A Dutch lesson for Canada (hello, wake up!)

A Dutch lesson for Canada (hello, wake up!)

National Post (Canada) Monday, November 15, 2004 Lorne Gunter

Bravo to the Dutch for recognizing that the assimilation of immigrants and refugees is preferable to multiculturalism and political correctness.

A sea change has occurred in the Netherlands in the past few years. The famously liberal Dutch citizenry, and a goodly number in officialdom, have come to recognize that too much acquiescence to the customs and traditions of immigrants and refugees has led to civil strife.

The prevailing sentiment among the majority of Dutch voters now is that their national immigration policy has made insufficient demands on newcomers to respect the foundations of Dutch law and culture. In particular, a large and growing Muslim community has been encouraged by official diversity programs to remain both detached from mainstream Dutch culture and hostile to it.

It has taken two gruesome political murders to jolt the Dutch from their previous cult-like devotion to tolerance.

Tolerance had become a civil religion among the Dutch before the assassinations of politician Pim Fortuyn in 2002 and filmmaker Theo van Gogh earlier this month. Fortuyn was not murdered by Muslims, but rather by a fanatic leftist, environmentalist, animal-rights activist outraged by Fortuyn's opposition to Muslim immigration. Volkert van der Graaf shot Fortuyn dead in the middle of the last Dutch election.

At the time of his death, Fortuyn was widely described as a right-wing populist, because reporters and editors assume the only politicians opposed to immigration and multiculturalism are on the right. But Fortuyn was a flamboyantly gay sociologist long active in the Partij van de Arbeid, the Dutch social democratic party. What distressed him about the rapid increase in the Muslim population was the threat rigid Muslims posed to his nation's liberal traditions. They were antagonistic to Holland's acceptance of same-sex rights, the sex trade and recreational drug use.

Similarly, Van Gogh was killed for producing a left-of-centre film exposing Muslim discrimination against women.

Van Gogh's alleged murderer is a Muslim, as are his six alleged accomplices.

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