Netherlands 911

The Dutch minister for immigration and integration is Rita Verdonk, a woman, as it happens. In late November she went to the town of Soesterberg to speak about "Dutch values." There she was introduced to an imam named Ahmad Salam. He refused to shake her hand.

In the hours after [filmmaker Theo] van Gogh's death, Verdonk had given a speech that had drawn fire from a representative of the radical, Antwerp-based Arab-European League, who likened her to Hitler. ("All she was missing," he said, "was the little moustache.") But that wasn't what bothered Salam.

"I cannot shake hands with a woman," the imam explained.

"Well, then," Verdonk replied, "we have plenty to talk about."

From Holland Daze: The Dutch rethink multiculturalism, by Christopher Caldwell, in "The Weekly Standard."