Ahmed Aboutaleb (PvdA, Partij van de Arbeid, Labour Party) is the mayor of Rotterdam. Below is his response to the culture-enrichers who carried out the Charlie Hebdo massacres last week in Paris. No mincing of words for him!
Many thanks to SimonXML for the translation, and to Vlad Tepes for the subtitling:
Transcript:
| 00:00 | It is incomprehensible how someone can turn against freedom like this | |
| 00:04 | but if you can’t stomach that freedom then for heaven’s sake pack your bags and leave! | |
| 00:08 | There must be somewhere in the world where you belong. Be honest, | |
| 00:12 | to yourself and don’t go murdering innocent journalists | |
| 00:16 | That is so retarded, so incomprehensible. Go away | |
| 00:20 | if you can’t accept the society that we | |
| 00:24 | want to build here because we only want those people here, | |
| 00:28 | all the Muslims, all the well-meaning Muslims who are now probably viewed with suspicion | |
| 00:32 | we want to keep all these people together in what I call the “we society” | |
| 00:36 | and if you can’t accept humorists | |
| 00:40 | who create a newspaper, then I would like to say “F*** off!” |
Woo-hoo, Mayor of Rotterdam! Tell it! Keep on telling it! As they say, you rock!
and where would he like “dissenters” to go exactly. Isn’t this exactly the flip side of coin of so called extra right politicians?
I don’t want to be in any “we society” with muslims. That’s because, if they continue to be muslims, -they- cannot be in any “we society” with -us-, unless they get to be boss and make the rules. That’s inscribed into the DNA of muslimhood. If they want to make a sincere effort to shake that attitude off, be my guest. Maybe from the 4th to 6th generation after that their successors can be trusted again.
Yes, the problems in Islam are not a perversion of the faith; they’re at the heart of the faith, in the example of the “prophet” and in the core doctrines about despising everyone outside of Islam and about compelling the whole world to “submit” and about getting a guarantee of paradise as a reward for killing “infidels.”
Islam has been manifesting its anticivilizational character rather consistently for many centuries, everywhere it takes root. It may appear relatively benign at some times or places, but it always has the potential to “revert” to a form more like the original pattern of intolerance and conquest.
The earliest generation of Muslim immigrants into Europe did not seem “extreme,” and it may have seemed plausible to expect them to integrate and practice their religion quietly if at all. But they brought along the mindset of Islam and all the ingredients for an antagonistic parallel culture that aims to become the dominant culture and force its way upon others — because that is the heart of Islam.
As you say, it would take several generations of a profoundly different kind of “Islam” to make it safe to trust Muslims within Western societies. But then it wouldn’t really be Islam anymore.
I disagree with your contention that a cultural behavior is “inscribed into the DNA of muslimhood”. They wish. As more than one imam has admitted, Islam manages to keep the sheep in line with threats of the punishment for apostasy.
Yes — but … there is something extraordinary about the Muslim tendency to fall into a frenzy of rage if their “prophet” is “insulted.” I saw a Muslim sputtering with outrage that a friend of mine said something “blasphemous.” He actually called the police, and gave them a fabricated story about a threat. (I had meanwhile pointed out that we have no blasphemy laws here.)
No doubt the Islamic punishments go a long way to keep people in line, but they don’t explain the readiness of regular Muslims to report their neighbors for “blasphemy” (and it can’t always be just a way of playing out a personal grudge), or the vigilante enforcement of sharia, or the unhinged emotionalism of Muslims when it comes to defending the “honor” of their “prophet.”
There are kinds of Muslim cultural behavior that make the rest of us wonder “Are they insane?” It may be not literally genetic, but the impulses are deeply imprinted. So deeply that they can emerge in the second generation of immigrants even though their parents were not particularly devout.
Of course; I just came over from a large comments thread at Jihad Watch on this story (over 70 comments), and out of that 70+, only two or three demonstrate any healthy skepticism and suspicion of a Muslim (the Mayor of Rotterdam) whispering sweet taqiyya in our ears. Very dismaying. I see it’s not much better here…
While K from Germany is showing some skepticism, he ruins it with his expectation that with time Muslims will moderate.
Taqiyya
He seems to be more of a cultural quasi-Muslim — one who identifies with “Islam” as a cultural inheritance but doesn’t actually subscribe to all its beliefs. Such people do exist, largely because of the notion that you’re always a Muslim if you’re born to Muslim parents (and rejecting Islam in toto might seem like spitting on your parents and grandparents et al.).
Even those quasi-Muslims should be regarded warily (and I would certainly never vote for one). But I don’t think that every sensible comment that comes from the mouth of a cultural Muslim is intended to deceive.
How can you know? Muslims in general have a very insincere tone about them that at a gut level communicates “buyer beware”.
I’m not saying that I “know.” I just think that the variability of human nature — even among people born into Islam — is great enough to accommodate the existence of nominal Muslims who are not always trying to deceive non-Muslims.
I have said before that my default position is to distrust Muslims generally. But this man’s blunt manner of speech and forceful declarations sound rather un-taqiyaish to me. That’s just my impression.
Indeed; Radegunda’s “cultural quasi-Muslim” effectively performs the same function (whether Radegunda knows it or not) of the justly maligned term “Moderate Muslim”.
Irene, I’m tempted to agree with you, but for what (little) I know of Aboutaleb’s personal history. His father was an Imam in Morocco, of Berber ethnicity. Aboutaleb migrated with his mother and brothers to the Netherlands; apparently, and I use the word advisedly, the father stayed behind. If I’m correct in the last aspect, then the scenario could be: Mum and sons reject the Imam father and probably/possibly his religion along with him. Aboutaleb may well be an entirely secular, purely nominal, Muslim who means what he said.
Militating against the above tentative conclusion, he retains his Moroccan citizenship. One would be far more comfortable and assured that he genuinely regards himself as Dutch if he relinquished that second citizenship.
My reasoning for wanting Aboutaleb to do so, is, as I suspected (I just checked), Morocco doesn’t extradite its citizens. That is, no extradition treaty exists between the Netherlands and Morocco. Hundreds of dual Dutch-Moroccan citizens living as criminals (drug dealers, gangsters, murderers, rapists, etc) in the Netherlands have been charged with serious crimes, make bail and then abscond to complete safety in Morocco. Naturally the existence of this escape route encourages lawlessness and helps explain why so many Moroccans in the Netherlands are criminals. Their statistically established over-representation in criminal activity is truly staggering.
A similar phenomenon exists in Australia with the Lebanese Muslims. No extradition treaty exists between Australia and Lebanon: the former wants one, the latter refuses it. Infamously one particular Lebanese Muslim heroin dealer was charged, made bail, and absconded to back to Lebanon. Thirty something years later he returned to Australia (on a false passport as I recall) to attend one of his son’s trial for … surprise, surprise heroin dealing. Dad was arrested by waiting police on the courthouse steps, charged, didn’t make bail and was convicted and sentenced to jail. This was an unusual outcome.
PS. Due to the prevalence of Moroccan criminals absconding to Morocco from the Netherlands, Morocco has in 2014 finally agreed to a compromise treaty with the Netherlands: they will be tried in Morocco under Moroccan law. Characteristically, the Dutch Minister of Security and Justice, Opstelten, demanded and succeeded in the treaty negotiations that Morocco never apply the death penalty in such cases.
The upside is that jail terms are longer and jails much nastier places in Morocco than they are in the Netherlands. The downside is police and judicial corruption are rife – so there will be lots of acquittals.
“Aboutaleb may well be an entirely secular, purely nominal, Muslim who means what he said…”
Locutions such as “may well be” in the Counter-Jihad should always err on the side of suspecting a given Muslim; not on the side of giving them the benefit of the doubt. Maybe out in the breezy Mainstream one can tolerate such generosity; but surely not in this cramped space, the Counter-Jihad, the only place in the entire Universe where a condemnation of Islam (and, perforce, of all Muslims) is cultivated.
I happily await some informed Dutch GoV reader to provide some information on Aboutaleb that will remove my expressed doubt that he may not be a taqqiya-artist. I fully expect somebody will be able to do so.
If you defend free speech including the right to satirize and ridicule anything and everything, and if (as Aboutaleb does with great fervor on other occasions) you defend gay rights, pluralism, women’s equality and all other unislamic human rights, you can commit taqiyya all you like. That’s what I think anyway.
I live in Rotterdam, Aboutaleb is my mayor and I am very proud of him. I am an atheist myself, perhaps even an antitheist, I think islam is a bigger threat to the free world than Putin, but I trust Aboutaleb with my life. He keeps my city safe by organizing interfaith dialogue and increasing intercultural understanding and tolerance. There have been no jihadic incidents here even though Rotterdam is the most diverse city in the country. As Aboutaleb points out every time he gets the chance, there are 174 nationalities in Rotterdam. On 8 January he spoke at a demonstration of solidarity for Charlie Hebdo. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GjYqrwxumbc. The thousands of attendants reacted with great appreciation when he said “Je suis Charlie” and “If freedom of speech is threatened, we need to speak out more loudly”. What more can one do? It was very moving. Tears well up in my eyes as I write this.
There are moderate muslims who support the extremists by staying silent, but Aboutaleb is not one of them. We need to empower moderate muslims, muslims-in-name-only and others who can make a difference in muslims communities. Accusing them all of lying and erecting smokescreens is not helpful. We cannot reasonably expect islam to disappear overnight, so the only solution is to reform it, step by step. Only muslims can do that.
Do you believe a single word I say? How do you know I am not committing taqiyya now?
I wonder what the UN HUMAN RIGHTS pansies have to say?
Ahmed Aboutaleb claims not to understand why the cultural-enrichers who carried out the Hebdo massacre are here. “It is incomprehensible how someone can turn against freedom like this.” The straighforward answer is they aren’t in Europe for the freedom. They are in Europe to remove the freedom.
Ahmed Aboutaleb says “Go away if you can’t accept the society that we want to build here”. First off, that society was already built and thriving long before the blessings of immigration came to the Netherlands.
Ahmed Aboutaleb also says “but if you can’t stomach that freedom then for heaven’s sake pack your bags and leave.” Why should they leave? If things continue to go according to plan then soon enough they’ll be telling you whose going to stay and whose going to leave.
Taqqiya
The violent jihadis are less dangerous to the survival of the West than the “moderates”.
The homicidal Mohammedans show Islam[‘s true nature nakedly.
The “moderates” (like this mayor) lull the infidels to sleep as Muslim colonization and the gradual takeover of the infidel world proceeds, and Sharia Law looms, without any problems.
The “moderates” want the violent jihadis to stop waking up the slumbering kaffir dogs.
Islam cannot succeed if the West wakes.
“Keep dozing, unclean dogs!” is the subtext of all “moderate” Muslim speech.
Islam is a marching Death Cult.
Anyone who subscribes to its malignant tenets is an enemy of Civilization.
Thank you, profitsbeard, for the no-nonsense verdict on this Good Cop, this Muslim Mayor. I find it dismaying and dispiriting how the majority of those in the Counter-Jihad are so gullible and naive as to even contemplate believing a Muslim.
That is the precise, specific function of the “Better Cop” like Ahmed Aboutaleb (and Maajid Nawaz, and Zuhdi Jasser, and a few others) — to try to lull the Counter-Jihad into a complacency that will brook and accommodate innumerable Muslims to continue to live among us. And apparently, the tactic is working. It truly disgusts.
Whether sincere or not, he’s putting himself in potential danger- how about some credit where it’s due?
Perhaps one day the Netherlands will be a country of Mohammed’s and Aboutaleb’s who will all celebrate gay marriage, freedom of speech and democracy.
The Dutch will be a invisible minority, but at least we live on through the Africans and Arabs who will cherish the values that put us on the path towards extinction.
Who will sign up for that battle?
Not me.
WOW! Thank you, Ahmed Aboutaleb for being able to present a direct, yet rational and reasoned criticism of these core issues.
While most of us recognize than most Muslims that we live and work with every day represent NO direct threat to Western cultures; I find it both stunning and appalling when they claim that they cannot understand why non-Muslims might view them and their religion with suspicion.
REALLY?
Whether disputedley based upon the edicts of the Koran, when there are thousands of individual atrocious attacks committed by people claiming to be the true defenders of Islam and Mohammed (may peace be upon him) and indeed, not just single “lone wolf” actors, but hundreds of thousands of new recruits willingly joining in this bloodthirsty savagery that form entire ARMIES with military organization and ranking, funded by a worldwide network of sympathetic Muslims from countries across the globe…
our neighborly, non-radicalized, gentle Muslims STILL cannot understand why Westerners are so concerned?
ARE YOU KIDDING?
Sorry, but most Muslims I’ve met aren’t stupid. But on this topic they are insincere and therefore, not fully trustworthy as to their truest allegiance.
The mass-hijacking of such an enormous faith with members across the globe cannot be accomplished by just “a few bad apples”; it happens, at worst with full participation in the bloodshed or, at best, the turning of the blind eye by the non-violent.
As they say, “when there are this many bad apples; there is something wrong with the orchard.”
I feel that they knowingly choose to ignore or somehow diminish the violent actions of their brothers because, in the end, they will choose to side with even the more radical Islamists rather than truly embracing their adopted Western lives.