When the mayor of a major city such as The Hague writes formally to his city council to warn that they have neither the resources nor the expertise to deal with hardened jihadists returning from the war front in Iraq and Syria, you have to ask why he has done it.
Despite its political importance, this is a compact city with a population of just under 500,000 and 45 councillors – so everyone knows the areas where there have been problems in recent months with supporters of Islamic State (IS) flying the flag, quite literally, for the new caliphate.
The worst tensions, undoubtedly, have been in Schilderswijk, one of the poorest neighbourhoods in the Netherlands, where 90 per cent of the residents are of non-western origin – mainly Turkish and Moroccan – the unemployment rate is high and the school dropout rate is twice the city average.
During the Gaza conflict last summer, IS flags (since banned) were repeatedly flown at anti-Israel demonstrations there. That led to plans for a march through the area by the extreme right-wing group NVU in August – before the protest was banned by the mayor, Jozias van Aartsen, despite howls about civil liberties. In fairness to van Aartsen, a member of prime minister Mark Rutte's Liberal Party and an experienced mayor, in office since 2008, he just can't win.
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eavy-handed tactics Amid almost daily calls for his resignation
he was accused by anti-Islam groups of not clamping down hard enough on demonstrations; by Jewish groups of failing to prevent anti-Jewish chanting; and by Muslim groups of authorising heavy-handed tactics by the police.
So while there may be a touch of business as usual about this for the former agriculture minister, there was a new note of urgency in his warning that how returning jihadists are handled should be a matter of public policy decided by central government – not by each individual city.
The Hague’s overburdened social workers, Van Aartsen said, were not equipped to diagnose whether those returning to their families from the killing fields of Iraq and Syria posed an existential threat to Dutch society.
If they posed such a threat the city did not have the resources to treat former fighters suffering from war- related traumas, he said. And, in any case, the entire process depended entirely on the co-operation of the returnees.
What Van Aartsen knows is that these are no academic issues.
100 Dutch jihadis According to the Netherlands’ national counter
terrorism co-ordinator, Dick Schoof, about 100 Dutch nationals, including some 30 women, are currently fighting in the Middle East, some with IS, others with the al-Qaeda-affiliated al-Nusra front.
Far more worryingly, another 30 or so have returned home, of whom six are known to be living in The Hague. Their mental status is unknown, leading to a heated debate over suggestions that they should be incarcerated in special assessment units as soon as they set foot back on Dutch soil.
What’s the reality? Do these returning fighters really pose a threat? In truth, nobody knows. Some may, and it takes only one to cause mayhem. That’s the problem that’s feeding into opinion polls showing the threat of IS-related attack is in the front of people’s minds in the run-up to Christmas.
That won’t have been helped by a survey last week of young Dutch Turks aged between 18 and 34 which showed that, despite campaigns by the Dutch government and within their own communities, 90 per cent still believe that those who travel to fight the forces of President Bashar al-Assad in Syria are “heroes”.
More broadly and again more worryingly, the same survey, by Amsterdam-based research agency Motivaction, showed 80 per cent saw nothing wrong with jihad, or holy war, against non-believers in general – a category that could include many of their neighbours and work colleagues.
Bizarrely – though comfortingly to the extent that it may indicate confusion or divided loyalties – the same survey also showed that 62 per cent of those questioned believed democracy was a good thing and essential for progress.
So that’s the picture facing Van Aartsen in The Hague this morning. Who knows, perhaps by putting his misgivings in writing he believes they’ll be taken more seriously as a wake-up call. And at least he can show he asked central government for support – even if it never arrives.
