The Dutch Reformatorisch Dagblad, a Christian newspaper closely tied to the Dutch Reformed (Calvinist) Church, nevertheless features a short piece about the information-spreading ambitions of a certain American religious organization, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR): Free Koran for leaders in US. Inspired by President Obama’s speech in Cairo of last month, the CAIR has begun a program (called “Share the Koran”) designed to distribute a supply of 100,000 copies of the Muslim Holy Book among prominent American leadership personalities, meaning governors and other politicians, judges and other criminal justice officials, educators, and journalists. Naturally, one is reserved for the President himself, and a lottery will be held among those contributing money to support this CAIR effort to choose the lucky person who will get to present it to him. Presumably that Koran will include the bookmark with sayings printed on it about social justice and tolerance included with all the others, although in Obama’s case this will be slightly redundant in that they are his own utterances on those matters.

This effort follows the CAIR’s earlier (and still on-going) campaign, called “Discover the Koran,” whose aim was to distribute a smaller supply (a couple tens of thousands) but to ordinary Americans. Presumably the CAIR calculates that the narrower but higher-status target-group of “Share the Koran,” headlined by the President himself, can attract more contribution-money out of the woodwork to enable it to actually meet its numerical ambitions. In any case, all Korans from the CAIR come with the original Arabic text, an English translation, and supplementary explanatory materials. That itself is a little problematic: Muslims are a bit uncomfortable with any Koranic translations since the real divine book is only supposed to be the original version in classical Arabic. (The prophet Mohammed transcribed that flawlessly from the archangel Gabriel’s dictation, you see, whereas any translation must necessarily be the work of fallible human beings.)

No matter, though, there they are, and if you reside anywhere within the US it’s clear you should be able to get your own free copy of the Holy Koran (Arabic/English/supplementary materials/Obama bookmark) without too much effort. The real question is how many people will really be interested. Most public officials who need votes to gain and keep their jobs won’t be able to turn the offer down (except perhaps, one imagines, in certain regions more red of neck). But it’s likely that what most Americans think they know about Islam, after the September 11 attacks especially, is neither particularly complimentary nor open to being changed by some free “religious book” on offer.

“What Somali government?” you might be wondering. I know that I did. That’s why the article in the Dutch religious daily Reformatorisch Dagblad – “Government in Somalia about to collapse” – turned out to be so educational, as well as directly relevant to what recent readers will recognize as my continuing concerns about what we’re going to do about all those pirates (. . . arrrrr, matey!).

The current “Somali government” is called the Transitional Federal Government (“TFG” for short). It was established in 2004, with backing from the UN, the US, and Ethiopia, but basically had to stay in Kenya for a while until the 2006 invasion of Somalia by Ethiopian forces drove back various Islamist insurgent groups and so enabled the TFG to set up shop in Mogadishu, the Somali capital. You can even see a picture of the current TFG prime minister, Nur Hassan Hussein, accompanying that Reformatorisch Dagblad article – so are you satisfied, doubting Thomases? He’s of course the guy on the right. (more…)

I’ve mentioned before in this space the fascinating evangelical outliers to the usual crowd of stolidly-secular European on-line newspapers, the Dutch publications Nederlands Dagblad (“Christianly engaged”) and Reformatorisch Dagblad. Damn (- whoops! Sorry . . .): two of them, even, and in a country of only 16 million souls!

At least these papers definitely provide an alternative take on happenings in the public sphere, both national and international. (more…)

The Dutch newspaper Nederlands Dagblad is somewhat of an outlier in the European media sphere, as it is expressly a Christian newspaper. You can see right there in its logo, written at the top: Christelijk betrokken, or “Engaged in a Christian manner” (“Christianly engaged,” if you like). Surf to the paper’s website on Sunday and you’ll find nothing: that’s the Lord’s day of rest, after all.

It’s not alone, though: the Reformatorisch Dagblad, or “Reformed Daily,” is similar, although that website does stay open on Sundays. People should not confuse the allegedly “anything goes” atmosphere of cosmopolitan cities like Amsterdam (see this weblog’s recent coverage of the famous yearly Gay Pride parade there, for example) with Dutch culture as a whole, which in fact features some enclaves which can easily hold their own in the Christian piety department with any of the American Amish communities.

The Nederlands Dagblad reports today, as the 2008 Olympic Games open in Beijing, that the Chinese church leader Zhang Mingxuan was recently arrested by the authorities in his hometown in the province of Henan, along with his wife and another associate, and brought to an office of the “security services” in that province’s capital, Zhengzhou. This follows Zhang’s being driven out of his Beijing by the authorities at the beginning of last month, and then out of the city itself two weeks ago.

The Stichting De Ondergrondse Kerk (a Dutch name, of course: “Foundation of the Underground Church”) has issued a call to make these opening days of the Olympic Games days of prayer on behalf of the persecuted Christians in China.

It has finally happened, but you knew it was only a matter of time: the first Dutch soldier has fallen in Iraq, just yesterday (Monday). And the timing was significant, if only as a reflection of the breakdown of what public order there was in much of that country over the past few weeks. It might be even more significant when you consider that a decision is coming due as to whether to extend the deployment of Dutch troops in Iraq after the 17 July end of their current mandate there. Doubts about doing that were starting to surface in the Dutch legislature, even before this latest, fatal incident. (more…)

I really wanted to use this weblog entry to continue my coverage of the Danish newspaper Politiken’s great “Europa XL” series of cultural portraits of the current EU member-states. (Portugal was up next.) But 1) Politiken has changed its on-line format since I last looked (check it out), and in that new format I’m having a hard time finding anything about “Europa XL” (although that was supposed to be an on-going, long-running series that was going to segue into covering the ten new EU member-states); and 2) There are a heck of a lot of important things going on now, like the just-ended EU summit, not mention changes of government in both Spain and Poland (the key states blocking progress on approving the proposed EU Constitution back last December, you may recall).

So OK, let’s take one of those important new developments – namely the appointment of the Dutchman Gijs de Vries as Europe’s newly-created “terrorism czar” – and see what we can find out from the Dutch press about this guy and what he’s supposed to do. (more…)

Now that we’ve been on the subject in recent days of the support in various countries for the deployment of their troops on occupation duty in Iraq (Hungary and Poland already discussed), this article from the Reformatorisch Dagblad is timely. “Most of the Dutch are for military support in Iraq,” it proclaims in its headline. The particulars (from a survey of one thousand respondents undertaken by the Amsterdam-based TNS NIPO research organization): 60% of those polled supported the Dutch cabinet’s decision to send troops to Iraq, while “almost one-third” want no Dutch military presence in Iraq. Such support comes mainly from the right-wing of the Dutch political spectrum (from CDA and VVD members – and those are the two main parties making up the present governing coalition). Tellingly, 48% of those surveyed considered the actual danger that there will be Dutch killed or wounded to be small; 45% thought that the risk was substantial. Unfortunately, there’s no indication in the article of any attempt to get closer to the “cut-and-run” question that has been the central theme of recent €S coverage: i.e. what degree of Dutch casualties would cause you to start to advocate the unilateral withdrawal from Iraq of the Dutch troops there?

“There are Dutch troops in Iraq?” you may ask. Yes indeed: currently around 1,100 of them deployed in the south, under British command. But it seems that they are slated to pass under Polish command once the Poles and their allies deploy and take over their assigned sector at the beginning of next month. This article here (in English, but from the on-line Agenzia Giornalistica Italia) speaks of both Italy and the Netherlands balking at having to place their troops under Polish command. I don’t find anything yet from the Dutch press to substantiate this unseemly allied squabble, but I will keep on the look-out and let you know of anything that comes up.

It’s Sunday, so let me take break – let me return home from Afghanistan (so-to-say: see yesterday’s entry if you don’t get what I mean) and consider what’s in the Dutch press. Ironically, the Dutch press doesn’t publish on Sunday. While in the US Sunday is the day for the often-massive Sunday newspaper editions (the New York Times tops the scales, probably at several kilograms, but many others are almost as big), and even Germany has its special Sunday papers (e.g. Welt am Sonntag), in Holland there’s still that strong Dutch Reformed Church/Calvinist tradition of no work on Sunday.

So am I pulling your leg? Certainly not! – let’s take a look at the Dutch papers, from yesterday. I promise you there are some interesting articles. (Actually, you’ll probably like best the “Saddam’s Waiter Tells All!” article, that I discuss immediately following. Click off to it now, I don’t mind – just come back here when you’re finished!) When it came to Dutch topics treated in the Dutch press, what particularly struck me this Sunday were reports about the resurgence of that ages-old threat to public order here: that’s right, swearing (i.e. uttering naughty words, in public). (more…)