“La Hollande, L'Autre Pays du Fromage Plein de Racaille”

In a fit of self-flattery, the fake indignation is over the myth of Europeans’ tolerance that they have been repeating to themselves over the decades.

Those abroad who follow news from the Netherlands even marginally know that it currently centres around a single question. "What happened to this tolerant country?" The question reflects a sincere disappointment but also amounts to promoting a new cliché. Just as before all the correspondents wrote about the apparently limitless freedoms in Tulip Land, they now assiduously seek examples illustrating the convulsions the country is experiencing.

Aside from the notion promoted in public, what has always been true is that the actual number of tolerant people you meet is only slightly greater than that of an isolated tribe that barbeques outsiders who stumble upon them.

This is not an isolated incident. The crisis over the [Danish] caricatures already provided a demonstration that tensions between governments will increase in response to domestic social issues. The publication of the caricatures of Mohammed resulted in an unfurling of reactions across the Middle East. As a corollary, foreign conflicts will have more and more repercussions on our towns, as was demonstrated by the attack on a mosque in Brussels linked to the civil war in Syria.

The author confuses being servile and averse to criticizing other, especially those threatening you - with tolerance. They are not the same thing, clearly.

In reality, the tolerance even Wilders’ critics have (not to mention their elders’,) is limited to the kind of thing that would impress a narcotics-tourist might imagine is there, and call that their idea of freedom.