Was 9/11 a turning point for Dutch society? Twenty-five years on, researcher Thijs van Dooremalen puts that idea into perspective. He compares the impact in the US, the Netherlands and France, and finds that the Netherlands responded differently in some fundamental respects.
11 September 2001: a shocked Netherlands watches television footage of hijacked planes crashing into the Twin Towers and the Pentagon. In his recent book 'Chasing events' Van Dooremalen compares how the Netherlands, the US and France responded to the deadly attacks.
According to Van Dooremalen, 9/11 is often described as the day society changed radically overnight. For such a transformation to happen, he argues, an event needs to be a 'shock event': something that drastically alters dominant ideas. 'That was certainly the effect 9/11 had in the United States, where Americans had until then considered themselves invulnerable on home soil.' It led to far-reaching security measures and the War on Terror, including wars in Afghanistan and later Iraq.
Muslims under fire
The attacks were carried out by Muslim extremists. According to Van Dooremalen, the public debate on Islam was more heated in the Netherlands after 9/11 than in the US itself: 'Criticising a religious group was more sensitive there, partly because of the Christian character of American society and the respect for religion. It was only years later, and especially under President Trump, that criticism of Muslims in the US increased significantly.'
In France, Muslims had already been facing greater criticism well before 9/11, as reflected in the rise of the Front National in the 1990s. But according to Van Dooremalen, the attacks of 11 September did not have any fundamentally new impact on that debate in France.
Confirmation of existing ideas
In the Netherlands, Van Dooremalen argues, 9/11 was more of a 'focus event': a confirmation of existing ideas. As early as the 1980s and 1990s, there was fierce criticism of Islam and of what many regarded as the poor integration of Muslims into society. This debate was fuelled in part by then VVD leader Frits Bolkestein.
From Fortuyn to Wilders
After 9/11, right-wing populism gained wider ground in the Netherlands, as shown by the rise of Pim Fortuyn. 'He was successful because the critical sentiment was already there. So the development was gradual: from Bolkestein, via Fortuyn, to Wilders.'
The Netherlands versus France
The Netherlands was more likely than France to see the attacks as an assault on Western values, and therefore its own values, according to Van Dooremalen. The French saw them mainly as an attack on American values. This fits the way the two countries respond to crises abroad, he says. 'For the French, major developments beyond their borders are an opportunity to show their grandeur on the world stage, but they experience the domestic impact less intensely. As a smaller country, the Netherlands is far more focused on developments in the rest of the world.'
Election manifestos
He also observed this difference in party manifestos: 'In the Netherlands, 9/11 continued to play an important role in national politics and appeared in election manifestos for years afterwards. In France, this was hardly the case. Even the right-wing populist Jean-Marie Le Pen, who broke through in the French elections in 2002, made no reference to 9/11 in his manifesto.'
Support for the US
Support for the US also differed between the two countries. Like the Netherlands, France supported the US invasion of Afghanistan a month after the attacks. But the French government opposed the subsequent war with Iraq in 2003: 'France was much more resistant to this kind of Americanisation of foreign policy and wanted to pursue its own course. The Netherlands, entirely in keeping with its transatlantic tradition, continued to support the Americans.'
