Politics & Power Quote by Gijs de Vries

The phrase “moderate Muslim forces” does two jobs at once: it offers an outstretched hand while quietly drawing a boundary around who counts as a legitimate partner. That’s the tell. In the post-9/11 European security landscape where figures like Gijs de Vries operated, cooperation with Muslim communities wasn’t just a civic nicety; it was a counterterror strategy, an integration policy, and a public-relations imperative rolled into one. “Work very closely” signals urgency and operational intimacy, the language of intelligence sharing and prevention, not just dialogue panels and photo ops.

The subtext is pragmatic but charged: Muslim identity is treated as a geopolitical variable, with “moderate” functioning as a filter for acceptability. It reassures a nervous public that engagement won’t be naive, that the state can distinguish “good” from “dangerous.” Yet it also risks smuggling in a problematic premise: that Muslims are a special category requiring vetting in a way other religious or political groups typically aren’t. The word “forces” compounds that, militarizing the idea of community partners and framing them as instruments in a broader security contest.

The triple scale - “locally, nationally and internationally” - reveals a politician’s attempt to stitch together policing, social cohesion, and foreign policy into a single seamless mission. It’s coalition-building language designed to sound inclusive while maintaining strategic control: partnership, yes, but on terms defined by the state, and with “moderation” as the entry ticket.