Hirsigate: President American Enterprise Institute schrijft essay over AHA

[Dr. Marc-Alexander Fluks]

REPLY TO: D66 at nic.surfnet.nl

[Terwijl AHA zojuist op de radio het muziekstuk niet herkende dat ze zelf had
 uitgezocht omdat ze het zo prachtig vond, vond ik dit essay van een nieuwe
 AHA-gelovige... haar baas.]


Bron:   American Enterprise Institute
Datum:  24 juli 2006
Auteur: Christopher DeMuth (president van de AEI en de nieuwe werkgever van AHA)
URL:    http://www.aei.org/publications/pubID.24696/pub_detail.asp


Some Transatlantic Challenges
-----------------------------

(...)

The Case of Ayaan Hirsi Ali

More ominously, we may have embarked on an era where liberal principles and
achievements are undermining themselves. That potential was on display in the
Netherlands this spring in the case of Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a Somali-born Dutch
citizen of conspicuous intellect and courage. She had immigrated to Holland
fourteen years ago, obtained asylum status, and energetically assimilated into
Dutch society - learning the language, taking a variety of jobs, attending
university, and eventually entering politics. But her views, especially on
Muslim doctrine and women's rights, were highly controversial (she is a lapsed
Muslim and had arrived in Holland in flight from an arranged in absentia
marriage to a little-known distant relative). Following the murder of a
colleague and repeated death threats to herself, she was provided an armed
guard and secured residence. Public opinion, fearful of her provocative views
and activities and inflamed by outlandish news reports organized by her
political opponents, began to turn against her.

In April, a Dutch court evicted Ms. Hirsi Ali from her apartment in response
to a lawsuit filed by her neighbors. The court found that her presence violated
her neighbors' right to 'feel safe' in their homes - a right guaranteed by the
European Convention on Human Rights. That judgment was legitimate as a legal
matter and monstrous as an ethical matter. The convention is enforceable in
Dutch courts and provides that '[e]veryone has the right to respect for his
private and family life, his home and his correspondence.' But the decision
meant that every Dutchman (and by implication every European) has a right to
Ms. Hirsi Ali's absence from his neighborhood.[1]

That meaning - national banishment - was then effectively affirmed, in early
May, when the Dutch immigration minister, relying on false statements in Ms.
Hirsi Ali's 1992 asylum application, revoked her citizenship outright. That
decision, too, was both lawful and monstrous. The falsehoods on her application
- she had used a grandfather's last name rather than her father's, and had
claimed to have arrived straight from Somalia rather than via Kenya and Germany
- did not require the decision but were legally sufficient for the minister's
exercise of discretion. But the falsehoods were minor, aged, and necessary to a
young girl's escape from intolerable and probably dangerous circumstances; they
had been common knowledge in Holland for several years (Ms. Hirsi Ali announced
them herself in 2002) and known all along to the immigration minister; and they
were similar to the expedients that many thousands of Dutch immigrants have used
to obtain citizenship without subsequent threat of revocation.


Modern and Primitive Forces in Politics

What is horrendous about the Hirsi Ali case is that a modern, liberal society
(indeed a proudly 'tolerant' one) should single out a law-abiding citizen and
political leader for national exile, essentially on grounds of convenience -
and that such a primitive deed should be accomplished by thoroughly lawful,
democratic procedures (indeed in the name of 'human rights'). The modern
sovereign, public opinion, declared, 'Will no one rid us of this turbulent
woman' - and its courtiers took the hint and dutifully complied, using the
modern means at their disposal.

The Hirsi Ali case is a striking instance of the conjunction of the modern and
the primitive in contemporary politics - coming not only in violent form from
within primitive cultures (videotaped beheadings, cellphones used to synchronize
suicide bombings), but in genteel form from within modern ones. Prosperous
nations are finding it necessary to erect physical walls at their borders, and
within them the walled town is reappearing. Yahoo! Inc., the libertarian-minded
U.S. Internet firm, which a decade ago declared itself immune to the parochial
concerns of the nation-state, today collaborates with the political police of
the People's Republic of China in tracking and jailing dissidents. We are
witnessing the reemergence of an old paradox in modern, high-tech form: that
liberal politics depends for its success on cultural norms and social
institutions that liberalism itself distains when it notices them at all.

There are many people in the United States and in Europe who are optimistic
about the future, confident that liberal civilization will recover its equipoise
and surmount the insidious challenges it is facing. Institutions such as AEI
and the Fundación para el Análisis y Estudios Sociales (FAES) are repositories
of that optimism and will need to be good Atlanticists working together on that
common cause.


Afterword

The Dutch government reinstated Ayaan Hirsi Ali's citizenship on June 26 in
response to widespread criticism of its earlier decision. Then, on June 29, the
government itself fell when a coalition party withdrew its support in protest
over the earlier decision. In the meantime, Ms. Hirsi Ali had accepted an
appointment from the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, D.C.; she will
begin work as a resident fellow at AEI in September.

--------
(c) 2006 American Enterprise Institute

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