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This is an archive article published on February 21, 2007

Netherlands gets its first Muslim ministers

As a city councilman, Ahmed Aboutaleb, the son of a Moroccan clergyman, helped immigrants find jobs...

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As a city councilman, Ahmed Aboutaleb, the son of a Moroccan clergyman, helped immigrants find jobs, put their toddlers in school to learn Dutch, and doled out some stern advice: integrate or leave.

Last week, Aboutaleb was named a state secretary, or junior minister, in the new Dutch Cabinet. So was Nebahat Albayrak, a Turkish-born lawyer and member of parliament from the age of 30.

They are the first Muslims to reach the inner core of political power in the Netherlands, and among only a handful of immigrants to rise to these second-rung Cabinet positions anywhere in Western Europe.

Albayrak and Aboutaleb are among those well adjusted immigrants who call themselves the 8220;New Dutch.8221; Many have worked their way upward in politics or business at a time of ethnic upheavals in the Netherlands and doubts about the nation8217;s ability to comfortably absorb its Muslim minority.

They comprise a quiet counterpoint to the relentless spotlight on the alienated immigrant underclass in the Netherlands, the squalid suburbs ringing French cities, and the Muslim terror cells being uncovered throughout Europe.

8211;ARTHUR MAX

 

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