Ayaan Hirsi Ali was in my backyard this week, and would to the gods I had been able to get away and see her. She's been making the rounds of East Coast America's establishment, including NPR and PEN, where Ron Chernow confirmed my bad opinion of him, carried over from his puzzlingly popular Alexander Hamilton book, by giving her an introduction that was more an apology than an endorsement.
It would be enormously enjoyable to see her visit places like Atlanta and Birmingham on her American tour, where she'd shake up minds and hearts in a different fashion and no doubt get a warm and heroic reception. But she is going deliberately into the fetid dragon's dens of modern leftism, with a message meant to unsettle sleeping reptiles and prod them into thought.
“My criticism of the West, especially of liberals, is that they do take freedom for granted,” Ms. Ali responded. She noted that Western Europeans born after World War II are unused to conflict. “They have lost the instinct to recognize that there can be such a thing as an enemy or a threat to freedom, and that’s what I’m witnessing in Europe now,” she stated. “[There is] a pacifist ideology that violence should never be used in any circumstances, and so we should talk and talk and talk. Even when your opponent tells you, ‘I don’t want to talk to you, I want to destroy you,’ the reaction is, ‘Please, let’s talk about the fact that you want to destroy me!’ ”
Bull's-eye. But I can write that all day (provided I could be that articulate) and it never would escape the echo chamber. Because my Sioux name is Middle-Aged White American Son of Privilege.
She can say things and they'll have to listen. She's a woman. She's an African. She's educated and articulate. She's a member of the "Liberal Party." She's not a Christian. Though she doesn't present herself as such, she's a victim (she was genitally mutilated, for chrissakes, and her close friend was murdered by religious fundamentalists). If she can feign lesbianism and avoid red meat, she'll have batted for the cycle, liberal style.
I don't mean to imply this is solely a left-side deafness. When I drove past anti-Iraq war and anti-Bush rallies around here, I saw the lean straggle of crusty, bitter old college professor hippies in jeans and T-shirts walking from their expensive cars with the "No Blood for Oil" bumper stickers, and I saw patchouli-reeking drum circles. And I thought, "can't you please make the minimal effort involved in avoiding the exact stereotype? Nobody in this county is going to pay any attention to you, whether you're right or wrong. They're going to dismiss you on sight. They'll never even bother to read your signs."
In my head I wrote a business plan for a service that would hire out protesters that would go against type and thus catch people's eyes. Can you imagine the impact of an anti-Bush rally populated by young buff men in NASCAR T-shirts and stylish businesswomen?
[Judith was there, too, by the way]
* * *
Of course, for her bravery, Hirsi Ali has been rewarded by the Eurocrats by being evicted from her home because the neighbors are afraid to live next to someone who makes waves.
I remember the aftershock week that followed Sept. 11. The attacks cracked through America's shell and some of what oozed out was darkly ugly. My girlfriend at the time lived in Birmingham, and one of her best friends was a pretty Persian girl, identifiably Middle Eastern on sight. Nobody knew what was happening, or what was going to happen next. There were stories of physical attacks on anyone who looked vaguely Islamic; there were fears of how law enforcement would react.
But her neighbors rallied to her, and every time that girl left the house, for an errand, for her job, for anything, someone went with her. Just in case. There were stories like that everywhere. People who had never been inside a mosque turned out to stand guard over one, just in case. Those of us with Middle Eastern neighbors kept an eye on them, always asked how they were doing, if they needed anything. Just in case.
I don't think we're better than the average European. But I do think we're different. How could we not be? We and they are the same people, as recently as 300 years back. We and they segregated ourselves voluntarily. Those who took religion seriously, those who were greedy and ambitious, those who felt the stirring of individual spirit stronger than the urge to stay safe in the herd -- they came here. At tremendous risk, they plowed tinderbox boats over a month of ocean. They survived here, in the bear-haunted forest, by keeping an eye on each other. They're our grandfathers and grandmothers.
Those who were content, or unwilling to take risks, stayed home. Modern European history has many heroes, brave men and women. But they are, on the whole, exceptions. The mass of Europeans kept their heads down and hoed their own rows. When the knock on the door came in the middle of the night at their neighbors' houses in 1942, they closed their eyes tighter and pulled the covers around themselves tighter and pretended to sleep.
That's the difference between Germany and the Netherlands, on the one hand, and America, whose root stock is strong in those lands.
"In my head I wrote a business plan for a service that would hire out protesters that would go against type and thus catch people's eyes. Can you imagine the impact of an anti-Bush rally populated by young buff men in NASCAR T-shirts and stylish businesswomen?"
That's kind of what Protest Warrior does, although they have been moribund of late.
Thanks for mentioning me. I still can't find my notes, and I would love to find a podcast or transcript. PEN has some up from last year, so maybe they will be posted eventually.
Bravo. Very well said.
This is precisely the reaction that cannot be repeated. The Blogosphere (h/t Bill Quick) can not let this happen.
As our voices grow, I pray that our combined wisdom keep people informed of both the score and what is at stake in this global game.
I remember two small moments after 9/11 morning with shining clarity.
One was at an Oakland gas station, where a middle aged black woman and I exchanged Need anything? We're in this together glances without even being fully conscious of it. Then we both glanced over at the of-middle-eastern-extraction station manager and walked over to greet him as our cars' tanks filled. Not some big deal. Just a "know your neighbor" moment... in a heightened-tension atmosphere.
Two days later, I was at a neighborhood convenience store that's run by Sikhs. The turbaned fellow behind the counter noticed I was carrying some American flag stickers I'd just bought down the street. He shyly asked me if he could buy one from me. I said "No way!" as I handed him two. We both knew why he wanted them. For both reasons, I gave them to him.
And I spent the next few minutes talking to him, letting him know I knew a little about the Khalsas, and that I was sure it was a proud thing to be a Sikh.
Again, not exactly earth-shaking. Just neighborly, is all. And I made sure to shop there every day for the next month.
Actually, the Netherlands did quite well during the "knocks on the door" period and showed a lot of civic courage. A hell of a lot, actually.
As for the war phase, they were up against a vastly superior enemy that outmanoevered the allied expeditionary force, drove them out, then crushed the Dutch. Until the mid-1950s, all you had to say was "Rotterdam" and people knew what you were talking about - it was a template for the terror-bombing of cities. No shame there.
Watching what they've fallen to is sad on so very many levels.
(The French, on the other hand, who had more tanks than the Germans did... not so proud - not before, not during, not after. And of course France's Left played a major role in helping the Nazis, with acts that extended all the way to physical sabotage during the conflict phase.)
The Netherlands went to both extremes, Joe. They had a very effective resistance but also supplied a large number of recruits to the SS.
The Dutch possesed 1 squadron of fighters that were outdated in the severest. The Bombing of Holland, broke the governments back and they capitulated within 5 days. There was no shame in saving those not killed already by the bombings. The strong young men who were able and lucky enough fled to England and were prominent in Dutch only brigades and air squadrons. The Dutch merchant navy played important roles in the supply lines to Russia. Those who were left behind (men) were drafted into the German army, where many would end up in the SS (much against popular belief) not a voluntary force. It's the SS officers that were the real evil in that force.
There were indeed a handfull of Dutch people that sided with the Germans, but few in numbers indeed.
Even to this date, there is still a strong feelings against the German population in Holland, and though they are renowned to be liberal, can get very verbal when Germans are discussed.
Now onto the eviction of Miss Ali;
She was evicted from a very busy apartment block in a very wealthy area of The Hague. Majority of the residents will have been alive during the WWII, and by no means can these people be labeled as cowards. After she made the news in Holland with her views and speeches, she was moved to an army barracks in Holland with round the clock security for her own protection. Not a bad idea, if you consider the large population of muslims, and the death-threats that had been made to her.
She was very unhappy there however (as you can imagine, being alone in an old army barrack) and asked to move to The Hague (close to parliament). The Dutch goverment, without consulting the neighbours moved her into the apartment in question. With that came a twenty fold number undercover security personnel, who in doing their difficult job, made regular checks and regularly set up road blocks. Residents have championed Hrisi for her outspoken views, but have not appreciated the loss of freedom in their own property (several people have been unable to enter their own apartment overnight due to security concerns.
Miss Ali deserves her recognition and credit for talking out against much of the negative aspects of her own religion. Very few of her neighbours argue that (if any). It's never as good when it happens on your own doorstep.
I personally wouldn't have reacted in that way (although if the police stopped me from going into my own house, I'd be pretty annoyed about it), and it seems most of you here writing negatively about the Dutch would either. But being liberal, doesn't that mean we should also consider the other side's point ?