Yes, he’s been dead for over three years now but when I posted on Hirsi Ali’s intent to produce a sequel to Submission, I started looking for a Fortuyn quote in order to give a bit more depth to the post. Instead when I flipped through his 1997 book “Against the Islamization of our Culture” (which I think has only been published in Dutch) I found the following remarkable quotes:

People who are structurally in an underprivileged situation have two possibilities. They either accept their position and try to make the best of it, or, they remove themselves from their situation by resisting or by finding ways that are illegal. A situation like this is not only a breeding ground for criminal behavior, but for resistance. That resistance will be characterized by placing a focus on one’s own identity and culture. Here’s the opening for potential fundamentalism, even in our society.

And:

If we fail to integrate these groups, economically, socially and culturally, than there can belittle doubt we will be confronted by militant fundamentalism in our own society. A form of fundamentalism that will surely be supported internationally. France, for instance, is not far away from a situation where the struggle between fundamentalists and secular groups will be relocated to its own territory.

Note how Fortuyn emphasizes “our society” in order to make clear the danger and the feeling that violence, war and terror were unlikely to be concepts that would apply to far-flung regions only. He wrote this in 1997, a time when his ideas were largely relegated to the sidelines as politically incorrect alarmism, populism or in a worst case, a new brand of fascism. Today, they’ve gone mainstream in European politics, but in the intervening years the focus was largely on why ideas like Fortuyn’s should be dismissed or - for those knew he was right – how best to look the other way. In France, that inaction is now paying some very bitter dividends.

NOTE: Oslo-based American writer Bruce Bawer - one of the better commentators on this topic - has written a very good piece on the reasons many of Europe’s Muslims do not want to integrate. You have to wonder whether Fortuyn was able to foresee the complexity of implementing some of his recommendations. My guess is he did.

UPDATE: Had a discussion about the use of the term "intifada" with an Englishman in New York at the OSM launch. Not sure if we managed to reach a conclusion about it, but he did have some first-hand experience with integration-related issues.