On January 1st 2009 Ahmed Aboutaleb, a Moroccan born Muslim, will be the mayor of Rotterdam. He will be the first Mayor of a city in the Netherlands who was born and raised in a foreign country. He migrated to the Netherlands at 14 and is currently the deputy minister of social affairs.
Of course his nomination is not without its haters, the ‘Freedom Party’ (why is it that the far right wing nuts always form political parties with such romantic names?) has slammed the fact Ahmed Aboutaleb still has citizenship with Morocco, about a year ago one of the legislators said “at the least creating the appearance of double loyalties”. The Leefbaar Rotterdam party also and more recently slammed the appointment. Both these parties will now call for urgent debates to discuss how Ahmed Aboutaleb should not be allowed to be a mayor.
Ahmed Aboutaleb’s dual citizenship is not voluntary, Morocco refuses to allow its citizens to revoke citizenship under any circumstances and even diplomacy has failed to make the country yield. Much like every Jew is technically a citizen of Israel so is every Moroccan, regardless of where he or she is born and raised is a citizen of Morocco. The far right wings insistence that this makes Ahmed Aboutaleb any less qualified for the mayoral role is clearly closet racism and possibly Islamaphobia.
