Thousands here spurn television, theater, movies and dancing. Many dress in black and attend three hours of church services on Sunday. And some refuse to immunize their children or buy insurance because they believe this interferes with the will of God.
Though the Netherlands is frequently the target of criticism by religious conservatives and the Vatican for its tolerant policies toward marijuana, prostitution and euthanasia, many Dutch are both socially permissive and highly religious.
A Dutch-Moroccan, one of the first Muslim cabinet ministers in Europe, said yesterday he hopes he is blazing a trail for others, but said Muslims must do more to dispel fears stoked by militant Islamists.
One of the first two Muslims appointed to a Dutch Cabinet post, Ahmed Aboutaleb calls himself a “foot soldier” in the cause of immigrant integration. And as a foot soldier, he expects to be a target, he said Wednesday.
An anti-immigrant Dutch lawmaker said Thursday the first Muslims ever appointed to Cabinet posts should be stripped of their jobs because they hold dual nationality.
Since the Sept. 11 terror attacks in the United States and deadly bombings in London and Madrid, studies have focused on an intensifying clash between Europeans and a flood of immigrants who hold fast to their own cultures. But some say a new reality is emerging, even though many Europeans do not realize it.
The modern Dutch consensus is that making outlaws of prostitutes and soft-drug users only pushes them underground and into the hands of real criminals. Better to control and regulate such behaviors by legalizing–or in the case of cannabis, tolerating–the otherwise objectionable. The Dutch word for this is gedogen, which has no equivalent in English yet roughly means permitting what is officially illegal.
Amsterdam’s Red Light District will soon be home to a bronze statue in honor of prostitutes around the world.
The number of people in Holland who are deliberately uninsured on religious grounds doubled last year to around 11,000, the social insurance bank SVB said.
A group of brothel owners representing nearly a third of the windows prostitutes in Amersterdam’s famous Red Light District have filed legal protests against a city decision to revoke their licenses.