fraught with delays. 

Many communities in Europe are in conflict over mosque projects. But after a while, once they’ve been around, they tend to be welcomed. In Stockholm, despite growing Islamophobia, locals seem to have accepted and even welcomed their mosque. 

For the past three weeks we’ve been giving you clues for you to come up with the name of a French composer whose birth 100 years ago is being celebrated this year. The answer is Olivier Messiaen, who was born in Avignon on December 10, 1908, and died in Paris in 1992. The man who gave you the clues all month is journalist and music critic Claude Samuel, who is organizing events around the centennial celebration this year. We announce the winner of the quiz on the air. If you want to know more about the centennial of Olivier Messiaen’s birth, visit http://www.messiaen2008.com/en/index.php