News from nowhereThe Netherlands

First, for the obsessive compulsives amongst y’all, Google has finally put their fingers out and updated their Google Earth photos for the Netherlands. It may not mean much to you but it means endless hours of fun looking for my house, my old house, my parent’s house, the office I currently work at, the previous offices I’ve worked at and so on und so weiter, all to get pictures like this:

My home town Middelburg.

Meanwhile, with slightly more relevance to people not called Martin Wisse, minister of Justice Piet Hein Donner has called the wrath of the entire Dutch right wing upon him, by explaining in an interview that of course, if two-thirds of Dutch voters want to introduce Sharia law to the country, that’s democracy and the vote of the majority counts. Cue all the usual anti-islamofascist white knights to wax indignantly and ask for his resignation, while his own party has made use of the opportunity to reiterate that they want a general ban on any party that wants to introduce sharia law (not that there is any) or might threaten to do so and oh yes, pedo parties should be banned as well. Not that this isn’t as big a threat to our democracy as having sharia law introduced here would be, of course not, no…

It’s all fairly childish as all people involved should know that a) few if any sane people want sharia law here b) the chance that at any point there will be enough people to vote it in is non-existent and c) even if a two-thirds majority could be found it would immediately run afoul of not just the Dutch constitution but also European law. The whole debate is just another snow job, a bit of posturing before the elections start. It would work too, if the Dutch voters weren’t sick and tired of Islamophobic fearmongering!

But mabye there is something to worry about, as Dutch protestant fundies found out their children think one fundie religion is as good as the other, by allegedly switching in their masses from Christianity to Islam. The big draw apparantly being the clear and simple moral guidelines Islam offers…