This week The Netherlands had its first Columbine-like experience. A disgruntled 17-year old pupil walked into the school’s cafeteria and shot a teacher at point blank range in the head, apparently for being suspended from school. The teacher died hours later and the country is in a state of shock because, and forgive me my fellow Dutch readers but I have to write this, a large portion of the Dutch population still has that dreamlike notion that “things like this don’t happen in The Netherlands”. Well, they do and the occurrence of violence and gun ownership in a country with one of the world’s most restrictive gun laws is rapidly increasing. I was not planning to write about this, until I heard last night that a number of students rallied near the school with photos and banners to support the killer, who on the day of the murder had turned himself in to police. It reminded me of this desecration, and it didn’t take long to figure out that the horrific murder of a teacher, father and respected city councilor had some ethnic undertones:

The killing and Thursday rally are certain to heighten ethnic tensions in the Netherlands. While the Dutch media does not publish the full names of suspects, or for that matter convicted criminals, publications have not been slow to point out the boy in this case is of Turkish extraction. Fear within a large segment of the public about "ethnic crime" and the perceived lack of integration by immigrants are at fever pitch in the Netherlands.

The gruesome murder is disturbing, yet the fact that many youths have rallied to the support of murderer tells us something about the serious level of disconnection between the Dutch and disgruntled immigrant groups who have failed to integrate economically, socially and morally. On the contrary, I have read many interviews with Muslim youths (second generation, born in Holland and fluent in Dutch) who claimed that while on the surface they look as if they had culturally adapted, they remained angry Muslims inside, bitter with their direct environment and depressed about their future economic prospects. A quick tour of Dutch news sites and message boards revealed as much, with comments from angry Muslim youths who felt that the killing was justified given the marginalized position of Muslim immigrants in The Netherlands. In a week where one of the main political parties acknowledged that integration policies had failed miserably, the murder of a teacher and the distasteful disrespect shown thereafter, illustrates that simple integration models don’t work and that a complete pan-European effort is required to stem the tide of economic misery and senseless violence. If Europeans don’t act themselves other groups will be more than happy to tap into the discontent among Muslim youth.