To motivate the jobless Amsterdam Moroccan youths, 'I use the image of Tariq ibn Ziyad, the Muslim Berber who landed at Gibraltar with 1,200 men. After his arrival he told his men to burn all boats. Then he addressed them with the words: "Behind you is the sea, before you, the enemy. Either go to battle or swim back. The choice is yours." Now this is the mentality that [Moroccan] youths need.'These are the words of the Labor Party member Ahmed Marcouch during an interview by DePers.nl. To many people in the Netherlands, Marcouch is the living proof that Muslims actually can be integrated into Dutch society. As a son of a Moroccan guest worker, he migrated from Morocco to the Netherlands in 1979 at the age of ten, and became president of the Amsterdam borough of Slotervaart in 2006.
To me, however, Marcouch's acculturalization proves to be painfully shallow. How else could he fail to grasp that his Islamic parable amounts to a declaration of war against the Dutch? It was Tariq ibn Ziyad, after all, who in the year 711 defeated the Christian king Roderic, leader of the Germanic Visigoths, and made Spain part of the Islamic world...
On the other hand, it is difficult to see how Marcouch could not have understood the implications of his words. In the same interview, the Moroccan-born Marcouch admitted that he went through a phase of Islamic radicalization when he was younger. 'One thinks in terms of black and white. One believes that the woman's place is at home. That the West is the enemy.'
The whole situation is really deplorable. Who could have predicted, ten or twenty years ago, that in 2008 liberal Amsterdam would be run by an official city councillor with a history of radical Islamism? And that the same councillor would make use of Islamic rethoric to inspire Moroccan youths? Are we soon going to commemmorate the defeat of the Islamic invaders at the Battle of Tours in 732 to make angry young Muslims feel better?
I think that the bottom line is the following question: Should we regard Marcouch's words as a major slip of the tongue, as a symptom of not yet complete acculturalization? Or should we rather take him to be the embodiment of the merger between Islamism and Socialism, the forerunner of the new Dutch, more Islamoid way of life? In fact, neither possibility gives rise to optimism.
4 comments:
Opnieuw een heel grote maar bij de denkwereld van meneer Marcouch.
Zie ook dit dit citaat van hem.
People that cannot be trusted to have the interest of the Dutch taxpayer as their #1 priority should not be allowed into any from of government. It's the Dutch taxpayer that funds Dutch government, after all.
This would exclude almost automatically almost all immigrants from government and state securtiy positions. But al lot of natives would be excluded as well, starting with most, if not all of the PvdA, with which also Marcouch resides...
I agree with r.hartman, but unfortunately The Netherlands is being ruled by a new self-appointed nobility of which mr. Marcouch is a member and the "Dutch taxpayer" is not.
Although I appreciate mr. Marcouch's remarks that he and his students are the enemies of the other residents of the Netherlands.
Good post. How ironic for a 'moderate' Muslim to use a jihadist for a role model. Long after Marcouch is dead and forgotten the legend of Tariq ibn Ziyad's offensive jihad will remain to inspire future Muslims. Tariq ibn Ziyad's behaviour is sanctioned by the Koran and 1400 years of Islamic jihad tradition. He will be remembered forever. Moderates like Marchouch will not.
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