The doctrine of tolerance and, foremost, respecting cultural and religious diversity cannot easily cope with those who claim the right to intolerance, especially within the same society. In Dutch society, an Islamic core is developing fast. The Islamic community has its own clubhouses, mosques, societies, media, shops, and publicly funded Islamic schools. There are Islamic primary schools and high schools, and there is even an unofficial Islamic university. Intellectuals are struggling with the notion of what tolerance means. The “politically correct” attitude is that cultures and religions should be autonomous as groups. It is thought that financing religious organizations might promote the emancipation of Islamic women and their integration in Dutch society. It is thought that the only way to get Islamic women out of their houses is by way of religious activities.

 

Humanists especially seem to be unwilling to take a hard line, that is, to take the individual’s autonomy seriously and not submerge the individual in the group. Unfortunately, there is a fuzzy separation of church and state in Dutch law. A small group of independent intellectuals, such as Dutch philosopher Paul Cliteur and the Dutch Freethought Organization (De Vrije Gedachte), tries to convince the public of the importance of a strict separation of church and state and especially nonreligious state education for all children. But it is hard to even enter the arena of public discourse with this kind of opinions. Although Paul Cliteur is a well-known public intellectual, he is considered to be an “enlightenment fundamentalist,” who is narrow-minded and extreme and not willing to compromise.

Dutch organized humanism has lost its orientation by taking the path of multiculturalism and thereby forgetting the essence of humanism: the freedom of the individual—not the group.

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Floris van den Berg is a philosopher at Utrecht University, the Netherlands, and a member of the Dutch Freethought Association. At present, he is a visiting research fellow at the Center for Inquiry, doing research in political philosophy from a secular humanist point of view. E-mail: F.vandenberg@uu.nl.