The future, Samir believes, is grim. 'We are hated now,' the teenager said, leaning over the handlebars of his bicycle. 'Whatever we do will be wrong, everything we say will be wrong, everywhere we go will be wrong.'
Samir was born in the Netherlands but is of Moroccan descent. He does not pray or go to a mosque, but says he is proud to be a Muslim and proud to be Dutch. He is not alone in his fear and confusion.
This weekend the nation known for its relaxed tolerance is gripped by tension, anger and insecurity. An outspoken film-maker, Theo van Gogh, was shot dead by a 26-year-old Dutch-born Muslim last Tuesday. Since then a series of public figures have been threatened with death by Islamic extremists. The murder has catalysed a steady erosion of the Dutch tradition of moderation and self-censorship on race and religion.
Even politicians on the left spoke last week of 'harsh truths' on immigration, noting that 5 per cent of the population is now Muslim and saying 'foreigners' top the lists of criminality and truancy. One web-based book of condolences for van Gogh had to be shut down because of racist abuse. As he spoke, Samir waved towards the grim housing estate on the outskirts of Amsterdam where van Gogh's alleged killer lived. 'I don't know what happens now, but it isn't going to be good,' he said.
Van Gogh's murder was apparently sparked by a documentary he made earlier this year with Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a Somali-born woman politician who calls herself 'an ex-Muslim'. The provocative film, broadcast on national television, featured quotes from the Koran, which Muslims believe is the word of God, projected on to a naked female body with a commentary composed of the testimonies of abused Muslim women.
Van Gogh, a descendant of Vincent van Gogh's brother, Theo, was shot and then stabbed with a knife left pinning two notes to his body. Police say that one of them was a five-page letter accusing Hirsi Ali, who fled to the Netherlands to escape a forced marriage, of 'terrorising Muslims and Islam'.
Ali, 34, is now protected by special police bodyguards, as is a second member of the Dutch parliament, a maverick rightwinger, who has also been critical of Islam. 'I feel guilty... and very much afraid,' Ali told a Dutch newspaper after the killing.
The second note indicated that the alleged murderer, known as Mohammed B, expected to be shot dead by police. 'This is my last word, bored through by bullets, anointed in blood as I hoped,' it reads. In the event, he shot and wounded one policeman before being arrested.
Politicians, security officials and members of the public are worried by the origins of the alleged murderer. Previously, it was felt that only new immigrants were at risk of radicalisation. Yet Mohammed B was born in the Netherlands, speaks its language and went to the equivalent of a grammar school. 'The fact that the suspect is so Dutch questions our entire approach,' one government official said. Specialists are now analysing the suspect's background for clues as to what went wrong.
There are few. Mohammed B became involved in radical Islam at a local mosque after his mother died of cancer when he was 18. Known to police for a string of petty thefts and minor assaults, he apparently also made contacts with hardcore activists who were under sur veillance by the Dutch intelligence services. Six other suspected militants - some allegedly linked to terrorist groups in Spain and Morocco - have been arrested in connection with last week's killing. Yet neighbours say Mohammed B's family was 'quiet', and his father worshipped at a moderate mosque.
The implications of the murder go beyond the Netherlands. The Home Office and senior British race relations specialists are watching developments there closely. Scores of MPs and officials have visited the country in recent months to view what has happened to 'the Dutch model'. Trevor Phillips, the chairman of the Commission for Racial Equality, attended a conference in Holland last year.
'When do you take a tough line on the few mosques who peddle bad things instead of good? How do you handle the tensions between freedom of speech and the impact of saying certain things? These are questions for us too,' said a senior Whitehall official.
The pavement where van Gogh was killed as he cycled to work at his production studios in the city centre at 8.40am, is now covered in hundreds of bouquets, candles and even cigarettes - in memory of his unashamed chain-smoking. 'Rest in peace, Theo, freedom fighter for free speech,' says one card.
'It is terrible. There is madness in the world,' said Fred, 46, a postal worker laying a bunch of blue tulips. 'It didn't happen 40 years ago before the first big waves of immigration.'
Such views, unspoken in the past, are now commonly voiced. 'For too long we haven't spoken the truth about the situation with Muslim immigrants,' said one mourner at van Gogh's offices on the day after his death. 'No one wanted to face up to it. Theo just said what people were thinking.'
Gils van de Westelaken, van Gogh's business partner and close friend, said the country had lost its way. 'It is an accident waiting to happen. If you got a real rightwinger with charisma and drive, who knows where it could lead. We have had a tolerant tradition for 400 years, but though we are proud of our image it doesn't entirely reflect reality. In the UK you have a straighter way of dealing with immigration. Here, in the name of tolerance, a lot of difficult issues are never discussed.'
As van der Westelaken spoke, the family and friends of van Gogh, who had a 13-year-old son, watched an edit of his latest film, to be released in December, about the murder of Pim Fortuyn, a gay rightwinger whose anti-immigration rhetoric brought him a massive wave of support in the run-up to elections two years ago. Fortuyn was killed, by an animal rights activist, before the poll.
The film implies that the Dutch security services allowed Fortuyn to die, under pressure from American businesses anxious to conclude an arms deal that he opposed.
Van Gogh had as high a profile as Fortuyn - and a similar taste for shocking people. He had been fired by virtually every Dutch newspaper after columns he wrote offended readers. He lambasted strict Catholics and compared the Jewish mayor of Amsterdam to a 'collaborator with the Germans' for taking a soft line on Islam after the 11 September attacks on the US.
Though many called for calm in the wake of the killing, there is now unprecedented support for tough measures. The Netherlands' ruling centre-right coalition has pledged to deport more than 25,000 illegal immigrants from the Netherlands, some of whom have been there for decades, and make language classes compulsory. Prayer leaders in mosques will have to attend lessons in Dutch culture. Last week the Justice Minister said she would strip any migrants convicted of terrorist offences of Dutch citizenship.
Experts say the root of the problem was 'cultural, not economic' and lay primarily in the failure of first-generation immigrants who arrived in the Sixties and Seventies to integrate. 'In many Moroccan-Dutch households they speak Berber or Arabic, so when the kids get to school they are already at a disadvantage,' said Rachid Jamari of the Amsterdam Centre for Foreigners. 'There needs to be a debate, both in the Muslim community and in society generally.'
Others see a change since al-Qaeda's 2001 attacks on America. 'A different wind is blowing now and there is far less understanding,' declared Mohammed el-Assiati, of the Dutch Moroccan Association. 'This could not have come at a worse time'.