Netherlands: Moslems don't want Kafir babe cooties

Islamic public servants refusal to shake hands with women, no big says Dutch Labour party leader as he smartly backs down on his previous stance that it was unacceptable.

Will separate water fountains be next?

PvdA Leader after All Allows Govt Staff to Refuse to Shake Hands

Labour (PvdA) leader Wouter Bos after all considers that Islamic public servants can refuse to shake hands with women. Only last week he said this was unacceptable.

Bos appeared to be aiming for a discussion in principle within the PvdA on the way in which the integration of immigrants is going in the Netherlands. Instead of seeing them as weak groups, leftwing politicians should dare to confront immigrants with the incompatibility of certain elements of their culture with the Dutch constitution. "Integration demands polarisation," Bos stated last week.

But the PvdA leader and vice-premier has gone back on this. As a guest on TV programme Pauw en Witteman, he said: "Shaking hands is the norm, but I can imagine that there are exceptions." He thereby appears to be taking the same line as Job Cohen, the influential PvdA mayor of Amsterdam.

Last week, Bos had said that "no misunderstanding" could exist that public servants must shake hands with women. Now he says: "If other interests weigh more heavily, I believe that in specific cases a handshake can be refused." According to Bos, the "hand-shaking incident" is only "a little thing."


-end-