"Dutch Convert to Islam: Veiled and Viewed as a 'Traitor'"

See this article from the Washington Post: Dutch Convert to Islam: Veiled and Viewed as a 'Traitor'.

A Dutch woman converts to Islam, wears the veil, and is verbally abused by her fellow countrymen.

On a recent winter afternoon, the wind tugged at her ankle-length taupe skirt, olive head scarf and black, rectangular face veil as she walked to her car from an Islamic prayer meeting in downtown Breda. Two blond teenagers on bicycles stared, their faces screwed into hostile snarls. Other passersby gawked. Some stepped off the sidewalk to avoid coming too near.

The Netherlands is very proud of its 'tolerance', but like many who use that term, are very intolerant of any who do not uphold liberal humanism, and that includes traditional religion, including Islam and traditional Catholicism.

The traditional virtue of tolerance is the prudential acceptance of some evil, in order to avoid a greater evil. We tolerate a little crime to avoid a police state. The redefinition of tolerance means ethical neutrality that affirms variant (or even deviant) behavior; but tolerance does not extend to those who do not agree with this.

Under the classical idea of tolerance, if Islam were considered evil, you could tolerate it, so as to avoid greater abuses. Suppose the State does not have this classical virtue of tolerance: it would then force religious conversion on these people, who would naturally harbor deep resentment. But this is being done now:

Immigrants must learn some Dutch, pass a history and geography test and, to get a feel for whether they can live in this society, watch a film on Dutch culture that includes two gay men kissing and a topless woman walking on a beach.

The first part of this requirement seems prudent and reasonable. The latter part, forcing the acceptance of immorality, is unjust. One of the great attraction of Islam for some Europeans is its strict moral code, which is very similar to traditional Catholic morality. This convert probably was attracted to Islam because of this moral code:

Without consulting him, she began reading books about Moroccan culture and Islam. Then she decided to read the Koran. "I felt like, 'This is it,' " said Frank, whose parents were divorced and who, like many teenagers, was searching for an identity.

The Communists were correct in attacking bourgeois values, for they were mere changeable convention, no longer rooted in first principles. This is quite unlike classical morality.

Europe got a large Islamic population because of the greed for cheap labor, because of Social Democrats' desire for support from a dissaffected oppressed class, and because greater affluence led many Europeans to despise certain jobs. This was certainly a mistake, and could be Europe's undoing. But the simultaneous loss of Europe's Christian character, with an imposition of secularism, now makes these Islamicists some of the few Godly people in a pagan, immoral land. Consequently, many Europeans, wanting balance, morality, and holiness in their life, are converting, for they see few alternatives. Certainly the Church is secularized and is usually not taken seriously anymore, having abandoned objective morality for subjective feelings. The Dutch Catholic bishops' Catechism of the 1960s is notorious for its abandonment of Christian doctrine and morality.

Secular Europe is unsustainable and vulnerable to great change in the future. Islam is growing quickly and out-breeding Europeans. Europe will probably try to buy the loyalty and secularization of these people, but Islam is a strong religion, and it might not work as well as it did with the liberal Christians. But Islam will attempt a transformation of society also, and will have an objectively valid reason for doing so: to save the Europeans from themselves. The benefits of traditional morality are overwhelming, and is required for having a good government based on free cooperation and not raw power. The choices for Europe are these: become a tyrannical represser of religion, with a minority ruling elite; regain its not-yet-forgotten Christian culture and morality; or accept Islam.

What will the Europeans choose? And if they fail to choose, what will happen?