Speaking Back to Islamists (George Will)

RealClearPolitics ^ | 9-21-06 | George Will

[rightinthemiddle]

WASHINGTON -- While her security contingent waits outside the Georgetown restaurant, Ayaan Hirsi Ali orders what the menu calls "raw steak tartare.'' Amused by the redundancy, she speculates that it is intended to immunize the restaurant against lawyers, should a customer be discommoded by that entree. She has been in America only two weeks. She is a quick study.

And an exile and an immigrant. Born 36 years ago in Somalia, Hirsi Ali has lived in Ethiopia, Kenya, Saudi Arabia and the Netherlands, where she settled in 1992 after she deplaned in Frankfurt, supposedly en route to Canada for a marriage, arranged by her father, to a cousin. She makes her own arrangements.

She quickly became a Dutch citizen, a member of parliament, and an astringent critic, from personal experience, of the condition of women under Islam. She wrote the script, and filmmaker Theo van Gogh directed, "Submission,'' an 11-minute movie featuring pertinent passages from the Koran (such as when it is a husband's duty to beat his wife) projected on the bodies of naked women.

[rightinthemiddle]

The last paragraph is a good one.

[rightinthemiddle]

Last graph:

Neither is she pessimistic about the West. It has, she says, "the drive to innovate.'' But Europe, she thinks, is invertebrate. After two generations without war, Europeans "have no idea what an enemy is.'' And they think, she says, that leadership is an antiquated notion because they believe that caring governments can socialize everyone to behave well, thereby erasing personal accountability and responsibility. "I can't even tell it without laughing,'' she says, laughing softly. Clearly she is where she belongs, at last.

[AnotherUnixGeek]

Clearly she is where she belongs, at last.

Indeed. This is a courageous woman who isn't afraid to speak truth in the face of Muslim violence and hysteria. Our leaders could learn a thing or two from her.

[stylin19a]

But Europe, she thinks, is invertebrate

new tag line materiel ... "Europe is invertebrate"

[Rembrandt_fan]

You wrote, "Clearly she is where she belongs, at last."

I agree. The world in general and the Europeans in particular have an uncanny knack for inadvertently giving us their most valuable treasure: people like her.

[radar101]

AYAN HIRSI ALI

A Dutch Member of Parliament and author of "Submission" the 12 minute movie that caused Theo van Gogh to be shot and stabbed to death, in which a beaten woman has Arabic inscriptions of the Quran drawn on her body permitting women to be beaten in their bed chambers.

"Surely [Submission] must have been a gross insult to devout Muslims to see those pictures"

It depends. If you are a Muslim woman and your read the Quran and you read in there that you should be raped if you say "No" to your husband - that, that is offensive amd that is insulting!

"You called Muhammad a perverted tyrant.".

"He has said a few things that are not compatible with democracy."

"You have also called the Quran a licence for oppression"

"A part of the Quran a licence for oppression, yes, because that's what it is!". On honour killing in Holland - "If you look behind those curtains in Amsterdam and Rotterdam, there are women who are abused, there are woman who are taken to Morocco and are killed there, they are murdered and there are no records of those murders".

[robertpaulsen]

"featuring pertinent passages from the Koran ... projected on the bodies of naked women."

Hmmmmm. Substitute "U.S. History" for "the Koran" and I think I've just found the way to get high school boys to pay attention in class.

[goldstategop]

Europe is dying because its been stripped of the means to defend itself. So there it lies postrate, being ravaged by the enemy within.

"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." -Manuel II Paleologus

[Jason_b]

good thread. bump.