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Rotterdam, Netherlands (CNN)Born in Morocco and still a devout Muslim, Ahmed Aboutaleb is -- it would seem -- precisely the type of person that far-right leader Geert Wilders wants to kick out.
Aboutaleb, the mayor of Rotterdam, is sanguine about his country's upcoming election. Perhaps it is because he knows Dutch identity better than most.
"The identity of the Netherlands. It will not be about the economy; it will not be about jobs," he said.
But there's a curious thing about Abouteleb: He's one of the most popular politicians in the country, even, he says, among many Wilders supporters.
Rotterdam, and three people in it, are a microcosm of the March 15 parliamentary election.
Wilders' precursor
Geert Wilders is a bit of an enigma to those who have traveled to the Netherlands.
How can a country so famous for its liberal politics, which allows prostitution, soft drugs, and gay marriage, also propel Wilders to the fore?
He wants to close all mosques in the country, ban the Quran, "preventatively" lock up radical Muslims, and stop all immigration from Muslim countries. Nonetheless, his Freedom Party is -- for the first time -- poised to become the largest in the country.
Perhaps more than any other right-wing movement, Wilders does not spend a lot of time talking about the economy -- he is almost singularly focused on Islam, and Dutch identity.
"Look at the Islamization of our country," Wilders said recently in Spijkenisse, just outside Rotterdam. "The Moroccan scum in Holland -- and once again, not all are scum, but there is a lot of Moroccan scum in Holland -- who make the streets unsafe."
That caveat echoes Donald Trump's campaign-launching proclamation that Mexicans bring drugs and crime, and are rapists, though "some" are good people. Wilders has made his affection for President Trump no secret -- and attended the Republican Convention in July.
Wilders' rhetoric brings scorn from the Dutch establishment, but is an incontrovertible truth to Ronald Srensen. "I saw that there was no integration whatsoever," he said on a frigid February day near Rotterdam's city hall.
In late middle age, Srensen has maintained the look of a schoolteacher -- which he was for decades, before entering politics -- perhaps with a dash of sea captain, in the form of a scruffy white beard.
"It's very clear," Srensen said. "I, of course, as a history teacher, read the Quran and parts of the Hadith. And then I say no -- that's not only counter to Dutch values, it's also against European, Western values."
"We are for equality of men and women. We are for sexual equality. We are for religious equality -- minorities can also profess their religion. And if you then read the Quran and read the statements of their Prophet Mohammed, then that's not something that you can put together."
The imam
"Islam is a European religion," said Imam Azzedine Karrat, sitting in djellaba and skullcap on the top-floor library of the Essalam mosque. At the edge of the room, a teenager quietly works at a pod of computers.
It "is a European religion, and therefore also a Dutch religion. It is part of this society ... "It is there. We have to deal with it."
Karrat, born in Morocco, came to the Netherlands as a teenager. Not yet 30, he now leads the country's largest mosque. It's an imposing structure on the city's largely immigrant south side, set just off the New Maas river and a stone's throw from Feyenoord stadium, home to one of the country's most important football teams.
A debate about whether integration works, he said, is no longer "of our time."
"I try to be a practicing Muslim, but I've never had a problem with the Dutch norms or values or with the Dutch law."
"The best cleaning machine we know of in our system is democracy."
Walking around the market, the mayor is a star -- posing for pictures and shaking hands. He gives CNN's Atika Shubert a Dutch classic -- raw herring and onions, eaten by hand, held by the tail. (He demurs.)
"People finally judge a function of government when it comes to their own things -- their house, their car, the school, the kids, and the quality of the public life in their own surroundings. So we have to come down from the meta politics to really the daily practice of citizens."
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