Muslims, Intolerance, Portuyn and Liberals

[Oldenbarnevelt]

Originally posted by Saint Marcus
Booh on you. Dijkstal is a total moron.

Thanks for your thorough analysis, Marcus.

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[Az]

Originally posted by Ned


Dal, Just because both Christianity and Islam has an aggressive warlike phase, they have both largely been peaceful in the last couple hundred years. What is your explanation for this?

well , it was mostly due to the fact that the Ottoman Empire that conquered the arab world, and continued the spread of islam , for example in the balkans , was dying a slow death. Already in the mid 19th century, a pact was forged between european powers and the turks to shelter them from the Russians , that would have certainly overrun them in a decade or so, maybe even controlling areas south to Istanbul . The Crimean war was the realisation of that protection. The European powers were already capitalistic , and mostly democratic, secular , and developed, while the arabs were religious and yes, primitive, in their thinking.

On Hitler, if you read Mein Kampf, you distinctly get the impression that Hitler didn't like the Jews because they were "different." He cited numerous examples. It was not just race. Hitler was after "cultural" purity as well.

he wasn't after cultural purity he was after "racial" one. especially considering the fact that jews in Germany weren't like the old antisemite stereotype at all.

Religion r of course a piece of BS. Those who follow them blindly become intolerent for sure.

I am glad you agree.

But intolerence against intolerence didn't work of course.

I guess that stance of french people is why Le Pen got into the 2nd round , with a 1/5 of the population supporting him. (/cheap shot below waist)

on a serious note, intolerance against intolerance is EXACTLY the way to go. with all due respect to pluralism , pluralism is only a means to an end, which is a more humane society, not the goal of human society . Or do you think it's ok to be a nazi?

While against hatred, discrimination and intolerance, I simply cannot share the relativist view that Western and Islamic values are equivalent. IMO there's a strong case for refusing immigrants who do not share our basic values regarding democracy and secularism, freedom, equality of men and women, and equality of people regardless of their sexual preferences. Why should we go on importing backwardness and bigotry when there are so many potential immigrants from the Third World who would be proud to become members of a free Western society?

[Saint Marcus]

Thanks for your thorough analysis, Marcus.

read the Metro today?

According to Dijkstal, the sad thing about refugee centres is that they are filled with people who shouldn't have come here in the first place. Rather sad that a politician finds that fact worse than the horrible living conditions those people have.

[Oldenbarnevelt]

Originally posted by Saint Marcus


read the Metro today?

According to Dijkstal, the sad thing about refugee centres is that they are filled with people who shouldn't have come here in the first place.

He is absolutely right. Only 3% of asylum seekers in our country fully qualify as political refugees, then there's a small number of questionable cases, and a huge majority do not qualify in any way.

Our asylum laws are not about poverty.

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[ZoboZeWarrior]

Originally posted by Dalgetti

I guess that stance of french people is why Le Pen got into the 2nd round , with a 1/5 of the population supporting him. (/cheap shot below waist)

hmm ... yes ! and so what ?

[Saint Marcus]

He is absolutely right. Only 3% of asylum seekers in our country fully qualify as political refugees, then there's a small number of questionable cases, and a huge majority do not qualify in any way.

Yes, but the sad thing is that he finds it "triest" that there are so many people who shouldn't be there, and doesn't comment at all on the conditions there (which are awfull btw)

[Az]

hmm ... yes ! and so what ?

so, you're ok with that? well nevermind.

[Ramo]

First of all, if Fortuyn et al. really cared about Western freedoms, they would do everything they could to give women, gays, bis, religious and political dissidents, etc. from fundie Moslem states Western legal protections by taking down immigration barriers. What a service to liberty these people are doing by forcing them to stay in a totalitarian society!

Secondly, political values of a culture generally diffuse by the second generation. Frankly, I've never met a second generation immigrant who shares anything close to an Islamic fundie viewpoint, with regards to our laws.

Furthermore, religious values are hardly uniform between Islamic countries. Bangladesh (which has had women PM's, whilst there has never been a woman President in the US), for instance, isn't comparable to Saudi Arabia. Saying that Moslems everywhere are reactionary is ignorant bull****.

[Ned]

Ramo, Interesting quote from Tamerlane's grandson. Seems rather civilized in contrast to his grandfather. Ned

[Natan]

Originally posted by Ramo
First of all, if Fortuyn et al. really cared about Western freedoms, they would do everything they could to give women, gays, bis, religious and political dissidents, etc. from fundie Moslem states Western legal protections by taking down immigration barriers. What a service to liberty these people are doing by forcing them to stay in a totalitarian society!

I think this is a good point, but I have two questions:
1) Does anyone know if Fortyun opposed immigration through political asylum?
2) How would you identify "non-fundie" Muslims and separate them from their persecutors?

Secondly, political values of a culture generally diffuse by the second generation. Frankly, I've never met a second generation immigrant who shares anything close to an Islamic fundie viewpoint, with regards to our laws.

Muslims who come to America are a self-selecting group, and one which likely contains very few people interested in Islam as a political ideology. But more importantly, I think immigration in Europe has different patterns than in the United States. Whether because of their larger numbers, greater discrimination, or different countries of origin, Muslim immigrants in Europe don't do as well (economically, socially, or politically) as their American counterparts.

[markusf]

When they want to immigrate to a country, make them sign a piece of paper that says they won't do this this and this.. If anyone in the family gets in trouble with the law, before they have citizenship (assuming you have to wait 5 years before applying), deport them back where they came from.

[Ned]

Originally posted by Natan


2) How would you identify "non-fundie" Muslims and separate them from their persecutors?

I think you hit the nail on the head.

I would suggest that we sould adopt the presumption that one is "innocent" until proven guilty. In other words, we treat all Muslims with respect and tolerance until they actually carry out acts of violence or have links or associations with known terrorist groups.

Ned

[Oldenbarnevelt]

Originally posted by Natan

1) Does anyone know if Fortyun opposed immigration through political asylum?

Before answering your question, here's some background information. The Netherlands has the highest population density of all European countries. One would expect that such a crowded country would be expected to admit fewer asylum seekers (per capita) than countries with more room to spare. However, only two years ago, Holland had the highest per-capita number of asylum seekers in Europe (after having been second for many years, behind Germany). (It figures that the per-1,000-sq. miles number was even more dramatic than the per-100,000-inhabitants number. And the difference with other countries was not marginal, but lay in the order of twice, 3 times, 6 times as much.) A large majority of these asylum seekers didn't in any way qualify as political refugees; in fact, many came our way for economic reasons, or they were criminals or people working for dictatorial regimes.

Now, were those who didn't meet the law's requirements sent back? No. Some of the political parties that were beaten so gloriously today created an atmosphere in which anyone who dared broach the subject was associated with racist or fascist ideologies, and the stubborn ones were told that they were latter-day Hitlers and Himmlers. In this atmosphere of moral pressure, asylum seekers kept coming in droves, because they knew beforehand that there was only a slim chance of having to leave, irrespective of the strength of their case. This is why so many came to the Kingdom of the Netherlands and so few to the Kingdoms of Norway and Denmark.
In the last two years, the moral arbiters of the Left started losing their grip, and legal measures have been taken to change this hopeless situation. The Netherlands is now 8th on the list of European countries.

Now, Fortuyn. Not too long ago, he changed his opinion that no asylum seekers should be admitted. He said he would try to introduce a maximum of 10,000 persons a year (we received five or six times as many for many years). However, his favourite solution has always been to take care of the refugees in their own part of the world. This way much more can be done with the same amount of money, the disruption that we have experienced in our country would end, and large numbers of disingenuous asylum seekers would be discouraged.

Of course it is the EU's responsibility to coordinate national policies and see to it that every member state gets their fair share of the burden. Every attempt to bring this situation about has been successfully sabotaged by shirker states. If every civilized state in the world adopted as many asylum seekers as we have done for years, I think the problem would have been solved by now. Fortuyn's ideas were not worse than those of many "socialists", "social democrats", "liberals" etc. in other countries (let alone conservatives and other rightists). I didn't vote for the deceased or one of his candidates, though.

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[Az]

Furthermore, religious values are hardly uniform between Islamic countries. Bangladesh (which has had women PM's, whilst there has never been a woman President in the US), for instance, isn't comparable to Saudi Arabia. Saying that Moslems everywhere are reactionary is ignorant bull****.

Pakistan also had a female prime minister,IIRC, but that doesn't mean that people there don't it's ok to... FE, to kill a woman because she had ex-marital sex. Also Bangladesh is one of a relatively small number of countries that are muslim and relatively democratic.

First of all, if Fortuyn et al. really cared about Western freedoms, they would do everything they could to give women, gays, bis, religious and political dissidents, etc. from fundie Moslem states Western legal protections by taking down immigration barriers. What a service to liberty these people are doing by forcing them to stay in a totalitarian society

yes, and of course, all of the people that are currently in holland and throughout europe, that are muslims , are political and religious dissidents, small groups of freedom-loving idividuals in their countries.

[Sikander]

Originally posted by Ramo
First of all, if Fortuyn et al. really cared about Western freedoms, they would do everything they could to give women, gays, bis, religious and political dissidents, etc. from fundie Moslem states Western legal protections by taking down immigration barriers. What a service to liberty these people are doing by forcing them to stay in a totalitarian society!

You are the David Floyd of immigration debates. Allowing states to dump their people on other states stabilizes the bad states and destabilizes the good ones. Don't let people move away from their culture to flee oppression, give them the weapons they need to free themselves. One of those weapons is a dissident community, which won't do Saudi Arabian people etc. any good washing dishes and smoking hash in the NL.