"In our country we make every effort to promote tolerance," Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands has said at the Bellevue Palace in Berlin, the official residence of Germany's President Christian Wulff, on Tuesday.
Addressing the president, Queen Beatrix continued by saying that "you yourself stressed the importance of tolerance on the 20th anniversary of Germany's unification." This was an obvious reference by the Dutch monarch to President Wulff's remark that Islam has become part of German society.
Berlin
Continuing their state visit on Wednesday, Queen Beatrix, Prince Willem-Alexander and his wife Princess Máxima will stay in Berlin, visiting several areas of the German capital. It is the first state visit by the Dutch monarch since capitalist West Germany and the communist German Democratic Republic were unified in 1989. The Netherlands' ruling House of Orange has close family ties with Germany; both the queen's late father Prince Bernhard and her late husband Prince Claus were German.
Germany is the Netherlands' main trade partner, with 23 percent of Dutch exports going across the eastern border, and 20 percent of Dutch imports originating from Germany, according to 2009 figures.
Complaints
At a meeting on Tuesday evening between German business leaders and Queen Beatrix, the CEO of energy giant RWE, Juergen Grossman, complained about the amount of environmental regulation in the Netherlands, which is making it difficult for German companies to invest in the country. RWE is currently building a coal-fired electric power station in the northern Dutch province of Groningen.
(rk/nc)
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"This was an obvious reference by the Dutch monarch to President Wulff's remark that Islam has become part of German society."....Does this mean that Sharia law will part of German law? Will Muslim women be whipped for wearing jeans? Will the traffic in the streets and on the sidewalks be stopped during prayers? Islam does not tolerate and when it becomes a large part of the German society, you will find Germany as the U.K. now is...an Islamic nation. Tolerance is a two-edged sword and it cuts both ways. Islamic Sharia law is a one edge sword and cuts only one way and it cuts towards the head of the snake that is not of it's kind! It has no tolerance. Queen Beatrix neeeds to be honest with her citizens and show the intolerance of both sides of the Islamic issues of today.
Tolerance is the indifference for the thoughts and beliefs of others and is the cause and effect of wars. When the war ends and the hugging is over, tolerance, again, shows it's nasty intolerance for the thoughts and beliefs of others and the cycle goes on and on. LaLaLand, is the queen right? The article doesn't get into detail about the queen's perception of the types of intolerance in Europe and her home, the Netherlands. If she speaks out for tolerance, then there must have been some preceding acts of intolerance to cause her to speak-out for tolerance on behalf of Islam. What are those intolerant acts towards Islam?
Careful with the word 'tolerance,' Your Majesty.
"Tolerance implies a gratuitous assumption on the inferiority of other faiths to one's own.' M. Gandhi
Careful with the word tolerant, Your Majesty. This is what Gandhi said about it: "Tolerance implies a gratuitous assumption on the inferiority of other faiths to one’s own.
The Queen is right! Life is too short to be intolerant.