MUSLIM TAKE-OVER IN THE NETHERLANDS

Several times in the last year I have been involved in discussions about "the Islamicisation of Europe". And people have asked me 'why the Netherlands is coddling the Muslims'.


I have often had to explain that the Netherlands, in so far as it coddles, coddles damn well everybody (and pretty damn impersonally at that), and that the lawsuit against Geert Wilders is justified according to Dutch law. Freedom of speech always has limits, they're just a bit more limited in the Netherlands than in the U.S. The Code Napoleon was written for the benefit of the government, not the people, and insofar as the Netherlands is a "constitutional monarchy" it is so by the sufferance of the monarch.
Despite a very lively consumer culture and certain similarities with the United States, it is not "America with a funny accent", and you should stop making comparisons.


On the other hand, feel free to make comparisons involving Roermond.


Where one of the city council members is of Moroccan derivation.


Go on, have a fit. Feel free to scream about the Muslims taking over, in thirty years Christian values will be entirely gone, what has happened to Europe, and why aren't they concerned with preserving their own values?!?


DOT DOT DOT


This "Moroccan" city council member is female.


A member of the Dutch liberal party (VVD - considered 'conservative').


She is a native (born in Roermond 34 years ago).


Literate, and multilingual.


Former account manager at a bank.


And quite good looking.


She is Raja Moussaoui, who was Miss Netherlands in 2000.


Yes, you might as well admit that your preconceptions regarding Euro-Muslims have just taken a major hit. And that you don't really know what to think. Perhaps you were wrong about "those folks". Maybe all that European cultural inbreeding does need the leavening provided by people like Raja Moussaoui. A breath of fresh air, in any case.


By the way, ms. Moussaoui isn't the only Dutch woman to explode preconceived ideas about Muslim-Europeans - there's also Miss Netherlands of 2008 (Deniz Akkoyun) who is of Turkish ancestry, born in Amersfoort. And who can forget Miss World 2002, Azra Akin, who was born in Almelo (Netherlands) in 1981.