There is a tendency in The Netherlands and in the USA to look at Hirsi Ayaan Ali and her courageous fight against Islam and to come to the conclusion that she is a valuable part of The Netherlands and of The West.
This is incorrect. And Laurence Auster's View From the Right has the story.
The gist of it is, is that Hirsi Ayaan Ali is highly hostile to Western people and that she sees Western people only as an instrument to reform Islam. But Westerners who want to stop the threat of Islam to our societies find Hirsi Ayaan Ali on their path. She supported an action by a Dutch law court against the SGP, an extremely conservative Calvinist Party, because of their stance on women being unequal to men. This is the biblical view and has supported Western civilisation for 1,800 years! She recently advised the Belgian government to ban the anti-immigration party Vlaams Belang, due to their traditional attitudes. Vlaams Belang wants to stop immigrations, defends the rights of Flemish people, both their individual and their collective rights, has traditional views on marriage and family. This is anathema to Ayaan, she indirectly compared Vlaams Belang to genocidal Nazism by stating that their values lead to mass murder. Laurence Auster concludes:
"Thus Ali, the Muslim who has supposedly turned against her own religion, now wants to outlaw a European political party for being “Islamophobic.” The lesson is that in seeking to solve the Muslim problem we cannot depend on Muslims, whether they are “moderates” or “apostates” or whatever; we must depend on ourselves."
To which I add the following observation of secularists from Islamic countries. Often these people like what they see in the West, but they do not understand the West. They like the outcomes of the West, but not the values. This is how Turkish elitist love their secular Turkish state and at the same time support the surpression of the Turkish people because they are often radical Muslims.
Same with Afghanis who belong to the elite. They want freedom for their women and freedom to play music, drink alcohol and disregard the strictures of Islam. But because the population of Afghanistan is so traditionalistic and consists of pious Muslims they support the Communist Party. Communism surpresses tradition whether it is Orthodox Christianity in Russia or Sunni Islam and clannism in Afghanistan.
Conservatism does not support the surpression of the people. Conservatism believes in Limited Government, Low Taxes, Property Rights, Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Religion, Freedom of Association, Marriage, The Right to bear Arms and maintanance of the Customs, Habits and Culture of the people to guarantuee these Freedoms. There is no point in establishing Tyranny to bring Freedom.
Ayaan and many so-called Liberals want to ursurp the rights of the people in order to liberate them. This is not Freedom. This must be opposed. This was tried in Russia and it was called Socialism. Ayaan and her Leftist and Liberal friends are trying to repeat the failure of Socialism. They see Statist Multiculturalism for the failure that it is and try to repeat it with Statist Secularism or "Ayaanism". It is not going to work.
VERZET is het devies. RESISTANCE should be our banner.
4 comments:
I think you're are a bit out of perspective on this one. Why attack so harshly a person who is one of the few critical voices about Islam in the Netherlands? All because she is not a conservative? As if her opponents are not a far greater danger to the conservative ideals.
She is indeed not a voice for smaller government, just like nearly all Dutch politicians. But she can hardly be seen as the big promoter of big government, I would say she just proposes to use the big government tools, just like all the other Dutch politicians constantly do, but unlike other politicians she wants to use it to stop the islamitization of the Netherlands.
But who can blame her for being attracted to the West, a West she only got to know after her youth years during her study in the Netherlands. She liked the freedom and the much better position of the woman. Big government Europe was such a big contrast with the Islamic world she knew. She sees correctly that this system is much better than the Islamic one. Unfortunately, this love also makes her blind for the fundamental failing in our own Western societies especially the European. But who can blame her for that?
I think Ayaan is a very positive contributor to the debat, but she is not the new messiah who should be followed blindly (as btw nobody should)
BTW
See my Dutch language blog: http://leestafel.blogspot.com/ for conservative book reviews.
I like Ayaan’s often crystal clear responses and I have respect for her courage, but I have to agree with Snouck that she lacks a deep understanding of the Judeo Christian roots of Holland and how they are part of ‘conservative liberalism’ in Holland.
Her attack on 'Vlaams Belang' and her proposal to ban the party comes a bit as a shock, 'Vlaams Belang' being one of the parties opposing the danger of Islam. It makes me wonder where her liberalism comes from: a deep-rooted aversion to anything remotely connected with religion or religious values? So, in Ayaan’s ideal world, IF the tide of the upsurging Islam could be turned around we would be facing a government that is basically anti-religious so that Christians become state enemy no.1 because their values do not fit into the totalitarian secular mould?
All too often she throws Christianity in the same basket as Islam, and that is not only unjust towards Christians who made significant contributions to Dutch society, but it also shows a lack of understanding on her part of the foundation upon which Holland has been built. She may be an important force to dam the tide of the aggressive Islam, but at the same time through her lack of understanding she can be destructive not only to Judeo Christian foundation of Holland, but also to the Western idea of freedom when her aversion of anything reeking of religion leads her into leftist totalitarian territory of ‘state imposed secularism’ as Snouck puts it.
I hate to say but "I told you so".
No, in good faith. I still believe that Ali and her ilk go one step further.
What they really want is for the West to save themselves (Ali and her ilk) from themselves.
Ali has never denounced her Muslim faith fully. She only comes out as a strong reformist, not atheist which is what she should be if we were to follow her superficial words to their logical endd. But she can’t do it on her own, so…
As Auster has indirectly pointed out, I think she (subconsciously) opposed Vlaams Belang partly because of their anti-Muslim stance.
She is Muslim, through and through. I noticed this in her cryptic remarkds during her interviews and in her writings. I have a feeling she will end up like Irshad Manji, a Muslim apologist to meet her own agendas.
I think this is a typical Somali trait, if you don’t mind me pointing out. A rather aggressive and vocal, but not well thought out, maneuver to be the center of things.
With all her Muslim and feminist rhetoric, I've never really heard her say whether she loves her adopted country or not. Her mind is somewhere completely different.
All the best...
Thank you for this post, as I find news and opinion pieces from the Netherlands rather hard to finjd in English and miss half of what is said in Dutch. This is an insight into a side of Ali that I was unaware of. We miss so many of the finer points in the US. Only by learning Dutch and trying to keep up with news there in any way possible do I get along at all! And, as you can see from my Username and my site posts, I am a bit obsessed with so many things Dutch.
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