Dutch Cabinet gets its first Muslim member

updated 7:48 p.m. ET Feb. 21, 2007

AMSTERDAM, Netherlands - 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 stern advice: integrate or leave.

On Thursday, Aboutaleb is being sworn in as a junior minister in the Dutch Cabinet. Joining him will be Nebahat Albayrak, a Turkish-born member of parliament. They are the first Muslims to reach the inner core of political power in the Netherlands, and are among only a few immigrants to rise to even second-rung Cabinet positions in Western Europe.

Albayrak and Aboutaleb are among immigrants who call themselves the “New Dutch.” Many have worked their way up in politics or business at a time when some doubt the Netherlands can comfortably absorb its Muslim minority.

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

At the same time, their rarity highlights how hard it is to break into what some immigrants see as an exclusive network of the native elite.

About 1 million of Holland’s 16 million people are from families of Muslim background, and they still struggle to enter the professional ranks.

Aboutaleb, the incoming deputy minister for social affairs, and Albayrak, the deputy minister of justice, are among the most visible successes in a nation troubled by failures in its vaunted system of multiculturalism — which came under scrutiny after Dutch filmmaker Theo Van Gogh was murdered by a Muslim in 2004.

‘The new Europe’
But others have risen to less high-profile positions in local politics and to middle management jobs in business.

“This is the new Europe, and the Netherlands is setting the example,” said Sadik Harchaoui, a Moroccan who heads the national Institute of Multicultural Development.

“This is the moment when Dutch citizens of migrant backgrounds can take these kind of jobs, not only in government but in business,” he said.

But he said there is a long way to go. “In 15 to 20 years it will be a normal thing.”

While statistics are difficult to come by, Muslim integration does appear to be happening in many areas of the Netherlands.

In Dutch municipal elections last year, the number of city council members from Turkey and Morocco, the Muslim countries with the largest populations in the Netherlands, grew by 62 percent, to 223 from 139, according to a Dutch research group. Immigrants from those countries in the 150-seat national parliament rose to seven from five.

Aboutaleb and Albayrak belong to the Labor Party, which draws a disproportionately large immigrant vote in national and local elections.

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