"Jørgen Pedersen" <jorped_anarkist@yahoo.com> skrev i en meddelelse
news:42209a83$0$1017$edfadb0f@dread16.news.tele.dk...
> Dutch Immigration and Integration Minister Rita Verdonk has told Muslim
> clerics in the Netherlands that they need to assimilate into Dutch
> society.
> The minister, a member of the liberal-conservative VVD party, delivered
> her
> message in person at the weekend when she attended a meeting with some 50
> imams, saying that she wished to continue her dialogue with them next
> year,
> only then in the Dutch language. She also called for the creation of a
> course in the Netherlands to train new imams.
> However, it was just one aspect of her meeting with the Muslim clerics
> that
> grabbed most of the headlines, namely her attempt to shake hands with one
> of
> the imams. The handshake was refused.
> In this interview with Radio Netherlands, political scientist Andre
> Krouwel
> of the Amsterdam's Free University says Ms Verdonk must have known her
> gesture would not be returned, and argues that she was playing politics,
> and
> for all the world to see:
> "It's very clear that this government, or part of this government, at
> least
> her party the VVD, the party for freedom and democracy, has left the line
> of
> the multicultural society, and is now really confronting the Islamic part
> of
> the Dutch population with a more integrative model. People should adapt to
> Dutch society, should speak the language, should shake women's hands. So,
> clearly there's a huge shift in policy."
>
> There was quite a commotion when she
> tried to shake the hand of a Muslim cleric, and the imam refused to shake
> her hand. Why did she insist that he do so?"
> "Clearly, she tried to make a point. I am sure that since the Dutch
> government has been contact with imams and with people who are of Islamic
> convictions before, they've of course encountered imams who don't want to
> shake hand with women. So, I think she wanted to make a political point,
> saying 'you see, these people are not integrated, they don't speak my
> language, they don't know that women are equal to men.' I think she was
> trying to make a political statement, and a very forceful one, because
> this
> imam cannot shake the hand of a woman because of his religion."
> RN: "Strict Muslims are not the only ones who can't shake hands with the
> opposite sex, are they?"
> "No, exactly, and the whole idea in the Netherlands always used to be that
> you respect other people's convictions, you don't try to convert people to
> your convictions. You try to basically not force your own ideas and
> visions
> of society on others. And clearly that path of a sort of consensus
> democracy, whereby you give each group autonomy within its own circle, has
> gone, at least for the VVD."
> RN: "You are really emphasizing the role of this one party. There has been
> talk of split in the cabinet between those seeking reconciliation and
> those
> who want confrontation. Is this a deepening split now?"
> "It is splitting, dividing the government, because the other main party in
> the government is the Christian Democrat party, who of course cannot go
> down
> this confrontation route. They can't say all religious groups should now
> lose their autonomy, cannot have their own schools, should be integrated
> into Dutch society and all be the same. They can't say that because also
> there are very conservative Protestants who don't allow women access, for
> example, to politics. There's even a party with two seats in parliament
> that
> sort of argues that women have a secondary role in society, and do not
> allow
> women to have power in politics within their own party. So if the
> Christian
> Democrats go in that direction, they will lose part of their own
> electorate
> and, of course, they will lose the right to funding for their own
> Christian
> schools."
>
> RN: "Immigration Minister Verdonk has been insisting on dialogue with the
> imams, and also to speak in the Dutch language. But this whole meeting at
> the weekend, how do you think that the Muslim community will have received
> her message?"
> "Clearly it is for them more evidence that this government, or at least
> part
> of this government, is on a collision course, and wants to make the
> integration issue or immigration issue - these things are constantly
> confused - the main issue in the next elections, which might come soon,
> because there are problems within the government, and the VVD seems to be
> on
> a constant campaign against Islam. And I think it is because Pim Fortuyn,
> the politician who was shot in the 2002 election, showed that with this
> issue you can gain 20 to 30 seats in a 150-seat parliament. Clearly this
> is
> an issue that you can use, and is politically very advantageous to
> political
> parties. And the VVD which has lost a lot of seats and is looking very bad
> in the opinion polls are, of course, trying to get these seats back. And I
> think that is exactly what Verdonk is doing, she is doing politics and she
> is doing it very well, I think, and we will soon see electoral success
> coming to the VVD."
>
>
http://cgi.omroep.nl/cgi-bin/streams?/rnw/hotspots/au-ned041122.rm
>
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