There's a youtube video gone somewhat viral of
Ahmed Aboutaleb, mayor of Rotterdam and prominent Dutch socialist (the mainstream party PvdA, not the SP), in which he apparently admonishes young muslims who refuse to take for granted freedom of expression, telling them to
"f*ck off". At least that's how most Anglosaxon commentators translate Aboutalebs "rot op", although "f*ck off" is actually harsher. A more apt translation for "rot op" would be
"get the hell out of here!".
Aboutalebs not-unclear language obviously earned him the sympathy of many a western observer from all sides of the political spectrum. One of them is one of my favourite bloggers, CDR Salamander, whose naval-oriented blog I've been following since the beginning (2004, to be precise). The CDR has several often recurring topics, and a near constant are the FbF's - Fullbore Fridays. Posts generally dealing with personae or units having shown exceptional gallantry or military prowess. I've basically always agreed with his assessions of those selected - but I have grave issues with his last two choices. The first, ten days ago, was Egyptian General
al-Sisi. Now, this man during a recent speech at al-Azhar university indeed said remarkable things - for a muslim. More on him, time allowing.
The second was Ahmed Aboutaleb, of "rot op" fame. CDR Salamander
last Friday:
"The last week has seen a sickening parade of morale and physical cowardice in the defense of essential liberty. Afraid of what may happen if they stood with the French, politicians and much of the press instead hid behind "responsible speech" - which is their way of cowering in the face of threats against the very freedom they need to exist. That is the true Islamophobia - a twisted partonizing attitude that you cannot risk offending even in the slightest the tender feelings of a Muslim because, well, they just can't take it like everyone else and might become dangerous. A phobia of the followers of Islam: Islamophobia.
Heck, even last night I was reminded why I used think I was of the left. It used to be that there was a very libertarian streak on the left, but in the last 30 years they have been swamped by the Stalinists. One of the last of the traditional libertarian leftists I have found myself in rough alignment with is Bill Maher of all people.
Well, this week I am bringing in another man of the left who has it right. He gets extra points because he is Dutch. He speaks with the directness of a Dutchman, gets the enlightenment, and - more than most - he has stepped in to the field of fire to defend the flag.
The Salamander freedom fighter of the week is Ahmed Aboutaleb, member of the Labour Party, de Partij van de Arbeid (PvdA), and mayor of Rotterdam."
Er, no, CDR.
Mr Aboutaleb is no freedom fighter. Counting on him as such
would be a grave error. And why?
Oh, you might want to look at what he has overseen in "his" Rotterdam: the conclusion, in 2010, of a building project involving The Netherland's largest mosque:
Here is what Dutch daily
De Telegraaf had to say about it
on 17 december 2010:
"ROTTERDAM - After more than seven years, on Friday The Netherland's biggest mosque, the essalam mosque on Colosseum Road in Rotterdam, will be opened. The prayer house will be inaugurated by mayor Ahmed Aboutaleb and town selectman Hamit Karakus. Photo: anp
Over the past years the [construction of the] mosque has had its share of troubles. There has reportedly been much influence from abroad, in particular from the UAE's Sheikh Hamdan bin Rashid al-Maktoum. There were also quarrels between the mosque's management and its faithful. This conflict was finally resolved before court. Construction itself was also halted for a long time. In order to complete the mosque, town selectman Hamit Karakus had to step in. He finally got the project back on the rails again, with as end result a completed mosque in Rotterdam-South."
Let us not dwell on the problems during construction, they involved only the refusal to pay some of the builders' invoices and the violation of town regulations concerning the building of large structures. Let us also not dwell on the quarrels between the mosque's management and around 150 of its intended worshippers, quarrels between muslims themselves are sympathetic traits of people of that faith. And let us certainly not dwell on how "Hamit Karakus got the project back on the rails again", as if a threat to withdraw the building permit, coming from a muslim himself, could ever have been considered a danger to the future of this mosque.
No, what we have to focus on here is that it is no coincidence that when you appoint a muslim Mayor of a huge city like Rotterdam, as PvdA Chairman Wouter Bos did in 2008 - a fact we lamented on this very blog - the emergence, sooner or later, of a mega-mosque is practically a given.
Rotterdam's essalam mosque featured
in a blogpost of mine on August 10, 2007. As you can see, it was then still in the scaffolds:
But today, in the Year of Our Lord 2015, it is completed, and its minarets and dome part of Rotterdam's skyline:
The purpose of this blogpost is to show that we should not be FOOLED by "enlightened" muslims like Ahmed Aboutaleb. At heart, he is as much a muslim supremacist as his muslim "compatriots" cheering for ISIS. Thing is, Aboutaleb is the man who is content to take a stroll towards the ultimate goal, whereas the triggerhappy blokes boarding planes for Turkey would like to sprint. We can also put it another way: Aboutaleb is
MUCH SMARTER. The anger revealed by Aboutaleb in the video above - is it really triggered by the refusal of muslims to come to terms with a quintessentially western concept as freedom of expression?
Or is it anger because the gung-ho dumbasses are obviously confirming in a big and loud way what Geert Wilders & Co have been claiming for years?
My bet would be on the latter. The Charlie Hebdo massacres, the "Young Dutch" wanting to join ISIS -
they are thwarting the long-term plans of clever strategists like Ahmed Aboutaleb. To Aboutaleb, twelve dead cartoonists are a nuisance since they constitute a wake-up call for a considerable number of Europeans. Not considerable enough, for sure. A disheartening number of European natives are still dazed and confused and high on the LSD of multiculturalism. But I am sure Mr Aboutaleb can miss Charlie Hebdo repeats like the plague. Because two, three or seven MORE ....
and getting building permits thru for mega mosques WILL get more difficult.
NO CDR Salamander, as good as your judgment is in countless matters, I fear that you are seeing the Mayor of Rotterdam, who is no Mayor of Simpleton, in a far too rosy light. Mr Aboutaleb is no freedom fighter. He's a general angry because some dumbass private stepped on a twig, accidentally lit up a flare, or talked too much prior to the Big Offensive. Last week, when a pastor of some small Syrian church community in exile in Rotterdam pleaded with Aboutaleb to "talk with the imams, check what they are saying and rein them in", all the poor man got
was a sneer about him not being fully assimilated because of his poor mastery of the Dutch language.
CDR, may I suggest a more apt choice for FbF? Take
Filip Dewinter, a leading personality of the Vlaams Belang, in fact, still its most public face.
Only one week ago, Mr Dewinter held a speech in the Belgian Federal Parliament to commemmorate the victims in the Charlie Hebdo massacre, and he opened his discourse by showing perhaps the most famous "motoon" of all - in this instance one personally autographed and handed to him by Kurt Westergaard himself, ten years ago:
Aboutaleb a freedom fighter because he said "rot op"? Nope. It's taqiya, although granted, most of the Dutch muslims may have been too stupid to recognize one of their core concepts at work when dealing with infidels.
But Dewinter holding up THE motoon in a Federal Parliament, right on the heels of the killings? Plainly visible in front of the cameras? On a youtube movie that has the capacity to go viral??
THAT TAKES GUTS.
Alas, I fear Mr Dewinter will not receive freedom accolades very soon. If anything, the showers with liberal doses of faeces that he has endured during his entire 30-year long political career will continue to go on for some time.
But maybe, or rather, without a doubt...
... at some point in the not too distant future...
... when it will have finally dawned on the most ardent bien pensants that they are now living in the dar-al-islam and are now faced with all the niceties on offer in islamic societies, many may remember Mr Dewinter's incessantly delivered dire warnings, and he may finally get the Freedom Figher credit he so richly deserves.
But by then it will be too late.
MFBB.
