The Integrationist

Can Job Cohen, a Jew who reaches out to Muslims, be the next Dutch prime minister — and a model for Europe?

"In Amsterdam, Cohen kept to his own agenda, at some remove from the national debate. Management of his intensely multiethnic city in the post-9/11 period led him to alter his traditional Dutch liberalism. Immigrants, he held, needed to become part of society, and that included learning the language and respecting the laws, and appreciating what he considers the paramount Dutch value, freedom. Newcomers, he told me, should study a Dutch canon of important historical events and figures. Cohen’s idea seems to have been to move away from the multicultural extreme while also avoiding the anti-immigrant extreme, to fashion a practical inclusiveness. He has repeatedly said that “Keeping Things Together” was his motto for governing the city."

This has been the Dutch way since they threw out the Spanish.

The English Puritans ran from it in 1620.

Islam will continue to have trouble with it.

I will revisit this article.