Smiley Rape Gang and Legends about Muslims in the Netherlands
There is a very interesting aspect to the moral panic about Muslims in the Netherlands that can help explain the wide-spread, notions about “Muslim criminality.” The Netherlands, it seems, has a sick national identity and more ripe for the likes of Geert Wilders. This is the impression from two revealing research papers referenced here, which describe ethnic-religious, oriented panics in Dutch society over “Muslim criminality.”These panics can be a social gauge on the society. First, facts and fiction often co-mingle, and even in the course of such a panic, some events can even be acted out. There is a nasty notion, along with the Dutch strong reaction to both the Theo van Gogh murder and the 9-11 attacks, that Moroccan young men are “prone to rape and criminality,” along side of the usual accusations of radicalization that leads to terrorism.
The first of these nasty legends about Dutch Muslims is directed at Turkish restaurants. One evening, some Dutch friends went out to a Turkish restaurant and ordered some kebab with garlic sauce. Shortly after, the friends got ill and at the hospital were asked if they had oral sex. It seems that the sperm of several men had been found in their stomachs. The story goes that several Turkish restaurant workers were caught masturbating into sauce dishes. Even as the individual stories had no merit, the larger story morphed into “the sperm of 72 men” and “only one man,” a notorious and Turkish one. This nasty rumor was damaging to the Turkish business community. One Turkish owner got so fed up with the story that he had the commodity inspector confirm that semen was never in the food he served. After the Utrechts Nieuwsblad explained the rumors were false, the rumors actually spread even further and wider!
“A smiley or gang rape?” In the wake of the major upheavals in Dutch society and the Islamophobic antics of Pim Fortuyn and Theo van Gogh, we see Moroccans especially viewed as sex offenders. Peter Burger believes that the legend of the Smiley Rape gang got its start in the opening days of the 2003 school year the entry of a 17 year old Nadieh into her Internet diary. That fall semester, schoolyards and college campuses were a buzz about the existence of “several Moroccan boys in a rape gang.” Websites were even populated by users claiming to be members of the Smiley Rape gang, and contained common Muslim sayings, like Allahu Akbar as taunts. The Smiley Rape gang rumor had been unleashed into communities across the Netherlands, and was morphed into rumors that the police had to state were false. About the 17 year-old girl and her diary entry:
Hi, folks. Here I go again. Usually what I have to say makes no sense, but now I’ve got the feeling that this is really something. I don’t know whether you have heard of the Smiley Gang?I bet you have. Just the same. I’m going to tell you one more time…Well, a group of 6 Moroccan boys are harassing girls. Well, I have heard that these boys force 16 to 20 year old girls to chose…(Burger 2009, 277).
The choice the Smiley Rape Gang would force on young women was: “Do you want to be raped, or do you want a smile.” The “smile” was a knife cut from ear to ear. This same legend bloomed into false stories about abductions, such as a story – false- of a paper boy, abducted, and taken to a secluded place to and told to “become a Muslim or get a face cut.” A real stabbing, perpetrated by ethnic Dutch boys, was blamed on Moroccan boys for a while until the real assailants were caught.Peter Burger had documented that at his university, the legend had been active for about three weeks, but the panic’s spread through the Netherlands indicates how Moroccan youth are the B-I-G folk devil. Burger tells us that the after the murder of van Gogh and 9-11, it became fashionable in the Netherlands to use ethnic slurs that were once taboo – and to depict North Africans as potential terrorists, muggers, rapists and criminal offenders.When reading over these research reports of nasty legends about Dutch Muslims as rapists and deviants, the easy spread though Dutch society, the morphing of the legends – we get a sense why especially Moroccan youth are blamed for all the criminal troubles in the Netherlands. We get the sense where Geert Wilders gets his own legends about Moroccan criminals and why it has become easy for Wilders to score political points.
It seems that the Dutch are prone to belief in crazy stories – even after being proven false – when the subject is Dutch Muslims.The Netherlands has a social and national identity that appears to be in turmoil. From this we get Geert Wilders as the pathogen of this sick national identity.
References
Peter Burger. 2009. The Smiley Rape Gang Panic: Ethnic Legends about Gang Rape in the Netherlands in the Wake of 9-11. Western Folklore. [Spring], 68, 275-295.
Theo Meder. 2009. They are Among Us and They are Against Us. Comtempory Horror Stories about Muslims and Immigrants in the Netherlands. Western Folklore. [Spring]. 68, 257-273.
