Dutch Muslim MPs act as bridge-builders - by HAROON SIDDIQUI
THE HAGUE—He was an infant when his father left their Turkish village for Holland. He followed, with his mother, at the age of five. He didn't speak a word of Dutch. He had never even seen a bike. Today, Coskun Cörüz, 43-year-old lawyer, is a Christian Democratic member of parliament. Elected in 2001, he's deputy chair of the parliamentary committee on integration. Lean, lanky and stylishly dressed, he looks like a corporate executive. She came to Holland at age two, with six siblings, to join their parents who had left their Turkish village two years earlier. Nebahat Albayrak, 38-year-old lawyer who speaks five languages, has been an MP for the leftist Labor Party since 1998 and has been chair of the parliamentary committee on defence.
Dressed in trendy khakis, and discussing hot-button topics with the calm precision of a policy maker, she fits no clichés.
Albayrak and Cörüz are among nine Muslim MPs, of varying degrees of faith, seven of them women, caught between the extremes of ex-Muslim Ayaan Hirsi Ali on the one hand and militant Muslims on the other.
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