Dutch Parliament in the HagueFor the complete report from the International Herald Tribune click on this link
Dutch Cabinet gets its first Muslims amid signs of progress for immigrants
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. On Thursday, Aboutaleb was to be sworn in as 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 "New Dutch." Many have worked their way upwards in politics or business at a time of ethnic upheavals in the Netherlands and doubts about the nation's ability to comfortably absorb its Muslim minority.
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