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This item is available on the Militant Islam Monitor website, at http://www.militantislammonitor.org/article/id/1914
NL responses to Phyllis Chessler's piece claiming :NL governments actions 'saddened' Ali - more egregious then ritual murder by Jihadists
May 15, 2006
MIM:Emerson Vermaat opposes the Dutch governments plans to look into the citizenship question of Hirsi Ali on moral grounds and contends she will become stateless as a result and is living under a death threat. He accuses his countrymen of cowardice. In the interests of fairness MIM is publishing his view of the situation to show how deeply polarised the view in Holland are and how this debate has once again, focussed attention on Ali instead of the war against radical Islam.
Given her high media profile and new career at the American Enterprise Institute, Hirsi Ali hardly appears to be on the verge of being sent back to Somalia. Her new employers would doubtless be able to secure her a work permit- considering she has already cleared her body guard arrangements with the Foreign Affairs office of the US government.
According to Enerson Vermaat it is a matter of national pride not to take Ali's citzenship and he questions the timing.
.No one disputes that Hirsi Ali is under death threat, but so are many other Europeans who are not basking in the spotlight. The former Dutch House member Geert Wilders who has founded a new Freedom Party is under the same threat of death as Hirsi Ali, and has to fear for the safety of his family.The same holds true of the Danish publisher Flemming Rose, who has been the subject of a fatwa and has in effect been targetted by billions of Muslims worldwide. Hirsi Ali is not unique- but she knows how to work the media to her advantage. And as Hirsi Ali knows better then anyone- publicity is power.
As one Dutch commentator noted:
" Ali is of course not a poor, defenseless woman. I have read her interviews and statements, and they are just diatribes. Her retorical techniques, and I have studied the matter intensively, are extremely limited,. She does not try to be a wise or good woman, but speaks ad populum for a cause. Her oratory is filled with fallacies, fallacies, and fallacies. Now of course she is right, when pleading and criticizing certain topics, but the overall logical structure of her reasoning is bad, and formally structured around the work of other authors, people like f.e. dr. Daniel Pipes... a coherent writer and his criticism is always contemplated, as it should be. Ali's is... more of the revolutionary kind, someone who plays chess with popular opinion.
Now, she must have known what the film Submission would bring to Theo and herself as she had lived in Saoudi-Arabia and realized the immensity of her project. When you start a fire, you must know if it will grow into an uncontrollable raging storm and you must take precautions. Decide what must be done and not. Some things must be said, whatever the reaction of people.
"... By doing what Ali did and is continuing to do, she is not only causing harm to her own development, but she is threatening others too. That is bad, really bad. She will sacrifice others, some teacher called such a person a Hasnamous ( a derivate from the Turkish word for honour, so someone doing things for his own honor)..."
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About to expel Ayaan Hirsi Ali? Shame on my country!
By Emerson Vermaat
Rita Verdonk, the Dutch Minister of Immigration and Integration has decided that Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a prominent member of parliament, is not entitled to a Dutch passport since she lied when she applied for political asylum in the Netherlands some forteen years ago. She lied about her age and her true name (Magan) and did not mention that before she came to Europe she enjoyed asylum in Kenia, considered to be a safe country. What will happen now is that her Dutch citizinship will be revoked, her naturalization will be considered invalid. Officially now, she never became a Dutch citizen even. You cannot be a member of parliament unless you are a Dutch citizen, so Hirsi Ali decided to leave parliament immediately.
Legally, everything is perfectly alright, morally it is deadly wrong.
I do not agree with everything Ayaan Hirsi Ali (Magan) says or writes, she is not my personal friend, but she does have the courage that so many of my countrymen with valid Dutch passports so desperately lack. Indeed, many of her enemies both in Holland and a lot of other countries want her dead. In fact, radical Muslims in Holland took an oath that they would kill this former member of parliament. After the Dutch Moroccan Mohammed Bouyeri killed Theo Van Gogh on November 2, 2004, radical Muslims belonging to the notorious ‘Hofstad Group' swore to God: ‘Ayaan Hirsi Ali, you're next.' If there is a moment in Dutch history when this woman from Africa needs a place where she can be free and safe, it is right now, and more than ever does she deserve it. Instead, a Dutch government Minister withdrew her citizenship, and a very courageous and legalistic Dutch politician named Hilbrand Nawijn already said Ayaan Hirsi Ali must be expelled. Expelled to where? Back her native Somalia where Al-Qaeda hoodlums are now rapidly gaining ground? To Afghanistan perhabs, or Iraq or some other country where burqas and niqabs make women look like ghosts in the streets?
This is Mohammed Bouyeri's finest hour, no doubt. I can see the grimace on his face in his maximum security prison cell. ‘I did not kill you,' he now thinks or says, ‘but my friends surely will.' It was Ayaan Hirsi Ali who raised the issue of genital mutilation (and she herself was a victim in Somalia where she was born), and the suppression of women in many Islamic countries. We may not agree with the provocative way she did this, but she did make a point. It was an issue neglected for so long a time by the political correct elite in the Netherlands. Take Hans Dijkstal, a former Interior Minister of mediocre qualities. It was he who critized Ayaan Hirsi Ali often and severely, even though they belonged to the same political party. Hans Dijkstal and his ilk strongly espoused and still espouse the outdated ideology of multiculturalism (also extemely popular among leftist Christians in Holland), never asking or daring to ask the politically incorrect question raised by Suan Moller Okin in her 1999 book ‘Is Multiculturalism bad for women?' (It too often is.) If this book had been on his desk, Hans Dijkstal would perhabs have avoided critizing his fellow party member Ayaan Hirsi Ali.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali (or Hirsi Magan, her real name) came from Africa to teach us this very lesson: ‘Watch those who suppress others in the name of tolerance and religion. It is true, when she applied for political asylum in the Netherlands in 1992, she lied about here age, name and other things. But so many do, and Hirsi Ali is a special case. As a matter of fact, she did inform the party leadership (Liberal Party, VVD) before they took a favorable decision on her candidacy for a seat in parliament. In 2002, she openly talked about her fake asylum story in a television interview, and nobody took action then. Why are some people (journalists, politicians, etc.) taking action now, at the very moment when she more than ever needs the protection of a state, a valid passport and security? She is like Salman Rushdie. I do not agreee with everything Rushdie says or writes but some idiots want him dead and won't hesitate to kill him some day.
My Dutch countrymen are cowards, and as a Dutch citizen with a valid passport, as someone who was raised and born in the Lowlands, as a journalist and a law graduate, I feel deeply ashamed. It is really shocking. Poor Ayaan Hirsi Ali is forced to leave her apartment as some coward neighbors do not like a woman around who needs bodyguards. They even went to court over this and won! How courageous of them, and what a wise decision by the court it was! To force a defenseless woman out of her house, a woman sentenced to death by people like Mohammed Bouyeri and others who are thrilled as they watch cruel film footage on decapitations in Iraq, a place of horror and doom. Shame on my country! An outspoken woman of exceptional courage and intellectual superiority is being forced to leave her house and parliament, as well as the country she so happily adopted as her own. Without a valid passport she may not be able to travel to the US where the American Enterprise Institute recently offered her a job. I think the American Embassy in The Hague should issue this woman an American passport straightaway. Imagine the Britsh government withdrawing the British citizenship of Salman Rushdie because he lied about something a few decades ago, and some lawyer or legalistic politician says: ‘This man shouldn't be here!' Such a thing will not happen in Britain. But it just happened in Holland, and we shouldn't be proud of it.
Emerson Vermaat, MA (law) is a Dutch expert on crime, migration and terrorism. He is currently writing a book on the Hofstadgroup Trial in Amsterdam (of which there will also be an American version). As a Dutch televison journalist he visited many Islamic countries, including Iraq and Iran. He was the first Dutch journalist to point to the role of Osama bin Laden in international terrorism (in a Dutch book in published in 1997). His website is: www.emersonvermaat.com
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MIM: The other side of the story shows that from from being a poor defenseless woman, Ali is a political opportunist with little of substance who revels incontroversy and relies on media hype,not substance.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali "Poor defenseless woman or dangerous opportunist who should not be idolised?
A general notice, for Americans of good will and common sense.
By Oscar Laurens Schroevers
In the second week of may, immediately after the Queen's birthday, (30th of April), and the War-commemorations (4th and 5th of may) a political row erupted in the Netherlands. That international icon of liberty Mrs. Ayaan Hirsi Ali was publicly degraced as a cheap liar. The headlines in the papers ran 'Ayaan Hirsi Ali lied about her identity, when applying for naturalization.' And the former minister Hildebrand Nawijn, adding fuel to the fire, demanded her expulsion, the immediate deportation as Mrs. Ayaan Hirsi Ali as an illegal alien. Mrs. Ali said she was shocked.
The drama continued into the 3rd week.
On the 14th of may prof. de Groot added his expert-comments to the case and told Mrs. Ali was not really a Dutch citizen. After all she had, he said, committed what was termed 'identity fraud' which nullefied her naturalization. It was as if she didnot exist.
On the 14th of may, Rita Verdonk, minister for integration, acknowledged prof. de Groot views. Mrs. Ayaan Hirsi Ali was guilty of identity fraud and in consequence of this, should not be regarded as a Dutch citizen.
Events stumbled further, mrs. Ali announced that she would leave The Hague. Not a great surprise since she starts working for the American Enterprise Institute in Washington (on 1st of september 2006). Now, we wish her well in Washington, but let us remind our readers, that this particular institute attracts obviously politicians with a passion for revolutions. For example a person like dr. Ledeen. He was severely criticized by English conservatives for his flirtation with fascism (1). Whatever you may think of her, Mrs. Ali is really a revolutionary spirit; she champions the ideas of the French Enlightenment, is an admirer of Rousseau and Voltaire. And Mrs. Ali also believes in caustic polemics and catty arguments. She has sworn to her cause and is heading for what seems to be a new Bastille, waving the red flag of woman's rights, and crying freedom for all, especially Muslim women. A great cause. But do these women want to be liberated? Some, clearly do not.
Help me if I am wrong, good Americans.
Anyhow, Mrs. Ali believes she will seize that bulwark and fortress of male muslim intolerance, and will conquer the Islamists from within the capital of the USA. She is moving to the U,S.A, that promised and richest of far shores which, at least Mrs. Ali firmly believes, is the most resourceful nation in the world. And it is often, very often. But Mrs. Ali believes mistakenly that from those shores and near the White House she can aptly destroy her vile opponents, those that oppose her mission.
She will deal them blows, that will be remembered, just as she will be remembered. But does it suffice to whisper in the corridors of power, to flash your lights in the face of your allies, to ignite a lantern at the bay, or ride like a madman, to emulate Paul Revere to change the world? Is that enough to establish freedom and justice for all? And will we, riding with her, quote that famous poem, sing with ther that rhyme and at her side, that 'One if by land, and two if by sea; / And I on the opposite shore will be, / Ready to ride and spread the alarm /Through every Middlesex, village and farm, / For the country folk to be up and to arm' ? Will we?
Are we caught between Lexington and Concord, or lost between the Place de La Concorde and the statue of Brest; standing between our peaceful, better, well-reasoned identities and the ideology of pragmatism, opportunism, populism, till our opponents surrender—be it to our wits or some public guillotine? Is that the future? Now, it is said Americans are men of reason, and of concord, that they say. Why not, you are not unlike the men who walk other continents who seek a place to hold the reigns of their happiness. And your 'fathers, who framed the constitution', under which you now live, knew of no slave or human as property. No man or woman of any religion or whatever sectarian persuasion, may be called another man's property. This is the cause Americans have fought for, hallowed by their deaths on the fields of Gettysburg, Antien, Vicksburg, Bull Run and Manassa. As the Abraham Lincoln told his audience at the Cooper Institute on the 27th of february 1860: 'the men who made the constitution decided that same constitutional question in our favor long ago—decided it without division among themselves.. without basing it upon any mistaken statements of facts.. Let us no longer be slandered from our duty by false accusations against us, nor frightened from it by the menaces of destruction to the government nor of dungeons to ourselves.'
We must do away with tyranny, but we believe in our freedoms without recourse to diatribes, to arguments that are but an endless list of dark crimes, of wicked intolerance and vile suppression, we do not believe that by showing blackened landscapes, without a ray of hope falling upon it, we will help others ultimately.
Mrs. Ali has guided us through the wastelands of surpression, but she knows of no solution how to leave them, of no hopse how to alleviate the problem, only of struggles in dark alley's of suffering and violence. The walls others, we must tear down. We have listened to her and observed her, but now it is about time we pair our willingness to our hopes, andto the ideals that man may live really in freedom, in a larger commonwealth founded on liberty. We must truly help the victims of religious intolerance, tell the women, no, promise them that their suffering may be alleviated if we, the free citizens of this world, the burgers of this commonwealth of reason, know how to step forward with unwavering courage as one band of 'good men', with a solid determination to establish freedom as a Divine birthright, for now and all ages. That what your father promised to be the new order of ages.
This we can do; so let that be our struggle and goal. Let us, responsible citizens, who are able to hear the cry of our fellow creatures, dedicate our efforts to freedom, donate our best to liberty and the pursuit of happiness, and this in the spirit of frankness, and openness.
Yes, Mrs. Ayaan Hirsi Ali holds these causes dear, she knows the price of freedoms and has been taught the bitter costs of openness, and of other, more mischievous endings. That she has been shown new workperspectives is a price we should be willing to pay. But we do not submit to her, enlist in her regiment of admirers, nor do we subscribe to her arguments, or join her services. Mrs. Ali may be a champion of freedom and of woman's rights, but she likes to dilute the facts, to water down reality, if that will rescue her interests and raise her stakes. To be honest, and I want to be dead honest with you, well-reasoned Americans, I can sympathize with her plea, subscribe to her elements of her agenda, but I still do not believe her.
I cannot.
Yes, I can give her my assent, donate her my wishes, but she does not win my heart or excite my mind. She seems so devilish pragmatic, intemperate, excitingly passionate, beset by those revolutionary shifts of mind which, to me, are not rational deeds, well-reasoned acts of conscience, but steps of what..? Iniquity? Ill fate? Threats? Anger? Convenience? Security?
I have another personal critique, it is perhaps not a strong one, and you may rebuke me, but I believe our friend belie us who we really are. Well, Mrs. Ayaan Hirsi Ali has been the protégé of mrs. N.Kroes. This I always regarded as a distressing signal, an ill omen. Mrs. Kroes is to say the least very naïve when it comes to her friendships. She knows how to acquire power, but not the kind of power that is perspicuous, that shows a philosophical lucidness, but one that knows of wielding and dealing. When the scandal about Mrs. Ali's identity fraud hit the streets, Mrs. Kroes contended that this should be not dealt with too severely. In fact she claimed clemency.
Well.. Now, we must ask ourselves, is there then one law for our friends, and another one for those that are too stupid, dull and unseemly, who after getting caught cannot plea our friendship and intimacy? Yes, it may all have been well intended, but lies breed lies.
History has taught us that free citizens are always men of good intention, but not of strict morals. Mrs. Kroes political career has been built on good intentions, but subsequently dogged by doubtful business-contacts and all sorts of questions. No harm had been done, we are being told. It was all in good faith, it is said. Yes, of course it was, certainly it is. But clemency? Is this merely a vague reflection of guileless naïveté, which I find hard to swallow, or something more in line with good old Tammany Hall politics?
Are we facing Brussels Babylon, or glib OK Walkerism? Anyhow, and it doesn't matter, if someone of such repute advances the interest of someone who has clearly demonstrated on more than one occasion she does like to bend her facts, we should be cautious, watch out. What do you think, my well-reasoned Americans?
Some might say, I am attacking a defenseless woman, but do not believe I am, I am criticizing your faith in her, your idolization of her.
For Mrs. Ayaan Hirsi Ali is at heart a revolutionary, and not one who cares about caring conservatism. She likes to raise the stakes and stir up the bonfires, and surf on the popular discontent. But on whose board? Will she take her door or strip your wood? She is a diligent worker but not a hero. Until now she has been harvesting the fields of time, the discontent, signalized by the murdered mr. Fortuyn, and commented upon by the butchered filmmaker, that courtier of crude political jesting, mr. Theo van Gogh. Van Gogh and Fortuyn are the real victims of the freedom of speech and assembly, whatever the views we hold, these men were the defenders of our freedom of speech and assembly. Is Ayaan Hirsi Ali? Can you tell me what kind of worker she is, for whom and for what she plods, can you tell me?
I can at least assure you she is a brilliant tactician who knows now to withdraw when circumstances call her to, yes, she knows hot to master a defeat and turn it into a personal victory—from Parliament to Washington think-tank. Mrs. Ali is withdrawing, fleeing to Washington. And I am afraid it will be a dangerous withdrawal. For Mrs. Ali has no reverence for the facts, even if they are plain and not very complex, such as her name and her date of birth. If that is not convincing you, let us give you another example.
In 2004, sources who wish to remain anonymous, recall that Mr. Theo van Gogh and his friend Karel Gabler, webmaster of van Gogh's website 'De Gezonde Roker', were invited to visit prof. Paul Cliteur (2). The subject of the discussion was producing a short film, Submission. During these discussions a car did arrive in front of prof. Cliteur's house. Mrs. Ayaan Hirsi Ali joined the discussions and afterwards has been portrayed as instrumental to this project; sources however suspect Cliteur to be the auctor intellectualis of Submission. Their evidence rests on the fact that Mr. Theo van Gogh produced the film Submission out of his own pocket. It did cost him 18000 euro, while mrs. Ayaan Hirsi Ali only gave her name, and her passionate zeal, but was unable to produce any shred of paper for a second episode. She has not written a single line, these sources maintain, and there will be no new episode, the part she promised to deliver again and again. Yes, but she will be going to write scripts in Washington. We shiver and wonder at the cost of what? Can you tell us, brave, well-reasoned Americans? I hope it is not at the cost of the more contemplative critics of Islamism, like f.e. dr. Daniel Pipes. Those that study and write, and seek to promote your values in a less revolutionary manner.
Notes
1. Ledeen: Ledeen's conviction that the Right is as revolutionary as the Left derives from his youthful interest in Italian fascism. In 1975, Ledeen published an interview, in book form, with the Italian historian Renzo de Felice, a man he greatly admires. It caused a great controversy in Italy. (..)What de Felice showed, by contrast, was that Italian fascism was both right-wing and revolutionary. Ledeen had himself argued this very point in his book, Universal Fascism, published in 1972. That work starts with the assertion that it is a mistake to explain the support of fascism by millions of Europeans "solely because they had been hypnotized by the rhetoric of gifted orators and manipulated by skillful propagandists." "It seems more plausible," Ledeen argued, "to attempt to explain their enthusiasm by treating them as believers in the rightness of the fascist cause, which had a coherent ideological appeal to a great many people." For Ledeen, as for the lifelong fascist theoretician and practitioner, Giuseppe Bottai, that appeal lay in the fact that fascism was "the Revolution of the 20th century." http:// www.amconmag.com/06_30_03/feature.html
2. The philosopher and essayist Cliteur is a member of the VVD (conservatives) gathered around himself some of the more vociferous critics of Islam. People like the Iranian dr. Afshin Ellian (Leiden University) who left Teheran in 1983, and mrs. Ayaan Hirsi Ali.
Cliteur is on the editorial board of Civis Mundi, headed by S. W. Couwenberg.
3. In 1992 Mrs. Ali arrived in the Netherlands. The reason she came here, she told the authorities, was that she had to marry a cousin in Canada. Mrs. Ali was admitted to the Netherlands, worked as a cleaner, a post-woman and an interpreter for the immigration- and naturalization services, that department which has been trampled underfoot by immigrants and asylum-seekers, a bureaucratic moloch that reminds one of the books of Kafka and Gogol. Now it is clear they were unable to verify the data Mrs. Ali gave them in 1992.
Mrs. Ayaan Hirsi Ali graduated from Leiden University, where she studied political sciences. In 2001 after her graduation she started to work for the Wiardi Beckman Foundation of the PvdA, the socialist party. When in 2002 the news-show 'Rondom Tien', showed mrs. Ali having a bitter altercation with some of the muslims present, she received death-threats and went into hiding. She fled to the USA. Some maintain with the help of the author Leon de Winter who is now acting as a spokesman for the friends of Mrs. Ali.
Mrs. Ali declined to stay in the United States and returned to the Netherlands in 2002, though she has been offered (these sources allege) a place at an unknown American university, and a scholarship to write her dissertation. In 2002 she became the secretary of the VVD-parliamentarian offices. In 2003 she was elected to the Dutch parliament. She was noted for style of debate, but could not cooperate in a political team, or share.
When Theo van Gogh was murdered on the 2nd of november 2004, mrs. Ayaan Hirsi Ali was immediately transported to the American Naval Airstation at Brunswick. She was brought back to the Netherlands and lived on the Marine complex in Amsterdam. Now she is moving back to the USA and will settle there.
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MIM: Another commentator from Holland explains why circling the wagons around a mercenary opportunist like Hirsi Ali will bring harm to the cause and to themselves. Theo van Gogh's murder is a case in point.
To speak out against a false ally is to be a rebel among friends:
From Publius:
Our friends have taken issue with us for criticizing Mrs. Ayaan Hirsi Ali, they say that we flaunt too fiery colors. We vilify an ally, the great Mrs. Ali. She, they keep repeating to us, is a brave victim of the most cruel form of religious oppression—the kind that holds a woman ransom to a man's arbritariness. Yes but that forfeits the right to criticise mrs. Ayaan Hirsi Ali? Is truth a respecter of persons, and if there is such a thing as truth when we discuss religion? Now, what is religion in a modern society? Is it a stage that knowledge will eventually destroy, as mrs. Ali maintains, as mankind is doomed to loose all his dreams and aspirations? In other words as mrs.Ali keeps repeating that there is no Other Side only imagination.
We do not doubt our friends, question their general assesment that liberties may be threatened by religion and its followers, those men that think freedom is a diseased ideal. Yes some men perceive liberty as a singular road to accursed disbelief. Furthermore they seriously think that unlimited freedom is the beginning of wickedness and perdition.
Yes, such men do exist. But does that mean we can not criticize Ms. Ayaan Hirsi Ali? Now, we know that some of our words have been most unwelcome to a number of our allies and our friends. We have upset them. And some have decided to censure us for we have molested their prejudices, manhandled their souls and these, our friends, are vulnerable men with peculiar sensitivities. It must be their great heart, and we hope they will find it in their power to listen to us with that heart, and perhaps understand us.
We do sincerely apoligize to them for any misunderstanding or hurt we caused to our sensitive readers, this has not been our intention. Friends, we merely wanted you to understand that a man can also daunt misfortune. If you sail into the vaults of dangerous waters and return, and sail again, and return, and go again then you increase your chances to get hurt. I mean one cannot constantly ride over a man's religious sentiments, can one? We suggest another course: reason with him, remonstrate him, refute his arguments, but do not scavenge his faith mercilessly out of spite. For the vigor of some is excessively hot, and threatens not only our reputation but the lives of real men and women. They are violent men, assassins, a swarm of hornets. But do not misunderstand us, let us state here once and for all that liberty demands that in the face of adversity we have to accept certain discomforts, accept an indignant community, accept folly and threats. That is however not the same as showing a constant disregard for another person's valued beliefs, and challenging his very vulnerable faith-structures. Let us not be wise, but wiser than our adversaries.
That is our general attitude and the idea behind our critique of Ms. Ali.
She may say whatever she likea. The constitution allows for criticism. The Constitution has not proscribed ridicule. The courts however, we must add, have established that there are boundaries of appropriate social behavior. At certain times and places we cannot say everything we want and must consider the fragile sentiments of others. That, my friends, must not be understood as an act of involuntary submission, but as gesture to the humaneness of others. We do not defy or wish to shackle liberty, we only want others not to suffer from the premeditated unkindness of those that hatefully challenge what an adversary may hold dear, vilify his opponent simply because his opponents holds something dear. Let us pursue some decency and use logic, mobilize your hearts, my friends.
This republic has been dedicated to freedom, and we know that many things will be said and misunderstood, men will always be angered when they feel they have been wrongly injured and unjustly provoked. Individuals may cause pain to each-other and to members of certain sects or religious persuasion, and this is the toll we must pay for tolerating liberty, variety and multiplicity. These pains must be endured, on the principle that government can not safeguard each and every holy conviction. And the Constitution allows for criticism and debate, people are free to speak their minds, that is to say they can voice their interest, show their dejection, discontent and shout their disapproval with public officers. That is to say as long as they are willing to conform to the general rules of justice, and the boundaries of appropriate social behavior, that have drawn by the various courts. Set.
And justly so, for to live in a free and well- ordered society, means considering others, not usurp their freedom, impose on them our conscience, violate their will to abide a different code of conduct than the federal laws and the Constitution. The founders of this, your republic, my friends, did not create a nation under one, singular Truth, dedicated to an eternal idea and religious conviction, no, they made this republic a Nation under one Justice, in which the executive and the various branches of government will justly balance the needs of the individual with a variety of existing interests. And the balance of these interests, or rather the strictness of the Constitution which forbids any form of intervention and a reduction of this variety, purely on the basis of a religious affiliation or a sectarian idea, ensures that no individual will be oppressed for the sake of another man's conscience. Superfluous as it may sound to you, we need to reaffirm this ideal in order not to fall for the strongest possible political motivations that will jeopardize the liberties and the Nation's Constitution.
Yes, dissent must be accepted, your dissent, my dissent, the dissent of my adversaries—as James Madison noted: there are two ways to repair divisions, the one is 'by destroying the liberty which is essential to its existence, and the other consists of giving every citizen the same opinion, the same passion and the same interests' (Federalist Papers No.10). Or to put it more precisely: all men are created equal. All men may, within this republic, your country, call upon the bill of rights, whatever others want or will say, or may decide for themselves. They can, and must appeal. In this republic no man can force another to accept his views under penalty of death, or ask him to abandon unwillingly his faith. For the founders reasoned: in this nation man will only subjected to his own conscience, and the rule of the people's laws passed by Congress. Freedom is an unalienable right. So let any man decide for himself what religious dictates he wishes to follow, let him burden his own conscience with iniquity as long as he does not violate the laws and the rulings of the court, though conflicts will inevitably arise..
The builders of this nation also foresaw that man would fail himself and would fail this new order of ages when his passions would be the most dominant factor in the debate, and would fall into 'mutual animosities', but as its provenance was outside time and beyond man's reasoning, these differences could not be resolved by the government. Thought its effects government could mitigate. Government would see to it that no man and no faction should endanger the liberty of other citizens, and this new Jeruzalem, your nation, would only flourish if there were a multiplicity of interests and sects—en enduring multiplicity. That new order of ages should be jewish, christian, moslem, hindu, buddhist, animist, infidel, atheist, a variety which would the best safeguard against degenerating.
For sects may grow into some political faction, a formidable opponent,. But as there were different branches of interest in this country they would, if firmly bundled in Congress, and other legislatures, make and hold that excellent order of multiplicity. This would provide a lasting mandate for the free and the good who would be unwilling to oppress the weak and only 'harvest from the toils and cares of the great body of their citizens' (Federalist Papers 62, Madison). These men we reverently call the fathers of the Constitution, the founders of this republic.
Let us heed their words of wisdom, the wisdom of variety and the wisdom of the seperation of government and religion. There must be an impregnable wall between government and the various Religious sects. Only such a wall would safeguard freedom and ward off the more dangerous and destructive passions. A government of the people and by the people, cannot replenish itself on incessant bigotry and last under duress of hatred, Providence can not tolerate its light. Therefore government may restrict practices, and places its trust in the bill of rights which is a born rebel. So, we do not discuss mrs.Ali's right to voice her opinion. Let her do so. Freedom always defies the majority, liberty may cherish an opinion that is 'a menace to the balance of the existing hierarchies'.
But Ms.Ali's zealous, passionate nature sometimes robs her arguments of compassion, threatens mildness, defies our common sense, and - we fear - violates the spirit the Constitution. Government can not take sides in a struggle about particular religious and sectarian truths. It must leave these matters, as justice Horace Mann (1848 Massachusetts) wrote, to 'the supreme and exclusive jurisdiction of Heaven.' Government can not decide what will be true and false in religious matters, these truths lie outside the province of its power, they are beyond executive reason. And therefor they must be left alone. Government shall encroach upon the jurisdiction of Heaven, it will not levy religious taxes, or burden minorities with a different religious conviction with hard tasks and unjust laws. Government will not listen to strong majorities or weak minorities that claim, most vociferously, that they have been elected by Divine Providence to command the nation of nations helm. Let the voters decide to what Providence has suggested to them. They shall decide these matters amongst themselves, as the earth is called to be a place of Justice, of the courts of man, not of God. Let us therefore, my friends, leave these matters in the gentle hands of Providence which, I believe, will show us what sort of edifices it wants you to built.
From history you may gather that they will lie somewhere in the region of your heart, dwell in your mind. Thus Heaven will endure freely the test of times, whilst government will not in any way hinder men to subject the holiest of other to their most vulgar abjections and cruel ridicule. But government does not punish thoughtless men, it does not proscribe the creation of certain images, it can only uphold the liberties of those who choose to rebel. Let mrs. Ali rebel, but do not ask us to approve her, to seal her, to sanctify her. We may rebel too. Furthermore, we firmly believe that Providence will uphold, at least as long as this nation endures, the liberties of men. Empires may wither away, religious views may perish in time, but man will, we believe, whenever Providence shows itself armed with reason, establish a new nation, it will built again a new republic. A republic of just were men are created equal, and enjoy unalienable rights. This republic they will not be held ransom to a particular religious interest, or a certain economic faction. Men will again be free to pursue their own interests, and the government will not interfere with worship but curb certain practices that threaten and encroach upon the liberties of the nation and of individuals. Then history will, for the sole sake of Providence, have repeated itself.
Now this nation, which the founders held to be under that Divine Providence, indivisible, and dedicated to liberty and justice for all, does not only tolerate dissent, it accepts it, wholeheartedly, unreservedly, applauds it as a cornerstone of your liberty. The constitution allows for negation, dissent, doubts and abstention. Then why my friends do you perceive our criticism troublesome, and hostile to your interests? Do we not defend the constitution?
Some of our friends told us, we are around you and many, thus a mountain, what does the valley want from us? And as we are more, thus higher, we must be right, and you that are alone, or less, must be in error. This, my friends, is a false perspective. Make low what is higher, make high what is lower. You need to rethink you position on religion in general and the rights of the individual in particular.
Friends, you must not reconsider your opinion on the grounds that you want to like us, or your fear to hate us, no, we simply ask you to listen to us as reasonable men, to confront us with your views, to part facts from phantasy, to separate our goodwill from the general unkindness, to dissect religion in general from confounded prejudices in particular. Use logic, but do not censure, hate us for appealing to liberty. We rebel for your sake and oppose careless reasoning, attack misleading diatribes and the zealousness of any atheist propagandist whose aim seems to be undermining the morality of the people by submitting them to total meaninglessness. We do not hinder Mrs. Ali, she must speak, she shall, but she cannot have the final words in these matters, the people will say what they want, with the help of the courts and the wisdom of the Constitution.
Publius
MIM: Phyllis Chesler recently joined the cult of 'mor'ali'relativism and referred to her as " a secular prophet' writing that 'the Dutch government has done what the Jihadist's could'nt,saddened a critic of Jihad. In the minds of the 'p'sycophants who see the 'world according to Ali', 'saddening' someone is considered more of an egregious act than ritual murder!
"...The Dutch have driven the heroic Aayan Hirsi Ali out of parliament, out of Holland, and out of Europe. Their shameful appeasement of murderous, totalitarian Islamism has accomplished what the jihadists could not do: sadden one of Europe's most important critics of jihad..."
complete article by Chessler below:
A Dutchman responds:
Americans badly informed
Dr.Chesler does not know what the debate really is about..
The last weeks americans have discussed the conflict that arose in the Netherlands when minister Verdonk told Parliament mrs. Ayaan Hirsi Ali was not a Dutch citizen. Many things were said, and cried about the Dutch and mrs. Ali. What about her? Is she not a Dutch citize, the primeminister thinks she is. What were the accusations? Bad, overconfident, shabby lies?
Whatever they were, Mrs. Ali or rather mrs. Magan is being depicted as a helpless victim and that is certainly a lie. Mrs.Ali is not being massacred by thoughtless masses and reckless politicians who are blind to that new age of islamic furor, that militant disorder that calls itself Islam, but proclaims holy war. It is all a travesty of words and a wicked reversal of meaning.
The tenor of these articles about mrs.Ali is ever the same. The Dutch have driven out the heroic Aayan Hirsi Ali. Have we? Or, more specifically, as dr.Phyllis Chesler writes, have we accomplished what murderous, totalitarian Islamism and the jihadists could not do? 'Sadden one of Europe's most important critics of jihad.'
Isn't that slightly exaggerated? Does dr. Chesler mean that laws upheld in Dutch courts and the decicions taken in parliament are of no consequence to the whole situation? Does she mean that? I can tell her that the Dutch parliament has told minister Verdonk not to press ahead and not to impound her passport. The cabinet has told the nation that mrs.Ali is a Duch citizen and the VVD has told us that she a candidate for next year's parliamentary elections. So mrs. Chesler is only scaremongering and slandering the Dutch?
Well, I would rather say she is misinformed,. We, the Dutch have learned that truth has its own dignity, you cannot run away from it as a nations. We have learned that a free society, a community not under strict religious banning orders, can only safely exist within the precinct of reason and the purview of truth. What remains is the simple truth that mrs. Ayaan Hirsi Ali has lied to the Dutch authorities about her personal particulars. She lied about small matters of no concern to mrs.Chesler really, but they did matter to the state. If government wants to function without tempting frictions, which do arise when people start to query the law, and justice must be administered, the law must be blind and seem unjust. But is that the basis of democratic laws and institutions, and justice; the law is not a respecter of persons. Is that not blindness not the fountain of reasoned law? Justice does not refer to personal heroism, to secularism, or atheism? It does neither – as one spokesman of the American Enterprise Institute maintained – want to obey an extraordinary odyssey, courage, easy manners, and scholarly projects. It does not want to no of individual preferences. The fathers of the constitution would be appalled if inequality became the cornerstone of legislation. So they the laws be blind.
The Dutch have not driven out mrs. Ayaan Hirsi Ali, but the strictness of the law has. And Mrs. Ali drove herself out by lying to the authorities, which - she says now - was done only to mislead her relatives, implying that she would have become the victim of a household conspiracy if she surrendered some small truths to the government. What can we say? Can a state really exist when its citizens revert to lies to maintain their liberties? Can it?
Is not true and the precautions taken by the government on behalf of mrs.Ali prove that lies were uncalled for and unnecessary? Whatever we may hold of the decisions of minister Verdonk and her department, the Dutch prof.de Groot, a political and legal expert on naturalization, has pointed out to the Dutch media shortly before the debate in Parliament that similar cases have been reported, and that people have been expelled as a result of lying during naturalization. Would that be unfair? Was that unlawful? And should there be different sets of laws, one for those we like, and another for those that gainsay us, those we believe are a menace to our cause? Isn't that a dangerous road to pursue? Where would leave that the Temples and Jewish tabernacles? Suppose other majorities would question their rights of existence, their rituals and conservatism? Where would it leave them?
I am afraid, listening to mrs. Ali, who is a confirmed atheist, and an agnostic zealot, it would leave them nowhere. NOWHERE. For Mrs. Ali does not only fight Islam, she contests the veracity of every religion in general and opposes its moral viewpoints in particular. She has proposed f.e. a ban of all religious education, organized under the special scheme for subsidized schools. She seems willing to to cure the disease with another pest and the dictatorship of secularism.
Eventually it all boils down to one question: can Mrs. Chesler maintain that there should be different sets of laws; a lenient justice for those who share our views and political prejudices, and an observant justice for those that do not wish to conform or subscribe to our private truths, even if there are only have been seeking to escape the ambiguities of daily life in the west.
I find your plea a dangerous one, dr.Chesler, all the more because mrs.Ali has proven herself to handle truth most loosely, in her hand it is a commodity that can be sold quickly on a profitable occasion. That she speaks out against religious infirmities is laudable but that doesnot make her a heroine. And if you look for realtime heroines: go to Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and address the women shielded from their personal dignity without a voice, that suffer from ignorant males.
That feminists do not speak out against this state of affairs is regrettable. These women are merely showing that it is a private interest they have at heart, some personal goal and good. Words will not heal this disease, but knowledge will; and empowerment of women in general. Let us do this without the meaninglessness or the type of economic banditry that has made the new Russia susceptible to tyranny which is republic, but shares a feudal burden.
We must oppose tyranny and establish liberty wherever and whenever possible.
To do this we must maintain that men have certain unalienable rights and that they have to subjugate to truth, to a republican-styled order and an independent judicial system if they wish to subsist. Who does enjoy these rights? When and where? Is truth simply truth because she writes it is, or mrs. Hirsi Ali maintains so? Is it so? Is that the basis for Dr.Chesler's argument? If os, then it is a very meagre and one. Yes, her reckless worship of Mrs.Ali may be founded on slippery soil.
And I will even say that dr.Cheseler is not a fair debater. She embraces at least one evil insinuation in her article. She suggests that mrs. Ayaan Hirsi Ali is right, and the Dutch are wrong because they have, she says, 'betrayed its Jewish citizens during the Holocaust'. This is a most wicked accusation. Not because it is factual untrue, but Dr.Chesler constructs from this genuine historical truth a fallacy and perverts the nature of responsibility, the true justice upheld in our courts, that man is free to choose and the individual solely responsible on the grounds of personal guilt. Dr.Chesler uses the rhetorical argument ad populum, in plain terms demagogy; she even adds a hearty touch of foreign politics in her piece. She writes that Hirsi Ali 'enters America at a moment when American Israel Public Affairs Committee officials are on trial and the Pentagon has begun to strip security clearances from government employees who hold dual Israeli and American citizenship or whose relatives live in Israel.' What has that do with mrs. Ali's personal lies?
And finally dr.Chesler appends the thought, from Robert Spencer, that "Holland would rather become a Sharia state than have to put up with someone who is trying to stop that from happening."
From what fountain of infinite wisdom, I asked myself, came this beaker with our hemlock? Am I, a plain Dutchman, willing to surrender myself to some form of fundamentalist rule? I am not, and many feel the same way. Islam is under fire. As a result of negative reports, travels to Turkey have nearly halved this year. The solution proposed, some tell us now, is simple, we are told, to remedy this drought organize playboy parties and miss elections.
In the face of religious aplomb and the psychological poise that Providence affords men, secular modernity shows its helpless face.
But dr.Chesler can retort?
Who can not these days? You need not speak Dutch to tell your mind, study interviews in Danish and German media, it suffices to believe that mrs.Ali is a victim and her ideology a genuine philosophy.
Well perhaps if you are living in high rise city apartments, and enjoy the comforts of suburban surroundings with its immaculately mowed lawns, its city cruisers and convertibles on driveways, if you live that precious life far away from the more hurtful reality of immigrant quarters, that low misery of streetlife with thugs roaming around, filth everywhere, chaos in the hearts and minds of the people, all order engulfed by total meaninglessness. And in this emptiness religionists dare to promise healing, at the price of violent and impatient methods.
I think, Dr. Chesler can safely write and reason her noble cause. But when it comes to experiencing the other, to encounter a human as a unique individual who has been endowed with certain rights and liberties, it needs more than simple accusations, and haphazard reasoning to cure our world from the diseases and iniquities we must suffer and endure. But, let us for a single moment assume that man was created equal and possesses certain unalienable rights, that man is endowed with liberties and may pursue his own happiness even if he is not of the ruling majority. Let us assume that. Now, the fathers of the Constitution reasoned that the individual may only stand safe and maintain his freedom if he is willing to accept variety. Otherness is not merely a given factor but a requirement of democracy, they said. They furthermore concluded that government may curb all religious practices if they are harmful to the rights and liberties of the individual. Is this wisdom not the best wisdom, a safeguard in itself, a royal way to ungo the establishment of an islamic state in the old or the new world? Government only needs to the courage to curb practices. Would this not allay all fears? Mrs. Ali however wants to curb religion in general and faith in particular. Is that then the road ahead? Mrs. Ali has thrown her backpack on the Pim Fortuyn train and combines good intentions with carefully calculated risks. This may sound unfair, but it is not. N0, I am afraid it is not. Anyone who is able to understand other languages can establish that mrs.Ali is a shallow thinker. She feeds the debate with rhetorical postures and is marketing a form of self-worship that is dangerous to the veracity of the debate, and the quality of our arguments. And this while the future of our community at large is at stake.
This debate should be about the role of religion in a free society and the just curbing of religious practices, through laws and the courts, and through foreign policies, so we can maintain liberty. This is the duty Providence assigned to the American republican experiment—that the USA will endure, as long as her order is based upon reasoned laws and the genuine will of people who, under the patronage of its constitution, can only maintain the balance when there is a variety of more or less conflicting opinions and a number of certainties, like f.e. it is the state that will serve justice and not religious communities. Only then, and only then will the USA, this experiment in the arts of freedom, endure the ages. Mrs. Ali is a footnote in that debate, and not the heroine. The true subject of this debate must be the Constitution, the role of the government and the courts in curbing certain undesirable practices.
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This item is available on the Militant Islam Monitor website, at http://www.militantislammonitor.org/article/id/1914