Political correctness in the Netherlands...

An interview with Afshin Ellian, a Dutch law professor and Muslim.

Question: What role did political correctness play in bringing the Netherlands to its current crisis in dealing with violent Islamic radicalism?

Political correctness places our young Muslims in the hands of radical imams. These young Muslims are not used to a sharp debate and, consequently, don't have the ability to critically reflect on themselves. As I have written in my newspaper column, the longstanding Dutch tradition of respecting social groups and institutions has been stifling, and even has totalitarian tendencies.

In the 1990s, the Dutch political establishment tried by all necessary means to suppress all criticism of multicultural society. The idea was that Islam and the Muslims had to be protected from the dangerous European. As a consequence, no one dared to criticize the far-reaching Islamification of our cities and schools. The Muslims were allowed to co-exist with their own culture – suppressing women, abusing children and practicing religious intolerance and cultural backwardness – as a separate community in Dutch society. The fortress of Muslims became the prison of backwardness.

Muslim extremists are also enemies of the majority of Muslim people. It is the obligation and duty of the government to protect the majority of Muslim people against those criminals. If we isolate the small group of criminals, then it's obvious to see for common people that the majority of Muslims are good-willed people and definitely not terrorists.