Distinguish
The BBC continues to pretend not to understand.
Geert Wilders has been acquitted of “inciting hatred” because the judges managed to distinguish between annoying/unpleasant/offensive and illegal. The BBC isn’t so sure about that.
With Thursday’s acquittal, it appears that Mr Wilders’s radical words are now more mainstream in a country that for decades was viewed as one of the most liberal and tolerant in the world.
But “liberal” and “tolerant” about what? About Islam, mostly. But there are difficulties with being “liberal” and “tolerant” about Islam, given that Islam itself is not altogether “liberal” and “tolerant.” Many critics of Islam, partly including Wilders, are critics of it because it is not altogether liberal and tolerant, or egalitarian or fair. The BBC’s implied claim that all the liberalism and tolerance are on the side of Islam and all the opposition to liberalism and tolerance are on the side of critics of Islam, is profoundly wrong.
Mr Wilders is an enormously popular politician, his Freedom Party the third
largest in parliament, and many analysts say Thursday’s acquittal will only
boost his popularity in the immigrant-wary Dutch mainstream.…
In turn, the government is supporting many of his anti-immigrant positions,
from limiting immigration to banning face-covering attire.
But “immigrant” is not synonymous with Muslim and vice versa. Even if Wilders conflates the two, explicitly or by suggestion, the BBC should not follow his lead. “Face-covering attire” can’t just be reduced to “immigrant” so banning it can’t just be reduced to “anti-immigrant.” Yes there’s overlap and confusion and suspect motivation, but that’s all the more reason to make the distinctions.
“I’m very disappointed,” said one Dutch Moroccan, Zenap al-Garboni, eating a bagel with her children in a restaurant near the courthouse.
“He should not create hate and that’s what he’s doing. He’s creating hate
against Islam.”
Nobody should be required to love Islam.
Also:
As if the views of an 11-year-old child presumably indoctrinated into the family religion should hold any weight.
I suggest that everybody take another look (or a first one) at your discussion in Ch. 7 (in Does God Hate Women?) of why no one should be required to “love Islam” or any religion for that matter and the importance of well founded criticism. As you point out toward the end of the chapter, “the absence of criticism also has consequences.” We never hear this from mainstream media who pretend a liberalism they don’t in fact practice so far as I can see. True, Wilders may not be the best poster boy for the legitimate argument he raises, but the BBC has much work to do beyond simply calling him or the Dutch who support him “anti-immigrant.” I’ll be kind: They should be slightly embarrassed by their lazy journalism.
Rossana, quite.
Elwood – the thing is, it’s true that Wilders shades into what does look like hate-mongering. Fitna goes in for some “scary crowd” imagery, which does look a lot like plain old racism or hatred of immigrants. It could easily be that that’s what the child has in mind. But…it’s also true that we can’t tell, and that it’s emotive, etc. It’s lazy journalism, as Rossana said.
I’m pretty much convinced that Geert Wilders is an enormous crazy hate-mongering racist bigot. Sort of if Fred Phelps was also in the KKK. I’m also pretty well sure that most of the laws European countries are passing in the face of his style of anti-Muslim bigotry are inappropriate and often disturbing to me.
Having said those things, I’m even more sure that the way we answer things we disagree with is to argue forcefully against them, not by throwing people in jail or banning free expression. Even if that expression is “deplorable”… :)
The BBC is not the only one failing to distinguish, if you follow the “Dutch reaction” link, some people are arguing that it’s not even possible:
“It also highlights a curious mode of reasoning in Dutch law – that it is possible to insult a religion without insulting its believers.”
“As a non-Muslim who works internationally, I am totally disgusted with this verdict. It indicates a clear lack of understanding of Islam as a religion, as it cannot be separated from the followers of Islam. Denigrating their holy book is the same as denigrating the followers.”
Isn’t someone missing the point about liberalism and the idea of liberty? The point is that people should be free to act as they like so long as their freedom does not endanger the freedoms of others, or cause undo harm. Islam clearly is the source of great harm. One only has to note, for example, honour killings in Western democracies by Muslim inspired fathers, brothers, mothers, sisters, etc., or that most Western countries do not prohibit men from clothing their women in tents, or forcing them to stay in their houses with the blinds drawn, etc. This “freedom” allotted to Muslim men to oppress their women is, in my view, unacceptable, and it is time that liberal democracies began to say that it is intolerable. France has the right idea. This should be a general prohbition throuhout liberal democratic jurisdictions precisely because they are liberal. How on earth can we argue against the oppression of women in Saudi Arabia if we permit men to oppress their women here in Canada, the US, Britain, etc.? We need to be more proactive about this and stop pretending that it is alright for men to oppress women, wherever they are, or that the right to oppress them is given to them by the freedom to practice their religion. I get quite fed up when I see a man — in Halifax today, a beautiful Summer day — obviously dressed for the weather, and his wife (presumably) swathed in black from head to toe, with scarcely a grill for her eyes. It just sets me into a rage, to be quite frank, to think that we consider this kind of thing acceptable in this society. Geert Wilders is broadly speaking right. Islam is a danger, so long as it permits this sort of unfreedom to be practiced in a free country.
I’m not even sure why it should be even remotely illegal to insult Muslims… there seems to be the implication that Wilders was acquitted on a technicality, that he was addressing the religion and not its members and therefore managed to stay just within the law. Screw that! I don’t see why he can’t insult Muslims all he wants. The Muslims who are so deeply offended can, in the words of a man wiser than myself, suck a fat baby’s dick.
What’s worse is that a lousy bigot like Wilders can be taken to court for offending Muslims and come out ahead, and become some sort of hero and use the case as evidence that Muslims are evil and further push his racism. There’s something to be said for picking your battles, and not playing into the hands of your opponents by behaving the way they expect you to. It is problematic for liberal nations when the terms of the discussion are defined by extremists on both sides.
Eric,
I disagree with your position. I wrote a piece on this subject a while ago and, rather than repeat it all here I offer this paragraph:
“As for the repeated arguments supposedly in favour of women’s rights, I can only say that it is already illegal for adults to coerce other adults in to doing anything (unless they are the police or equivalent) and laws regarding domestic violence should be upheld. Fining a man a paltry sum for coercing a woman to wear what he chooses, in cases where that happens, undermines existing laws. What about the man who coerces his spouse or partner to wear a bikini in public under threat of violence? Are we to fine him a paltry sum instead of prosecuting him for intimidation with threats of violence?”
The whole piece can be found at https://nicknakorn.wordpress.com/2010/07/16/oppose-the-burka-ban/ and I am still convinced that secularism, atheism and freedom to practice religion are not all mutually exclusive providing civil law is upheld. That such a proposition is problematic is the price we pay for liberty.
Absolutely. Wilders is a hate-monger, but this case was ill-judged, and this was the right verdict. The BBC have things utterly wrong.
Mr Wilders is both right and wrong. He is right to oppose islam, but he uses his opposition as a shield to hide his racist bigotry. If it were not islam, he would find another reason to denigrate those of a different skin tone to his.
Joe: not sure if you’re being facetious, but of course it shouldn’t be illegal to insult Muslims (apart from harassment), the problem is that people conflate “insulting” with “inciting hatred against”. If it’s the latter, then it’s important for the law to distinguish between people and ideas.
“.. immigrant-wary Dutch mainstream.” No. Muslim-wary Dutch mainstream.
“..the government is supporting many of his anti-immigrant positions, from limiting immigration to banning face-covering attire.” As though some group other than Muslims “attire” themselves with a face covering.
“‘I’m very disappointed,’ said one Dutch Moroccan, Zenap al-Garboni” Gee, I wonder if this Moroccan is a Muslim or an atheist.
windy: The problem is that I think you have to show a direct call for specific acts of violence. On the other hand, what many Muslims commenting on this case seem to believe is that insults ARE violence against them, in some sort of magical way.
That reminds me of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference declaring Islamophobia to be the “worst form of terrorism” and that terrorism includes “any act or threat of violence carried out with the aim of, among other things, imperiling people’s honour…”
“Imperiling people’s honour?” Get bent.
It wasn’t so long ago that Nick Griffin (the UK’s Wilders, only not so popular) was prosecuted for much the same thing. He was also found to be blameless.
There were many furrowed liberal brows in the aftermath. There was a worrying consensus that the result was a clear indicator that the law was ineffective and in need of amendment.
Whilst Griffin is unquestionably a repulsive scrote and the thought of his party (the BNP) gaining influence is repellent, demanding bespoke laws to silence them is a tad silly.
“Denigrating their holy book is the same as denigrating the followers.”
WTF? So, if I do something to a book, I do it to people, too? Even though I despise book burnings, I’m suddenly tempted to test if people would burst into flames.
Seriously, I may say a lot of stupid things – especially after a few beers – but I’d be ashamed if I said something like that.
There seems to be a few mind-readers posting on this topic, Wilders has stated many times that he objects to the Islamisation of the Netherlands, not Moslems themselves. So why make the claim that he is racist because he is alarmed as to the influence of a primitive superstition on secular society?
The lazy conflation of religion and ‘race’ is the main reason we’re in this PC, multiculturalist impasse,it’s so easy to lable dissenters as ‘racists’ or ‘islamophobes’.
The problem is, that many Moslems, so attuned to being members of the ruling caste, find it intolerable that in Western societies, Islam is just another religion. Also, there are, unfortunately, many patronizing, non-Moslem, useful idiots who feel compelled to protect Moslem sensitivities at the cost of free speech.
Because some groups do indeed use legitimate opposition to Islamisation as cover for their racism, so we have to be careful to distance ourselves from such people. Sometimes its difficult to discern the motivations for such opposition and sometimes people are mistakenly labeled racist.
Islamist groups are quite aware of the history of racism in Europe and are quite shameless in exploiting the guilt and self-righteousness of well-intentioned but credulous liberals.
Nick #8 – I’m afraid I find your take profoundly unhelpful. For one thing, is it even true that “it is already illegal for adults to coerce other adults in to doing anything”? But for another and much more intractable thing, if there is such a law it’s meaningless. Who is going to stop adults from coercing other adults into doing anything when the agent-adults are in a position to do so? Nobody! That claim is simply ridiculous, and complacent. It’s as if you’ve never heard of domestic violence, or learned that most of it goes unreported.
For another other thing, why are you content as long as adults are not coerced? I don’t think non-adult girls should be forced to wear bags over their heads.
Argue against burqa bans by all means, but then do it – don’t pretend that existing laws protect everyone against coercion and that’s all there is to it.
Yes: what Andrew B said. Again, it’s not as simple as RJW would have it.
Too much oversimplification here! Not helpful!
The trouble with this kind of discussion is that there is simply nowhere for it to go so long as we believe, as seems generally to be the case in democratic societies, that putting curbs on the free expression of religion, even when that means the oppression of women and girls, is not only justified, but must be protected. Some unhappy precedents already exist — as, for example, the Amish, who are entitled to remove their children from school at Grade 8 or so. But there is no justification for this limitation upon children’s right to an education either, and it is a permission that should be reversed.
But we are storing up trouble for ourselves if we permit the development of self-contained communities of believers who govern their own internal life without any regard for the principles of individual liberty which obtain in the surrounding society. I do not think that Mill’s On Liberty, which is often adduced in this connexion, justfies the kinds of exception to principles of a free society that are provided by the development of such religious communities, a provision which almost guarantees extremism and radicalism. And it certainly weakens the example that Western democracy can be to those who are not free. Many of the Muslim immigrants to Canada and the US have come because of a lack of freedom in their countries of origin. Permitting them to set up conditions here that mimic the societies from which many of them fled, simply because their religion prescribes these forms of bondage is simple madness, and compounds injustice.
And to suggest that that concern for freedom and justice — or concern about the danger that lurks in relatively independent cells of oppression within free societies, especially given the propensity (throughout history, as I understand it) of a minority within Muslim societies to resort to violence to maintain orthodoxy — is racism or bigotry is unjustified. As to Geert Wilders, I have no idea whether he is a racist or not. If he is, he is taking a stand in relaation to the question of the Muslim presence in democratic societies that needs to be raised by those who are not racist, and allowing it to become the ideological possession of racists is both foolish and dangerous.
Eric, I think you lost track of your first sentence and meant to affirm instead of deny or perhaps the other way around – but anyway the opposite of what you ended up saying…
Do people often adduce On Liberty to defend communal religious rights? I don’t think I’ve seen that much. What I see is more Rawlsian political liberalism as opposed to comprehensive liberalism (which is more Millian), or Kymlicka-style group rights, or both.
I agree with you about Wisconsin v Yoder, the horrible decision in the Amish case (parents can take their children out of school at age 14); so do lots of people. It’s a controversial decision.
About Wilders, I don’t know either whether he is personally racist or not, but I do think that some of Fitna had a racist-like tinge to it. As I said: footage of scary hordes.
We do have to keep making these tedious distinctions, I think, because if we don’t, we’ll just
get lumped in withbecome racists.I would like to say this is a classic case of competing rights. However, there is no (to my knowledge) legitimate right to be ‘not insulted’ in any civilized country. As such, as long as the words were not libelous or slanderous or fell into a reasonable ‘incitement’ statute, there was no there there, as it were.
I think there are two issues. I think the obvious one in which some people have gotten a bit scared of the Muslim boogy-boo and I think they hide their cowardice by trying to placate the boogy-man with the kind of laws they tried to get Wilder with.
The second issue is the underscoring racism of those laws that follow along these lines: ‘those ‘people not like us’ are clearly incapable of behaving in a civilized fashion, therefore we must protect them…’ Sort of a variation on the colonial theme that got us such things as ‘they’re fine troops as long as they’re lead by white officers…’ Because, clearly the non-white race in question was incapable of fighting well without a white officer. Whether they were US ‘Buffalo Soldiers,’ Indian Gurkhas, or whatever…
“We do have to keep making these tedious distinctions, I think, because if we don’t, we’ll just become racists.”
Oddly, no one is willing to pass a law banning the dress code of Catholic nuns, which is awfully burqa-like. Of course, the Catholics in Europe are mostly white and share the same basic beliefs as the majority religions… but there’s no bigotry or racism when the laws only target Muslim immigrants. None at all.
I’m not accusing anyone here, of course. I’m just saying that it isn’t a bad idea to consider things from several angles and make sure that we’re not making bad knee-jerk decisions even if our basic motivation is more positive than not.
That Wisconsin v Yoder decision seems rather bizarre and inhumane. What’s the rationale, if children’s parents’ are deluded by superstition they can remove them from 21st century society?
If universal human rights exist, religious freedom,is incompatible with the principles of liberal democracy.
To the best of my recollection, Mill thought that even lunatics might have a valid argument, so let’s distinguish the argument from the person who presents it.
Ophelia,
“We do have to keep making these tedious distinctions, I think, because if we don’t, we’ll just get lumped in with racists.”
‘Tedious distinctions’ certainly don’t protect against accusations of “racism” “anti-semitism” and “Islamophobia”.
I don’t think there is any sign that Wilders is racist. But he certainly does support policies which specifically target a group in society without making distinctions within that group. For example, he supports curbs on Muslim immigration. It’s one thing to assert that Islam is a violent religion, and quite another to ban all who identify as Muslim from entry to a country. That contradicts his statement that he is against Islam, not Muslims.
This kind of blurring of boundaries is typical of Wilders, and is why he is dangerous, and why he gives comfort to those would attack others because of their race, or their birth into a certain religion and culture.
Wilders is also no supporter of secularism. He wants his society to reinforce Christian and Jewish values to act as a buffer against Islam.
Anyone who looks to Wilders to help defend secular liberal freedoms is looking the wrong way.
Really Steve? Not racist?
I guess you could make a case that he’s not technically a racist, but at the same time you’re saying that he’s a bigot by definition. And you say he’s giving comfort to racists, which I don’t think either of us think is accidental. Imagine if he’s “just” a political opportunist using racist/bigoted ‘dog whistles’ to stir up the bigots and racists in order to push his evil plan/right-wing agenda. Is that really any better?
How many times do we have to go over the fact that individuals have rights, not abstract communities? How many times do we have to point out that “communities” is almost always a cover for male-cleric-dominated feudal dukedoms where women are whored for babies (while being called “wives”), apostates are shunned or stoned, and queers are murdered? How goddamn loud do we have to scream before everyone recognizes that “communities” , in too many cases, is just modern euphemism-speak for straight men with God on their side controlling and raping the women, stoning the faggots, and killing the unfaithful? Really? How hard is this?
Margaret Thatcher had some wacked, fucked up ideas. She’s no hero of mine. But there was a great deal of truth in her claim that there is no such thing as society, just individuals. She was wrong that “society,” as such, doesn’t exist. She was wrong to go all Ayn Rand and act as if “nature” would take care of everyone without intervention. But she was not wrong to put a sharp point on the individual person as the locus of who we ought to be concerned about. You simply cannot call yourself a humanistic liberal who gives a shit about things like freedom from rape, oppression, and slavery, and at the same time defend “Islamic” or “Jewish” or “Some Goddamn Faith” “communities” as unitary bodies deserving protection.
You’re only protecting the most powerful (always the straight men) at the expense of the liberty of everyone under their boot.
@# 26. You raise an interesting point here: “Oddly, no one is willing to pass a law banning the dress code of Catholic nuns, which is awfully burqa-like.” But I’m not quite clear on the analogy. A nun is presumably free to become a nun, even free to renounce her religion, and the coercion to wear her uniform is, arguably, not the same as that experienced by a Muslim woman who may face violence for not wearing her “uniform.” Can’t we distinguish between types of oppression? Can’t we say, the burqa is illiberal / anti-democratic in a way that the nun’s garb is not and therefore argue for the limit of its public use /display (as France has done) without being “lumped” into anything?
Josh, the Thatch quote is not quite as individualistic in meaning if you read it in full.
” And, you know, there is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families.”
It sounds to me like a call for a more traditionally family orientated society. The rest of her interview from which the famous “no such thing as society” line comes from is an argument against government support of the welfare state.
They may, but in most cases, it’s probably not direct threats of violence but brainwashing about “purity” that compels both the nun and the burqa-wearer.
It seems to me that the question about the nun’s habit confuses the real issue, which is about the covering of the face and all that that implies about women as somehow not present or real or to-be-regarded — i.e., as not persons.
Wilders’s fear of muslim immigrants may simply be that until Islam is defanged and society as a whole, not only women and girls, is safe from from its worst excesses, any increase of the muslim vote is extremely dangerous to a democracy.
Actually, there is one issue with the verdict that makes it controversial, but the BBC doesn’t do a good job discussing it. The verdict is correct in saying that criticizing Islam should be OK, and that being insulting isn’t illegal. I think it is also correct when it says that Fitna is pushing the envelope, but should not be illegal. However, the ruling used some peculiar reasoning to argue that the quotes from his lawsuit were aimed at Islam and not at Muslims. This includes quotes like:
(Which shows that, yes, Wilders does want to explicitly ban Muslim immigrants, but he’ll settle for stopping “non-Western” immigrants)
Maybe threatening people with stripping their citizen’s rights based on their religion shouldn’t be illegal. Maybe advocating for religion-based discrimination shouldn’t be illegal either. But to say that comments like these are aimed at Islam, not at Muslims, seems to make a mockery of the distinction between legitimate criticism and discrimination.
How delightfully racist. Yes, they are a blob of musliminess, not humans. I wonder how many muslims Mei Zegers has spoken with in her lifetime.
Josh Slocum: Presumably one can just say although societies exist (emergent out of the individuals and such which compose them) yet only individuals have rights, or even weaker, rights of certain kinds. For example, (hypothetically – I am not sure what I endorse here) one could claim that a right to be free from insult might extend to individuals only. So one could say “Islamists suck” but not “Specific person and-so sucks”. Moreover, not all rights have to have the same legal consequences. Maybe the right not to be insulted just entails the right of others not to take it seriously – or something. Point being that there are huge swathes of possible social arrangements here which COULD be defended and aren’t.
When an ideology is espoused by many people there is a serious difficulty in always distinguishing clearly between the idea and the person who holds it; especially when the person who holds the idea wishes to enter one’s country and spread that idea to the detriment of all one’s cherished values. Obviously, in this case it is necessary to focus clearly on ensuring that the beliefs are not allowed to impinge on society or to victimise individuals, and to avoid generalising and branding all muslims as Islamicists. But it is extremely difficult to maintain clarity at all times.
Also, many moderate believers are probably unsure where to stand, because the Islamicists can justify their beliefs by appeal to scripture and traditions of various sorts, not to mention theology; this is probably the main reason for the much-noted silence of moderates, who share the core assumptions. This means that many of them are easy targets for conversion to more extreme dogmas. In this way, moderate beliefs continue to supply fanaticism with supporters, whether active or passive.
So regarding whether Wilders is racist, I don’t know, either. He may be just terrified by a vision of the Islamic Republic of the Netherlands. I am annoyed, though, that the BBC wishes to imply that the recent verdict shows that the Netherlands are less liberal and tolerant than before: the judgment shows that this is the reverse of true. The BBC illustrate how wide-spread is now the notion that criticising religion is ipso facto illiberal, and how this notion is undermining our understanding of what “liberal and tolerant” actually mean. This of course is a point in Wilders’s favour.
perhaps Geert Wilders is a hate-monger. I’m not sure. Maybe he’s sincerely afraid of losing his culture and is acting accordingly. But I sure can tell who the real hatemongers are – the imams who are portrayed in the movie, the imams who preach jihad in mosques all over the west, the hatred preached by saudi wahabis in saudi-financed madrassas in the west……the raging mobs who attack and lynch christians (in Pakistan for instance), the sweethearts who proclaim Tower Hamlets a “gay free zone”, the bombers…. well the list is long and I’d put Geert Wilders well down it.
On the question of whether Wilders is racist, I’m with Steve. There might be underlying racism, but there doesn’t seem to be sufficient data to know. I don’t think it matters, really, as Wilders has ample faults to criticize him for that are in clear evidence.
Just yesterday I had to sit through my employer’s mandatory ‘diversity’ session, which prohibited, among other things even the suggestion, whether spoken or unspoken, that someone’s culture or religion was in some way undesirable could have serious employment or legal consequences (the ‘victim’ got to determine what was objectionable). Followed up by the observation that postings in a person’s facebook account have been known to reflect back on their job.
Fortunately my postings are under ‘nyms, and I’m not on facebook.
Salty (@ 25) – yes, you’re right. I had the same thought as I was reading down the page (so before I got to your comment) – that was a stupid way to put it.
@GordonWillis in #34:
But there’s the problem. In the Netherlands, most Muslims appear to be quite content to vote for the secular parties that are already there (mostly the more left-leaning labour parties). No Muslim parties took part in the most recent elections (as opposed to three Christian parties, which all got seats in parliament – even the SGP, which is so conservative it doesn’t allow women to run for office). There is therefore no evidence that Muslim votes pose any danger to our society. Individual extremists, possibly, but Muslim voters? No.
In fact, given that the SGP actually has some influence now, because the current coalition depends on their two votes for a majority in the senate. A proposal to take a blasphemy law off the books has already silently been dropped. Therefore, I’d suggest that right now, fundamentalist Christian voters probably pose a bigger threat to our liberties than the Muslim voters. Somehow, however, I don’t see people getting up on their soap boxes about deporting them or something. Why the double standard? I guess they’re just a more familiar kind of crazy.
Although I oppose this prosecution, the BBC is correct in saying that Wilders has anti-immigrant positions. He proposed a five year moratorium on the immigration of non-Western foreigners in his manifesto “Klare Wijn” in 2006.
“Er komt een immigratiestop van vijf jaar voor niet-westerse allochtonen die zich hier blijvend willen vestigen.”
It’s not just anti-immigrant, but racist anti-immigrant, in restricting immigration only from “non-western” countries. Wilders is also more than happy to coddle Jews and Christians, including by proposing replacing the Dutch Constitution’s guarantee of Equality before the Law and Prohibition of Discrimination with one “stating the cultural dominance of the Christian, Jewish and humanist traditions”. He’s also a fanatical Zionist who proposed renaming Jordan as “Palestine”, with I suppose the implication that the Palestinians should all leave Palestine and go there.
It makes me cringe every time I hear atheists in the US defend Wilders or the serial fabulist Ayann Hirsi Ali. Both are terrible people. I oppose this law and I oppose this prosecution, but I will not defend Geert Wilders.
The dress code of nuns is a red herring (even before we note that it’s a minimal code these days) because being a nun is a job, a career, a “vocation,” a particular decision. The burqa and niqab are about all women, women as such; the nun’s habit is not.
Daniel Lafave – thanks for the information. It doesn’t excuse the BBC though, because the story didn’t spell out his “anti-immigrant positions,” and given the context, it made it sound as if they were simply of a piece with (or even just another word for) his views of Islam.
Well, I don’t see how Wilders could be criticizing anything in the name of those values. According to Wikipedia, his party program and manifesto call for (in addition to ethnic registration; a far stricter policy toward recreational drug use; administrative detention; restrictions on immigrant labor from new EU member states and Islamic countries; the removal of resources from anti-climate change programmes, development aid and immigration services; and Dutch language proficiency and a 10-year Dutch residency and work experience requirement for welfare assistance) a permanent ban on sermons (including in synagogues) in any language other than Dutch, a ban on preaching by foreign imams, a ban on building mosques for five years, a prohibition against the establishment of Islamic schools for five years, and Constitutional protection of the dominance of the Judeo-Christian and humanistic culture of the Netherlands.
He’s on the far right, allied with Pamela Geller. Glenn Beck called him a fascist. Glenn Beck.
http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2010/08/15/113684/911-islamophobia-rally/
Ah, Daniel Lafave beat me to it. :)
Yeah. What she said (Ophelia #46): the judge/court made its decision based on context but the BBC gives no context in the above linked article, so it’s not helpful at all, whatever we might think of Wilders. And, hey, I thought free speech meant defending speech we especially may not wish to hear. That’s why the court’s decision should be credited as sound, I think.
Ok, Daniel Lafave, I’ll bite. Ayaan Hirsi Ali a “fabulist”?! Or, what have some other bien pensant left-liberals called her… oh, yes, an “enlightenment fundamentalist” (shades of “fundamentalist atheism”, eh?)! I prefer Christopher Hitchens’ take: http://www.slate.com/id/2141276/ Or Ali’s own defence http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/may/08/ayaan-hirsi-ali-interview – “I’m not being rightwing,” she says. “The people who believe themselves to be on the left, and who defend the agents of Islam in the name of tolerance and culture, are being rightwing. Not just rightwing. Extreme rightwing. I don’t understand how you can be so upset about the Christian right and just ignore the Islamic right. I’m talking about equality.”
And speaking of political attitudes, I note your use of “zionist” as an epithet. FYI, Jordan once comprised 70% of “Palestine” before the Brits lopped it off (officially in 1946) as a gift to the Hashemite royals. Jordan then ruled the Cisjordan (West Bank) from 1948 to 1967 and even after dropping any claim to this territory, is still, itself, by a clear majority, ethnically Palestinian. I’m no great fan of Wilders but I’m even less of a fan of bien pensant political fabulists.
In some parts of the US some of us still think even hate speech has rights.
When the ACLU moves away from that view I’ll be seriously dorked.
Europe?
Not so much.
It is a really difficult issue, isn’t it?
On the one hand, we’ve got the free speech issue.
On the other hand, there’s the abuse of free speech which makes it easy to ignore people’s right to be offensive.
On the other other hand, there’s the fact that the people being offended in this case are a bunch of religious extremists who want to outlaw free speech.
On the other other other hand, there’s the liberal ideal that people should be able to hold whatever ideas they want, including religious ones.
On the other other other other hand, there’s the fact that some of those religious ideas lead to actions that are against those same liberal ideals.
On the other other other other other hand, opposing those religion-based actions on liberal grounds puts you in the position of siding with illiberal bigots and racists who would like to eliminate the abuses of one religion, but are also pushing for similarly illiberal policies in the name of a different religion.
On the other other other other other other hand, we shouldn’t oppose or support a specific view or policy because of the other people who might oppose or support it.
On the other other other other other other other hand, if you replace the word “hand” with “tentacle” and PZ Myers reads this, he’s going to get all excited. :)
The point is that this is a crazy complicated issue.
@Alain A 2006 report on the Dutch news program Zembla showed that nearly everything about Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s story was a fabrication. (You can find the program on Youtube subtitled in English.) She ought to have lost her Dutch citizenship as a result of her fraud, but the Dutch government chickened out and let her keep it. I guess immigration fraud isn’t a big deal if you’re a right-wing icon. She’s become very famous and wealthy as a result of her lies.
I’m not using Zionist as an epithet, although as an opponent of theocracy, I support Israel more as a secular state for Jews than as a Jewish State. But the sort of fanaticism of Wilders and the Israeli settlers and other religious extremists isn’t indefensible and is not consistent with concerns for human welfare. I would have thought that was the general opinion among secularists, but I guess not.
“… the serial fabulist Ayann Hirsi Ali”???
…”serial fabulist Ayaan Hirsi Ali”? I know she falsified her asylum application, but she claims to have copped to it a decade ago. I think she’s a bit of a knucklehead from a political standpoint, but “serial fabulist” seems a bit excessive.
Oh lord I was hoping not to get into it about Hirsi Ali. DL also included her with Wilders as both “terrible people.” I don’t want to know. (That’s despite strong dislike of the AEI and strong leeriness of her new take on Xianity.)
@Deen #43
Thanks for that information, Deen. It’s good to get your perspective. Also, you are right to mention the growing threat of Christian fundamentalism. Re Wilders, from what I’ve been digging up he does seem a nasty piece of work, whether racist or not. He’s certainly an extreme reactionary, and he’s quite happy with religious bullshit, just as long as it isn’t Islamic.
Oh hell, bugger and damn. Seconded.
I could always close comments…
:- )
So you could, Ophelia. :-) This reminds me: perhaps you could engineer a few smileys…Or would that lower the tone?
@GordonWillis. The former Christian-Democratic Minister of Education Maria van der Hoeven wanted to teach intelligent design in public schools, something that the great outspoken atheist Labour representative Ronald Plasterk was vigorous in opposing.
There is no political Islam in the Netherlands at all. The Muslim population overwhelmingly supports the left-wing parties, Labour, SP, and GroenLinks (and the Centrist D66), all of which have excellent credentials on progressive social policies and practices. Labour, GroenLinks, and D66 have Tweede Kamer blocks balanced by gender 50/50. By comparison Geert Wilder’s PVV has 4 women out of their 19 seats. So, it’s a little crazy for the Dutch right-wing to pretend that they’re the ones standing up for women’s rights.
Yes, thanks, Daniel. This confirms what Deen was saying. Where, then, does the PVV get their fear of Islam from?
New York passed the same-sex marriage bill!
Think of all the families being ruined in New York! And all those poor patriots losing their right to marry the opposite sex.
Just so that uninformed people don’t regard Mr. Lafave’s position on the situation in Holland (vis-a-vis Wilders and the Islamist threat) as accurate, let me voice my strong dissent. I am Dutch and though I now work in Canada, most of my family is still in the old country and I return for extended visits 2-3 times a year. The threat from Islamism among immigrants (and against them!) is real and rising. Holland has not had much Xianity (I’ll borrow Ophelia’s shorthand) for decades but the increasing hijab-ization of large areas of Rotterdam, the Hague and Amsterdam (though not as bad as some cities in France and the UK), with the accompanying repression of women and gays, is genuinely troublesome. I personally was accosted by thugs who regard anyone not wearing “appropriate” (read: religious) dress in their neighbourhoods as “prey”. This never happened when I was growing up but it happens regularly now. The reasons are, of course, more complicated than simple Islamism, but it certainly feeds the sexism and chauvinism that has overcome not only the “ghettoes” but begun to invade even ordinary quarters. Like those of France, Britain, Germany and Spain, the various Dutch governments have been remiss in dealing with this increasingly incendiary problem. The main reason that Wilders (who is not rightwing himself, just anti-Muslim) and the rightwing parties have capitalized on the backlash is that the leftwing parties for years cynically tolerated and profitted electorally from hardline Muslim vote-mongering. Whenever the government interacted with the growing Muslim population, they opted — disastrously — to do so in a “communitarian” fashion. Moderate and independant Muslim immigrants waited in vain for the government to help them resist the hardliners; they were abandoned. The biggest proof that Daniel Lafave’s sweet words are lies, is the rise of Wilders. His rhetoric would never have found any support say 30 years ago. It does now and the people to blame are those of Mr. Lafave’s ilk.
Beryl: ” Holland has not had much Xianity (I’ll borrow Ophelia’s shorthand) for decades”.
Clearly you don’t visit the Dutch bible-belt much during your trips here.
I have little time for hardline Xianity or Islamism, and both are to be found here in The Netherlands. To my mind, the only way forward is to resist the polarisation than is occuring on both sides, whether it’s fanned by Wilders or his Islamist counterparts.
@GordonWillis in #62: probably mainly because demonizing a disadvantaged minority often works for populists. It feeds on the resentment among a lot of people. Think of the Dutch debate about Muslim immigrants as the Dutch equivalent to US rhetoric about “inner-city welfare queens” and you know what I’m talking about. The actual criticism of Islam is to a large degree only a cover for this. Which is a shame, because it distracts from a proper debate about the role of religion – all religion – in society.
@Beryl in #65: I’m Dutch too, I live here permanently, and I think Daniel Lafave is more accurate than you are about the Dutch situation. Muslims are voting with the secular and left wing parties, there is no question about that.
Yes there are issues in inner city neighborhoods that are predominantly Muslim. Low income and low education levels explain most of these problems. An increase in segregation, with anyone able to afford it moving out of those neighborhoods, has only made this worse. Yes, the government didn’t do a good job at handling this, but I don’t see how you could blame that on “Mr. Lafave’s ilk”. You certainly haven’t established how Wilders’ policies would do any better at making these neighborhoods livable again, let alone decrease the segregation.
And if you seriously think that Wilders’ “rhetoric would never have found any support say 30 years ago”, you must have forgotten about the Centrum Democraten and CP’86, campaigning with slogans like “The Netherlands is full”. True, they were never as successful as Wilders – Wilders is much better at playing the media – but the sentiments that Wilders is playing off are nothing new. Oh, and by the way, Wilders’ popularity is not proof for the accuracy of Wilders’ views, or the inaccuracy of Daniel Lafave’s.
Deen,
The reason most Muslims vote for leftwing parties is that they have been persuaded — by Islamists and other self-appointed “leaders” of the Muslim “community” — that they will get a better bargain from the left. And the left has acquiesced in this faustian “bargain”… in return for Muslim block-voting. The self-appointed Muslim “leaders” then get government funds and power and the whole arrangement has entailed ghettoizing Muslims and causing moderates and secular immigrants to be ignored or ostracized. Those Muslim immigrants who simply want to join the general Dutch society — as individuals, not as members of a restrictive “community” — are made to feel like traitors. The young generation is even more radicalized than their parents, with some areas having become “no-go” districts for non-Muslims and even the police. This has been the left’s policy for decades and now they are shocked, shocked, shocked that ordinary Dutch citizens (who are among the most liberal populations in Europe) are beginning to rebel. Pandering to theocrats and their opportunistic leftwing allies — a pan-European phenomenon, unfortunately — has led to a truly unholy mess. The left is simply feeding the Islamic crocodile hoping to be eaten last.
Or maybe the left simply was giving them a better deal. The right tends to cater to the rich (and for the extreme-right, the nationalists), the Christian parties cater to the, well, Christians, and the left caters to the workers. Where do you think Muslims will get the best deal? Really, no persuasion by Islamists or faustian bargaining was necessary. But nothing stopped Muslims from starting their own party either. It’s not like that’s all that difficult in the Netherlands. We now have a Party for Animals in parliament, for crying out loud, and I’m reasonably sure the Muslim voters outnumber the animal voters.
And no, what you describe was not some sort of premeditated policy of the left, or even of Muslim leaders. It’s true that the left is often spineless in denouncing Muslim excesses, and having many Muslim voters is probably part of the reason (still, the Muslim population is only 5%, so that can’t be all of it). But that’s not the same as having an official policy of ghettoization or what not.
But again, you have not shown that the right has done any better in dealing with these issues. Or that their current plans are going to do any good.
Nor are you correct that the younger generation is more radical than the previous generation. Muslims are secularizing faster than any other group. Statistics show that fewer Muslims regularly visit their mosques, attendance dropping from 47% to 35% in just 10 years. Yes, some groups are becoming more fanatical, but that is likely more in response to the overall secularization trend, just like some Christian groups have become more fundamentalist in response to modern secularization.
Nice slogan, but you still haven’t established that anyone here is in any imminent danger of being eaten.
Holy cow! You really do!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Party_for_the_Animals
That’s very interesting.
Well, maybe the animal party. :D
Deen @70,
The only people for whom your “deal” was clearly better were the hardliners, the Islamists. They got recognition and power over their “communities”, not to mention lots of government money. This “deal” was disastrous for everyone else, in particular ordinary Muslim immigrants, who were forced into “communities” (read: ghettoes). Women now are coerced into wearing hijabs, gays are attacked, anti-semitism is rampant (a friend told me about an incident where her daughter’s school had to censor mention of Anne Frank because of Muslim “sensibilities”!!) and the most repressive religion of modern times has extended its sway not only over “Muslims” (I use quotation marks because these poor immigrants have no choice in the matter) but increasingly large urban areas of Holland. The Islamists didn’t need to start their own party; the “left” (quotation marks again, because it is certainly not my left) gave them everything they wanted and more. Including respectability. I don’t vote for Wilders but I can certainly see why he has become popular.
Nor did I vote for him, but… good.
http://www.hudson-ny.org/2219/netherlands-abandons-multiculturalism
@Ophelia – “we have to keep on making these tedious distinctions”. Yes!
@Beryl – In some parts of the blogosphere false stories about Muslims get taken at face value – in others true stories are blanked out. With that in mind – do you have a link to the Anne Frank story? Also – is this a case of very misplaced cultural Christian self-censorship or was there pressure from Muslims?
@Beryl: instead of actually responding to my arguments, you are still making the same conspiracy-mongering claims. It’s tiresome.
As to the link in #73, yes, minister Donner has declared the end of multiculturalism and a return to “Dutch values”. As if he has that power. No idea how he thinks he’s going to force Muslims to adopt these “Dutch values”, though. Or what those “Dutch values” are to begin with. Is it the values of the SGP, who won’t put women on the ballot, for whom Donner’s party has dropped their support for repealing the blasphemy law?
@Deen. I’d love to know what those “Dutch Values” are as well. Do they include the values of social solidarity? From the VVD and CDA? Somehow I doubt it. Does it include a commitment to science as a way of learning about the world? Given the CDA’s support for Intelligent Design I doubt that too. I would love if progresssive Dutch values were demanded of all citizens (including immigrants) but I suspect that Donner has other ideas.
@Sarah AB. You should certainly take 99% of unsourced reports of scandals in the Muslim community like the Anne Frank story that Beryl concocted as nothing more than race baiting.
I wish one of the Dutch Values that the Kabinet Rutte defended was gender equality. Considering that only 4 out of 20 Cabinet members are women, the “mannenkabinet” isn’t doing a very good job of exemplifying “Dutch Values”. But I guess “Dutch Values” are something that only immigrants have to learn about.
Daniel Lafave,
“Concocted”? Pot, kettle, black, eh?
I have followed the controversy surrounding Ayaan Hirsi Ali ever since it came to my attention about 8 years ago and I think I know enough about her (I’ve read her books, her articles and heard her speak in person; have you?) and so that your accusation of “fabulist” tells me more about your politics than hers. And your use of “zionist” as an epithet only cements that impression (where did you get your knowledge of the history of modern Palestine, Hamas?).
It never ceases to amaze – and dismay – me how a certain element of the left have become apologists for theocrats.
@Alain. I’ve already explained that I am not using Zionist as a epithet. If you can think of a better term than “fanatical Zionist” for the fanatical believers who deny that Palestinians have a right to live alongside Jews in the geographical region of Palestine then I am willing to hear it. When I hear someone calling Jordan “Palestine” I hear just that agenda. Again, I find it a sad that standing up for liberal, secular government in Israel is now considered to be in league with Hamas. Is that really what the secularism has come to?
If you are unaware of Ms. Hirsi Ali’s decades of lies about the conditions of her obtaining asylum in the Netherlands then I think you should make yourself aware of them. She was present for many parliamentary debates on asylum-seekers where she never felt the need to inform the chamber that she herself has obtained asylum through fraud. She concocted stories about forced marriage. She concocted stories about the threat of honor killing. Everything about her suggests that she is nothing but a political opportunist, and now that she is the darling of the right-wing AEI, she is even willing to say nice things about Christianity. Isn’t that special?
Decades of lies? That’s ridiculous. It was more like 5 years.
And that last assertion is just disgusting. Nothing but a political opportunist? Right, brilliant way to go about it, getting yourself on a permanent hit list.
For the record, Ms. Hirsi Ali fraudulently applied for political asylum in 1992, and her fraud only came to light in 2006 when Zembla did the investigation and confronted her with the truth. So, 14 years rather than 5.
Her opportunism rather than principle is written through her career. She supported the PvdA and when they lost power, she threw in with the right-wing VVD. When her fraud was revealed and she became persona-non-grata in the Netherlands, she threw in with the AEI (along with noted feminist thinkers Leon Kass, Michael Novak, Charles Murray, and Irving Kristol). I wonder whether she ever says anything about Christianity and Judaism’s repression of women around the AEI lunchroom. Her pandering to Christianity strikes me as just more of her opportunism now that she realizes that the ideological right is her meal-ticket. Because the thing that Muslims really need is Jesus. So, yes, It certainly does strike me as opportunistic.
I certainly applaud people who stand up for progressive, secular causes, but I just fail to see what she has accomplished other than gain a lot of fame for herself, which is what she seems to be good at.
From what I have read, she applied with a different name to escape the threat of violence.
@SteveZara. She lied about a lot of things other than her name. The country where she was coming from, whether she was under threat of violence, and that she was forced into a marriage. As a UN-sponsored refugee in a secure country, Kenya, she was ineligible to seek asylum in another country, the Netherlands. So, she lied and said she was coming from Somalia. Second, there is no evidence at all that she was under any threat of violence from her family or forced into marriage. She married a Somali man living in Toronto. Then on her stop-over in Europe, she bailed and sought asylum in the Netherlands. Her husband and some family visited her in the Netherlands to see what happened when she didn’t arrive in Canada, and nothing happened. No threats, no violence. Her husband stated that he felt like he had been used, but he had no ill-will against her for abandoning the marriage after she had gotten her plane ticket to Europe. It’s par for the course for her. She uses people ways to get what she wants, and moves on to someone else when it becomes convenient. Husband in Canada, Somali relatives, PvdA, VVD, AEI. I give her credit for ingenuity, but I fail to see how she is the courageous person that I so often hear her portrayed as rather than an opportunist.
Daniel Lafave,
Although I could do so, I think that disputing the facts of Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s life with you is pointless, since it is clear that your animosity to her stems not from this or that biographical item but from what she represents: a third-world activist againt Islam. There is a certain left that has decided that political Islam is a useful “anti-imperialist” ally and along with the – otherwise admirable – job of defending immigrants from xenophobes, have descended into an unholy cabal with theocrats. Witness the “Respect” party in the UK. For this left it’s “noble brown people” resisting the tyranny of “colonialist Western whites”. Not in Africa, now, but in areas of Marseille, Rotterdam or Birmingham. Anything that upsets this neat picture, say a very brown Somali woman who prefers the Western Enlightenment to Islam, indeed warns her listeners about the very menace of Islam, must be eliminated. Not through reason or argument (too difficult), but by personal attacks, by claiming that she is a fraud. I happen to know a fair bit about Ms. Hirsi Ali and I’ll take her word – and her position on Islam – over yours.
I don’t have animosity toward her. I simply don’t see anything particularly praiseworthy about someone who has lied and used people to make her way up a place where she appeals to the most feverish right-wing agendas. I’m also disappointed by her very limited opposition to religion. I am opposed to all religions: Christianity, Islam, and Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, etc…. I have no respect for any religions, so you are obviously barking up the wrong tree with that guess. She seems to believe for some reason that only Islam is harmful. I suspect that it is more out of opportunistic reasons than because she really believes it. There are many areas of the world which are Christian, Jewish, Hindu, etc… and have terrible conditions for women. Where is Ayaan Hirsi Ali on them, or does she just not want to irritate her AEI funders and right-wing book buyers?
Maybe this has something to do with her being an ex-Muslim apostate.
@Daniel Lafave in #76:
I wouldn’t. I would love it if everyone freely adopted progressive values, but this sort of demand of conformity isn’t progressive at all.
If Donner and Wilders want to protect “Dutch values”, I’d suggest they start with protecting article one of our constitution:
@Deen. Well, I wish organizations like religious schools were subject to the same anti-discrimination laws for sexual orientation that all other schools are. Employment discrimination in state-funded education isn’t OK just because a Christian or Muslim school does it. That’s what I mean when I say that I wish Dutch Values were demanded of all citizens.
Re Daniel’s charges against Ayaan Hirsi Ali. I am aware that this doesn’t address all points, but it’s what I’m thinking about, anyway.
In her book “Infidel”, Ayaan Hirsi Ali says that her father arranged the marriage and would not accept a refusal.According to your information, Daniel, her father and her husband say that she wasn’t forced and they felt let down. So it’s simply her word against theirs. We know, however, that forced marriages are common in Somalia, and this gives weight to her story.
She says that she changed her name so that her family couldn’t trace her. This is at least consistent with the claim that she was escaping a forced marriage. The name that she chose (her grandfather’s) is one that she is legally entitled to use, by Somali law and tradition. It is therefore not a false name, but also it is not a name that the Dutch authorities would consider acceptable by their rules. I haven’t time to look up anything about her other alleged lies, as this comment is already long enough. Perhaps someone else might be able to. At present, my position is that if she really was escaping a forced marriage, she hardly deserves the opprobrium that is being heaped on her. If I were in her position, I would do the same.
She has been accused of hypocrisy because she has wished to deny to other immigrants the benefits that she received as an immigrant. However, in “Infidel” she writes as follows (p224):
Here is a story that I think goes a long way to explaining another aspect of her outlook (p157):
She has said more than once that Islam must be “defeated”. I have always taken this to be understood in the same way that Roman Catholicism has been “defeated”. For example, in Britain, the 17th century was dominated by the need to undermine the Pope’s political authority, from Elizabeth’s war with Spain and forcing RC ceremonies underground to Parliament’s making illegal any claims of the Stuart males to the throne. This parallels developments elsewhere, so that today the Pope’s political power is negligible, and secular law is in a somewhat better position to do something towards moderating the destructive effects of doctrine. So it seems to me that she has somewhat changed her stance, now seeing the “defeat” of Islam as something akin to abolition, and therefore looking to Christianity to provide Muslims with what she sees as a more humane spiritual alternative. If this is how she is thinking, then it is a great mistake. It would be much better if she were to put her considerable energy and talents to helping foster the growth and well-being of secular pluralist democracy.
Something relevant, perhaps, here (p271):
There is also Hirsi Ali’s reaction to the appalling attack on the Twin Towers. For all I know Wilders’s own radical opposition to Islam owes more than a little to the horror of this event.
Whatever, I have yet to see any reason to regard Hirsi Ali as a “serial fabulist”. Her story seems to me to be consistent. Unlike some, I do not think her “lying” to get into Holland particularly problematic, though it is certainly an opportunity for critics of “Islamophobes” to make her look bad. Lack of evidence does not mean that she isn’t telling the truth. Furthermore, it is not characteristic of opportunists to gamble with their lives and personal freedom in the way that she has done. Also, she remains consistent in her aim to arouse the world to the plight of Muslim women.
One thing that has disturbed me about this discussion is the accusation that Beryl has “concocted” her story about Ann Frank. I see no call for this, and it looks bad coming from someone who is already making heavy charges of lying against someone who would probably sympathise with Beryl’s general point-of-view.
Further to all this, I offer some speculations of my own. When I first saw Muslim women, back in the early 70’s, they looked to me like nuns. I thought they must represent some eastern form of Christianity. But a local shopkeeper told me that he had addressed one of them as “sister”, and was told, “not sister, muslim”. For a long time I couldn’t get this idea out of my head. What I saw and heard about Islam reminded me of a monastic order with strict rules of dress, behaviour, prayer, eating and fasting; as though Islam sought to impose a monastic style of discipline on the everyday lives of believers. In this way, every single believer would be destined for the service of God in every single action, every single thought, if possible every single feeling, every single experience. Monasticism in daily life, the unceasing practice of the presence of God. It is, of course, the ideal towards which Christianity aspires, too, though somehow Christians seem to manage the double-think rather better. Muslim society has not always been so extreme, though, but I have the impression that the presence of extremist groups has an unhealthy influence (e.g. perhaps Pakistan, Afghanistan?). Although Islam has no official priesthood, imams etc seem to wield an equivalent authority. Hirsi Ali’s remarks on the accepted infallibility of Mohammad may be relevant here.
@Daniel Lafave in #88: But that is a matter of damanding that all citizens follow the same laws, not demanding they hold the same values. Admittedly, laws already tend to embody certain values, like the idea that all people should obey the same rules itself.
@GordonWillis The claim that she changed her name to avoid being found by her parents is absurd based on the fact that the first thing she did in the Netherlands is call her aunt in the Netherlands and say “I’m in Amsterdam, can you help me out?” That’s an odd way to avoid your parents. It’s more likely that she used a false name and age is because she was already on the UNHCR records in Kenya, and if the Dutch did any research, they would find that a Ayaan Hirsi Magan was already a registered refugee in Kenya and thus ineligible for asylum.
Sorry, I just don’t think that Christianity is any better than Islam, and the fact that she’s palling around with Pamela Gellar, Glenn Beck, and a lot of other right-wing religious lunatics suggests that she’s either delusional or an opportunist.
I have no idea what your point is about Islam. The same social forces of secularization that are causing Christianity to die out will also cause Islam to die out. Deen quoted the figures above about the declining mosque attendance. How many third and fourth generation immigrants do you think will still be Muslims. I doubt very many will be. Ayaan Hirsi Ali will have had nothing to do with it though.
My mistake about the time: 14 years not 5. On the other hand…14 years is not “decades” either.
And it now turns out that most of what you asserted as if it were fact is just what you “suspect” and similar. Not impressive.
You don’t see what’s so courageous about her…well one thing is her refusal to hide or get out of public life in the face of extremely sincere death threats. Some of that “opportunism” has to do with things like being evicted from her apartment in Amsterdam because the neighbors were afraid of assasins.
I too dislike the AEI, a lot, and I wish she had gone somewhere else, but on the other hand, she had nowhere else to go.
Have you read Infidel?
@Daniel.
My point about Islam is that it is essentially theocratic, and fundamentally opposed to democracy. It enjoins submission to the will of Allah and lays down rules for every thought, word and deed. However much individual Muslims may wish to embrace the democratic way of life the constant pull of their traditions and scriptures is towards authoritarianism and intolerance. I think it is a battle that liberal Muslims can win if they are determined enough, but I also think that the fight against an ingrained tendency to yield to authority and tradition will be a hard one. Whether your diagnosis of what is happening in Holland is correct, maybe time will tell. I wish I could be as confident about what is happening in the UK. By the way, I am not saying that Christianity is any better. It appears to be Hirsi Ali’s view, however. As I have said already, I think that this is a great mistake.
One interesting feature is that the theological strictures of Islam are born most heavily by women. It is they who must almost universally submit to the constraints of chastity and obedience and the enclosed life, not to mention the gruesome institutionalised attempts to destroy a woman’s sexual feeling and sewing up the vagina to prevent intercourse, and the insistence on “purity” and “innocence” (much assisted by enforced ignorance). Men on the whole are much freer, and there is no denying that, the bias of Islam being entirely towards the male, the system offers them distinct advantages. So taking this together with the fact that so many male clerics are so rigidly authoritarian and harsh towards women in particular could well support the idea that sexual power and male bargaining are the main dynamic in Islam, with “the will of Allah” invoked as rational. If this is the case — and I think it is — it is no wonder that Hirsi Ali wants to defeat it. Indeed, she needs to.
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