Wednesday, August 08, 2007

Multicultural festival in Amsterdam marred by violence

Last Sunday the ending of Amsterdam multicultural festival "Kwakoe" for Caribbean blacks was marred by violence. As the festival ended and revellers went home fights broke out. The police (Dutch) made seven arrests.

I witnessed an ongoing fight in the carriage behind the metro carriage that I was using travelling home after a trip to Berlin. Several enrichers were fighting it out for five minutes on the track from station Duivendrecht to Amstel.

Berlin is very mellow compared to Amsterdam. Berlin has only fourteen percent immigrants, while Amsterdam has close to fifty. Even so I was a witness on the S-Bahn of an angry confrontation between a German and a Turk, over the Turk playing music on his walkman.

In The Netherlands the train carriage got tense halfway in the country as about six muslim kids entered my carriage and started to play music loudly.

Debate is also starting in Berlin over the possibility to assimilate the Turkish immigrants, as there has been a spate of honour killings in the past two years. More and more Turkish women in Germany is wearing the headscarve, although I did not see a single Burqa.

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