Letters from Abroad | Amsterdam, Netherlands

Andrew Birkhead Guest Writer

I had only been living in Amsterdam for one week as part of my study abroad program, when I received an e-mail from the American Consulate General in Amsterdam informing me that “a demonstration against the cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohamed will be held near Dam Square in Amsterdam” on Feb. 8. The e-mail instructed Americans to steer clear of the area, even though it was supposed to be a peaceful protest…they worried about an “escalation of the violence” based on these other protests by these people around the world.

Naturally, as a stupid American and a curious student, I disobeyed my country’s recommendations and hopped on my bike with my camera when I predicted the protest would reach its peak. Part of being homesick involved watching the Dutch News and reading on-line blogs about the Danish cartoons that depicted Mohammad in “blasphemous” ways. Part of becoming part of the Amsterdam culture meant that I had read up on the murder of the famous director Theo van Gogh by a group of Muslims. From the information I had gathered, I knew that the Dutch-Muslim relationship here was in a near permanent state of disrepair. I wanted to go to the protests to figure out who these people are, and why they are angry.

Walking into this crowd aroused new combinations of feelings, including fear, curiosity, invincibility, weakness, shame, joy, and jubilance. At any moment, the crowd ranged from 300 to 500 protesters, and perhaps 100 journalists and onlookers. There was so much action all around me, and the language barrier proved to be a problem. More than 90 percent of the protesters were obviously Muslim, judging from their scarves, speech, and posters—it felt like I was watching a news broadcast from Palestine.

At random moments, the organizers of the crowd would pull out a new flag to burn; in my time there, I was witness to the American flag burning once, and two Danish flags burning. When a flag started burning, the crowd would push towards the center, leaving just enough room for the flaming flag to be seen. Two different chants alternated among the crowd, one being “Allah, Jihad, Hiz-bul-la,” and the other “Hamas, Fatwah, Hiz-bul-la.” From my limited knowledge of Arabic, I knew that they were asking for a holy war and chanting the names of popular Muslim parties in the Middle East, Hamas and Hizbullah.

After the chants died down, three women dressed in black scarves and shawls started screaming in
English, “No! Islam is Peace!” and “Peace is Islam!” The young men in the crowd turned to give hard glances, and the women shut up instantly.
After each flag burning, the crowds would sprint aimlessly around Dam Square for about 60 seconds at a time, shouting “Allahu Akbar,” or “God is Greatest.” Twice these crowds ran me off of my feet, and once they settled with me in the middle of a flag-burning circle.

The crowd started chanting “Journaliste!” pointing their fingers and punching—in other words, I was out of that circle as soon as possible. Another Dutch cameraman in a similar position was not as lucky. People grabbed onto his coat and started slapping him, tearing his pockets off. As he finally escaped the crowd, he gave a smile to his colleague and turned to me to say, “This is why I love my job.”

A fellow American student pointed out the strange lack of enmity between the two primary groups…white people and Muslims. If you stayed out of the way of the protesters, they would stay out of your way, and generally give respect. Even the location of the protests were respectful of the Dutch Culture. Dam square is basically split into halves, the crowds absolutely refused to move onto the side with a World War II monument. This is in contrast to Iranian newspapers who are holding a Holocaust Bashing contest in retaliation for the cartoons depicting Mohammad.

The police seemed a bit overwhelmed as the protests finally came to an end. After some chanting in Arabic and Dutch by the organizer (who was obviously from Hamas, based on the wording on his track jacket), the whole group of people ran down the commercial street called “Nieuwendijk;” they basically ran with their flags down the epitome of western consumerism.

Ultimately, I’m not sure what I learned from this experience. In one breath the protesters were making a case against freedom of speech, but in another they were using freedom of speech to get their message out and argue with one another. I came expecting violence, but realized I was misguided, perhaps even misled by the local media with their anti-Muslim bias and the United States government with their fear-mongering. If you ever get a chance to go to a protest such as this, I highly recommend it. Talk to the people and ask them why they are mad. I did exactly that and found that most of the people did not know why they were mad, just that they were supposed to be mad.