Hi all (especially Wim),
This might be a controversial post....
I knew little about Pim Fortuyn prior to his recent assassination, and the
'far-right' is not an area that I spend much time researching. However, in
the recent coverage of his policies in England, one of his attitudes seemed
reasonable, and I was wondering if it was defensible in MoQ terms. Or
rather, it seemed to chime with something I had recently written here
myself, so I thought I would flag it up and focus on it, to see if it was
defensible or not.
According to one biography I have read of Fortuyn, "He wanted to halt
immigration from Muslim countries because he feared that Muslims would erode
the country's tolerance of homosexuals."
I wrote recently (in the MoQ and the Middle East thread):
"If you see that there is a higher value than the nation, the doctrine of
human rights, then you will accept that there are times when it is necessary
to go against your own nation in pursuit of that higher value. It also means
that you need to work to reconstruct your own nation so that it is geared
around support of those rights, that it is criticised when it breaches those
rights, but also that it is defended from other nations that may be less
likely to respect those rights themselves."
So, if you accept that tolerance for homosexuality is part of a more general
respect for human rights (as seems to be the settled will of Dutch society)
then acting against a potential threat to that (immigration of people
opposed to that settled will) seems reasonable, and "high quality" in MoQ
terms - it is the defence of an intellectual level value against a social
level value.
[Of course, it doesn't have to be a ban on immigration per se that achieves
that result. A system such as operates in the United States, where all
immigrants must swear allegiance to the US constitution, would seem to
accomplish the same thing. And I am ignoring for the moment the question of
whether Islam is or is not intrinsically intolerant of homosexuality.]
I would be very interested to read other people's views on this.
Sam
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