I've always been fond of the Dutch and their culture of tolerance and assimilation.

There have been quite a few major incidents that have caught not only the Dutch public's attention, but also the world's over the last few years, ie. the murders of the filmmaker Van Gogh and the politician Fortuyn.

As a result of these events, I'm curious as to how the the country's attitude towards their muslim immigrants and culture may have changed? Do they begin to question their policy of tolerance in creating a multicultural society?

How has the rest of Europe responded to issues similar to these in their own countries, ie. bombings in England/Spain, riots in France, etc.?

Unfortunately, being here in the US, we have very limited exposure to European attitudes (that's why I have to travel so damn much ;) ).

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i have been following that BBC show on late night here in NY about europeans and islam regarding froced integration. and i just asked kinky about this via PM (going to the source)

and then, out of nowhere i saw the tunisia report on a complete headscarf ban and how the human rights groups were screaming about it. its a catch 22 all the way. handling certain aspects of societal groupings and the other side of encouraging a uniform way of thinking. i was thinking how can a human rights group go nuts over the scarf ban, but yet, not say a thing on how other groups are restricted in the middle east. (like how a non muslim isnt allowed within mecca and other rights they lose by being who they are)..

fucked.up.world.not.getting.better.

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In short: the riots in France don't find their roots in ethnicity, even though it's a factor. The primal source is unemployment. You've got suburbs around the big cities full of blocks with immigrants who can't find a job. This translates into criminality, drug dealing, ... and of course the riots.

As for the Dutch: their system of integration is pretty good, but their problem is that it was politically incorrect to question it or question other cultures, that's why it failed to adapt to certain tensions (but I think Yawno can give a better picture of that).

As for Belgicum: our government pretty much sat on it's ass and did nothing to bring communities together. Hell, even the locals (Dutch speaking and French speaking part of the country) have problems living together without bullshit.

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if they let you roam free, they really are sitting on thier asses.

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since it's hunting season, I suggest we shoot 'em all :mrgreen:

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^Cheney's up for it! ;)

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^^^ cheney only shoots white meat, aint no good :D

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O O gimme a gun :D.

Short version now since I'm about to crash: the Dutch may be renowned for their tolerance, but it is that which has brought the problems of today upon us IMO. Letting people who not only think differently go about, but also the ones that actively oppose our way of life. Another one here is the fact that we now have 3rd generation Moroccans that are not accepted as Dutch (for a lack of integration), neither as Moroccans. That creates a whole class of youths that don't feel bound to any country or background, but of course there's always some sharks waiting to catch those fish astray: mostly extremist Muslims in this case. If it's not them, the dissatsifaction becomes clear by anti-social behaviour mostly.

People are increasingly getting afraid here, and the political right here (including a number of almost racist or totally racist parties) is gaining ground at the moment. People here are blaming the political left (in charge from 1994 - 2002) for the problems with immigrants right now, who prove to be less integrated than we would like. In fact, at least 40% of the Moroccans (the major group among them) indicates to be opposed to our system of morals and values.

That's a pretty shitty score to me....

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weird. you want to keep open arms and embrace diversity (NY great example), but you also need to do the complete opposite in ensuring you arent allowing those whom you let in to be too aggressive in pushing thier culture and preventing each culture from coalescing together in concentrated regions and ideas. some people want the cake(pride in heritage), but dont want to be there for the veggies. (integration of common ideas and acceptance of equal footing)

wait until the stupid lawsuit from the BA stewardess begins challenging special interests laws. she had a cruxifix on her neck and was fired, but her company makes specific yeilds to hindus, muslims, and jews for thier headgear, including the veil on women. you''ll either see a lot more white people with crosses doing it out of principle and support, or an outright ban of all the shit.

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That lawsuit must come, BA's behaviour in this case is complete bollocks - either you prohibit ALL religious signs, or none. I'm not a Christian, but I fail to see the reason for this kind of discrimination, because that's exactly what it is.

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So in continuing this discussion, what ideas have the Europeans had in regards to dealing with their immigrant problem? Is there discussion of closing their borders, similar to the US? Have they actually discussed better ways of assimilating them? Do they find it futile to assimilate certain cultures?

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The debate now is mainly focusing on rooting out extremists here (sending them back, and getting legislation to sue them or get them extradited), and improving integration by foreigners. It's slowly becoming clear that letting them do their on thing and not actively monitoring the level of integration has led to a degree to a 'lost' group of immigrants that are making enclaves in our society in which they strongly hold on to their own cultural systems, in fact they are more conservative than the people in their home country these days.

What we need to do now is making clear that living here is not something to be taken for granted, but that they'll have to accept and adapt to our culture to a satisfactory degree - in that respect the US has done a far better job than Europe with it's relaxed attitude.

That is also why in november I'll be voting for a centre/right winged party rather than one of those leftist clubs that actually made it possible that a Muslim who recently applied for a job in client communications dept. with one of our biggest cities and got turned down for not wanting to shake a woman's had could sue them and WIN...we need to stop this kind of retarded self-denial here: in The Netherlands, we shake hands with both men and women. You live here, you want to work for the govt. on city level, you better f**king accept our standards, especially when going into the communications sector where you will be dealing with loads of people on a daily basis...

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sadky the workd is going to see a new level of the violence and fighting that european and middle eastern lands saw when the people opted to get the religion out of governemnt once people begin truly learning about islam and critiquing every indivual beleif as to see what will be appropriate for society. im not talking about another reigning in on a peoples, but more of a slef exam of law and society that will, unavoidably, critique a religion that has given the world every reason to doubt what it says.

and just think...... the pope is about to head to turkey. wait until that shit hits the fan when christians come out to support him and muslims come out to protest him and then........ tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick

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why cant people take my POV on life....

you are cool until you give reason otherwise.

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Well...i think my POV is much alike ;).

IMO people here should stop excusing themselves to Muslims all the time for not holding their faith, because that is what I see all around. Giving them privileges and whatnot, backtracking on quotes that don't get appreciated - f*ck that. This is a different culture, and as long as there is still respect going towards the Muslims despite the fact that we don't agree with them, they should shut up. All in all, the West is constantly trying to appease the Muslim community at the moment, but I don't see a scratch of respect coming back at us from the Middle East right now.

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we shoudl show em what it feels like and hire some pro west terror boys to bomb the fuck out of riyad and we can cheer in the streets and holds rallies.

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Tempting....but no :D.

Simply be more strict on immigration, and most importantly on making sure that those who choose to stay among us integrate properly.

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some interesting perspective there...Europe has played the pacifist way too long imo (in many other areas as well) and it's about time they awoke to realize that patronizing a culture doesn't get you the same in return.

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nope, it just gets you another culture within your borders.....

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egg-fuckin-zactly. That is becoming all too clear right now, and our politicians are playing a panic-game IMO.

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its only going to get worse in the fact that not a soul on this planet can argue that islamic law based countries wont react violently and rashly, as they have done for the last decade or so, while telling us they arent. we will push them for assimilation, they will push back in typical overreaction, and so forth, its gonna be isreal/gaza on a larger scale. tit for tat hatred building. sigh........

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I'd rather have that we leave them alone and that they leave us a alone, but that's just a dream. I'm also getting confused with lots of Islamists telling me their religion is peace, while punishment is always very violent, and discrimination is pretty much inherent to the religion.

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like i said, wait until the pope goes to turkey, should be quite interesting if the muslim voices in the region call for peace and quiet beforehand.

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stupid move IMO

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why?> we already have about a dozen or so jihads going on throughout the globe, he is only following the crowd. (except his crowd controls the money and weapons)

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[URL]http://www.telegraaf.nl/binnenland/51714651/Marokkanen_juichen_bij_WTC-film.html?p=19,1[/URL]

the only solution there is deportation, ill let yao translate.

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[QUOTE=thesightless;392478][URL]http://www.telegraaf.nl/binnenland/51714651/Marokkanen_juichen_bij_WTC-film.html?p=19,1[/URL]

the only solution there is deportation, ill let yao translate.[/QUOTE] Motherf&*ers! :evil: Anyone with that little respect for human life that they would applaud something that reprehensible should be shot not deported...just like those pieces of shit cross the river in both jersey city and parts of brooklyn that did the same on 9-11. We all need to apply the policy that if you find our way of life so deplorable, get the hell out of here cause we don't want you and you don't deserve to live here.

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i blame the tri staters who didnt drive over those cheering on 911. if i saw that shit, well, you know me.... bat in the back seat, and pistola in the trunk's lock box.(liscenced of course if the patriot act is covering this site)

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[QUOTE=thesightless;392486]i blame the tri staters who didnt drive over those cheering on 911. if i saw that shit, well, you know me.... bat in the back seat, and pistola in the trunk's lock box.(liscenced of course if the patriot act is covering this site)[/QUOTE] Agreed, every court in this country would've accepted a plea of "temporary insanity" on 9-11 easily, with no questions asked.

...thought you'd appreciate that post ;)

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hey, im all for someone going into queens and killing whose fucks at the islamic thinkers society... they have reenacted 911 every weekend on the corner in front of the queens center mall.... people beat them the first weekend, and thanks to stupid laws, now the police have to protect them....

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[QUOTE=thesightless;392493]hey, im all for someone going into queens and killing whose fucks at the islamic thinkers society... they have reenacted 911 every weekend on the corner in front of the queens center mall.... people beat them the first weekend, and thanks to stupid laws, now the police have to protect them....[/QUOTE] seriously? where the hell did you hear about that one?

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[URL]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_Thinkers_Society[/URL]

[URL]http://www.islamicthinkers.com/index/index.php[/URL]

[URL]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m5BPVF1C5LE[/URL] (the holocost was a hoax, liked that one)

google them, there is plenty, but mostly its slanted so i wont post. i gave you the wiki, thier own site, and a video of them at the isreali embassy.

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Way more than I cared to know...can we say treason? Send em home.

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sadly, the cunts at the ACLU would prevent that until they went out and shot a uniformed military officer.....

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I totally agree with sending those that seem opposed to our way of living home, but the fun is that I'm automatically labeled anti-Islamic, racist and whatnot by most of the leftist people here. Screw them, those kids cheering at that WTC movie should've had the baton on the kneecap and then a one-way ticket to the Sahara...if you think the West sucks s bad then get the hell outta here!

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[quote=KinKyJ;390374]In short: the riots in France don't find their roots in ethnicity, even though it's a factor. The primal source is unemployment. You've got suburbs around the big cities full of blocks with immigrants who can't find a job. This translates into criminality, drug dealing, ... and of course the riots.[/quote]

very true. something people forget is that we've had bombin in Paris and we've had extremist hijacking a plane to slam it in the Eiffel Tower in 1994: [URL]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_France_8969[/URL]

anyways, france has a culture of over integration by institutionalizing everything. two years ago we've elected a responsible for the "muslim" question to comunicate with the governement - this had mixed success. anyways, some of the above post and KinkyJ's post make the point (for once --- ;) j/k)

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peopel are also forgetting that the french clerics were calling for more sayign that france had no authority over themuslim ghettos and that they were ti rise up... (i know, ill start looking on BBC for the articles, give me some time, im working)

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still about france, i think it's a question of marginalised communities - the US had this with riots in LA if I remember correctly. the reason why it was such a trauma in France is that it's a very dirigist country. the very idea of a republic is based on the acceptance by everybody of a certain number of values and rules - liberty equality fraternity... anyways, the French politics have been bad at pointing the real problem and addressing it

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LMAO< HOLY SHIT

go grab BBC in a few..... i will not verify right now, again, not definite, but it looks like france has banned muslims from being baggage handlers at airports for security..... wow......sad state we are in it seems.

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[quote=thesightless;393128]LMAO< HOLY SHIT

go grab BBC in a few..... i will not verify right now, again, not definite, but it looks like france has banned muslims from being baggage handlers at airports for security..... wow......sad state we are in it seems.[/quote]Bad call imo. If it's a general measure, it will surely work contra productive since it stigmatizes muslims even more. A screening by the secret service would've been a better idea I think.

As for the source of the problem overhere, a study has been released earlier this week about poverty in Belgium. It showed that 25% of the immigrant population (and especially Moroccans and Turks) live below the poverty line (which means that their monthly income is lower than 777 euro).

Imo our government should put more effort into fighting the socio-economic exclusion of these segments of the population. Not by just handing them more money or by positive discrimination, but by taking measures in terms of education.

A lot of immigrant kids have problems with our language or don't speak it at all because they don't learn it at home. Result: they get behind on school, end up in schools with the lowest levels and/or often don't even finish school. In a way they're automatically condemned to unemployment or -best case scenario- a low level, little pay job: a breeding ground for frustration and polarisation.

Remarkable thing btw: a few days ago I was talking to a friend of mine who's of Moroccan origin. He said he was moving out of the city as well because he was fed up with "those fcking maroefen" (maroef is an insulting name people here give to Moroccans and other Northern Africans). I was pretty surprised that he hates "his people" that much, but his reasons were pretty logical. He's one of the few who acts and dresses like a Belgian and tries to make his way up. "But those losers hang around on the street, either acting tough, harassing people and getting involved in small time criminality. Or they grow a beard, put on a robe and start acting like hardcore fundamentalists. Either way, they fck it up for the rest of us by enforcing prejudices." I guess that's a valid point too...

Anyway, I don't have anything against a multicultural society (hell, I even have a multicultural relationship) and I think people should be able to keep their identity as much as possible. But if you want to be part of a society, you should stick to the local rules, norms and values or simply pack your bags and get the hell out. It's as simple as that!