Well, that was then, and this is now. According to NIS News:
Minister Permits Separate Male-Female Dutch Language Classes- - - - - - - - -
THE HAGUE, 03/04/09 — Municipalities are allowed to schedule separate classes for men and women for integration courses if this boosts the effectiveness of integration, according to Integration Minister Eberhard van der Laan.
Van der Laan has sent a letter to all municipalities in which he points out that migrants on integration courses must be made aware of “the principle of equality between men and women.” This does not mean however that men and women always have to have lessons together, in his view.
According to Van der Laan, local authorities can organise separate courses for men and women if this is the most effective way to point out equality to migrants. Separate courses can avert women not turning up at the Dutch language and culture courses, because they feel they are not allowed to meet strange men, he argues.
Like apartheid and segregation, Mr. Van der Laan’s proposal disguises the fact that men and women are not equal in the eyes of those who require policies like this, and no amount of high-flown rhetoric and administrative legerdemain can disguise this fact.
“Integration”! This would be the joke of the decade, if the consequences weren’t so serious.
Hat tip: TB.
10 comments:
Examples of contradictions like this are cropping up regularly. It's what happens when a way of thinking has gone as far as it can. Stand by for paradigm change - and I don't think it's going to be gradual.
” This does not mean however that men and women always have to have lessons together, in his view."
Of course,you can turn them into fanatical pro-women males and pro-men females, if you keep them apart and in-doctrinate them as much as possible.
This does not mean however that the Dutch infidels have to live in Netherlands for ever..., in my view.
It's equal alright. In Newspeak that is...
You know, just this once I would agree with segregated classes. This will give the females a low stress environment in which to present the case of equal rights.
I have thought for many years that females are the only ones able to change the Islamic culture. Until they rise up we will have no movement in this mysoginist culture. So, I actually think that talking to females privately would probably be a good thing. That is, of course, if the instructor teaches western culture and does not bow to Sharia.
I am in agreement with Babs. In this situation, separate may be better than equal. (Never thought I see myself write that!)
The legitimate goal is to train the immigrants, who are not accustomed to equality, in the principle of equality. The best way there, especially for the women, as Babs points out, may be an easy-does-it, first-just-a-toe-in-the-water, approach.
Of course, what goes on in the all men's classes cannot be discussed in a family-oriented venue.
I'd agree too, if only there was an honest acknowledgement of why these classes need to be separate. The implication is that there are cultural factors but there doesn't seem to be any indication of the fact that muslim women in a mixed class would be oppressed.
If they admitted that they were being kept separate in order to instill a little bit of western value into these women, it would be honourable, and it would be something I could support Instead they're kept separate because it's what the muslims want.
Hey Graham -
You are letting your western value of fair play come into this...
Let's just get the women alone and teach them that they do not have to be chattel to their male overlords...
I am sorry but I don't agree with the announcement that you endorse.
Just this once, couldn't we play it smart and say "OK, let's have segregated classes" and then teach these women what their rights are in a western society without the mysoginist male input? If you announce your real intentions, how many women do you think would be allowed to attend?
That's a good point too.
Segregation promotes integration.
"Arbeit macht frei"
Orwell was an optimist.
Although of course it would be desirable to teach equality to Muslim women and thereby light a fuse, it is very unrealistic to expect that it can be done.
Islam has perpetuated itself and enlarged for centuries with an indoctrination system from birth second to none. It's not going to be over turned by a few courses by inevitably leftist apparatchniks who will be feeding mixed messages.
For example, leftists worship multiculturalism. As such, they are busy remaking their society according to Muslim (mostly male) demands. In every case where multicult pieties and feminism have conflicted so far, multicult has trumped all. Color trumps gender for leftists disguised as feminists. A brown man's way of doing things no matter how backward trumps white of both genders every time.
Even if a Muslim woman is sincere in her desire to escape the yoke (and that is questionable when you look at the common phenomenon of mothers raising suicide bombers and rejoicing at their "success" instead of weeping or the mothers who lure recalcitrant daughters to honor killings) but say there are some who are sincere...why would such woman defy her lord and master whose belief system is ascending in front of her eyes in the West while the system she's encouraged to adopt is crumbling, sold out by the very people preaching their mixed messages to her?
I mean, soon she'll be joined by three other wives her shiftless husband could not afford on his own in a Muslim country but the western state allows him and pays for. De facto Muslim polygamy (and Welfare checks to multiple wives) already exists in the UK and Canada and undoubtedly in certain jurisdictions in the Europe and the US as well. Legal polygamy is on its way as gay marriage made it impossible to defend against in Western law and test cases are following the gay-blazed trail.
Mark Steyn just wrote on this subject in the current Maclean's magazine. The article will likely appear on his site shortly.
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