Posted on 10/10/2007 6:07:15 AM PDT by Argentine-Firecracker
As you read this, Ayaan Hirsi Ali sits in a safe house with armed men guarding her door. She is one of the most poised, intelligent and compassionate advocates of freedom of speech and conscience alive today, and for this she is despised in Muslim communities throughout the world.
The details of her story have been widely reported, but bear repeating, as they illustrate how poorly equipped we are to deal with the threat of Muslim extremism in the West.
Hirsi Ali first fled to the Netherlands as a refugee from Somalia in 1992 after declining to submit to a forced marriage to a man she did not know. Once there, in hiding from her family, she began working as a cleaning lady. But this cleaning lady spoke Somali, Arabic, Amharic, Swahili and English and was quickly learning Dutch, so she soon found work as a translator for other Somali refugees, many of whom, like herself, were casualties of Islam. These women had been abused, mutilated, denied medical care and proper educations and forced into lives of sexual subjection and compulsory childbearing.
After attending the University of Leiden, where she studied political science and philosophy, Hirsi Ali began speaking publicly about the repression of women under Islam, and shortly thereafter she started receiving death threats from local Muslims. Her security situation eventually became so dire that she moved to the United States in 2002. However, she was soon contacted by Gerrit Zalm, then deputy prime minister of the Netherlands, who urged her to run for the Dutch parliament. When Hirsi Ali voiced her security concerns, Zalm assured her that she would be given diplomatic protection wherever and whenever she needed it. She returned to the Netherlands with this assurance...
(Excerpt) Read more at digitalnpq.org ...
There is also the matter of broken promises: Ms. Hirsi Ali was persuaded to run for parliament, and to become the world’s most visible and imperiled spokeswoman for the rights of Muslim women, on the understanding that she would be provided security for as long as she needed it. Gerrit Zalm, in his capacity as both the deputy prime minister and the minister of finance, promised her such security without qualification. Most shamefully, Jan Peter Balkenende, the Dutch prime minister, has recommended that Hirsi Ali simply quit the Netherlands, while refusing to grant her even a week’s protection outside the country during which she might raise funds to hire security of her own. Is this a craven attempt to placate local Muslim fanatics? A warning to other Dutch dissidents not to stir up trouble by speaking too frankly about Islam? Or just pure thoughtlessness?
The headline is inaccurate. Europe, especially Eastern Europe has had many refugees since WWII.
What do they think all those people shot trying to get across Communist borders were?
If anyone is aware of aid for Ms. Ali, please post.
You’re right.
I was livid when “human rights” activists ono the side of Palestininans were allowed to speak at a United Methodist Women’s convention in California. I challenged them at every turn. They would accuse Israel of war crimes and I would say “Just give me on example....” and then I would bring up the fact that the Pals were using civilians, women and children to sheild their military operations.....
You misunderstood the point.
She is the first refugee who had flee FROM Europe since the Jews had to flee before and during WW2.
Then, they were fleeing Nazi fascists. Now, she is fleeing Islamic fascists.
He’s not right, he missed the point entirely.
If the headline read Western Europe, I’d agree with you. But that’s not what it says.
A great many people refugeed out of every Communist country, and many of them went to USA, Australia, etc. Even more would have fled given the opportunity.
Pieter Dorsman, who just wrote a Pajamas Media article on this, also refers to Hirsi Ali as “a refugee once more - this time from western Europe.” See http://pajamasmedia.com/2007/10/the_end_of_an_affair.php.
The same with Hirsi Ali: She did not return from Hell with empty hands. She has something crucial to say to us.
I mentioned this on another thread: Hirsi Ali is an avowed atheist. I teach Catholic Theology and, indeed, I have 3 Pontifical Degrees. But I stand with her without embarassment.
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