Where are the feminists?

[Henk Elegeert]

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http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=ZDIyZWFmMWFlMWMwYmY0ODZlMDRlYzllMTdjMmQ4MmU
Phyllis Chesler on Aayan Hirsi Ali on National Review Online

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May 19, 2006, 6:42 a.m.
Priorities Out of Order
Where are the feminists?

By Phyllis Chesler

The Dutch people 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. Bat Yeor, the author of Eurabia: The Euro-Arab Axis,
tells me that this confirms “how low Europe has sunk. Instead of being
grateful to Hirsi Ali, she is banned.” Robert Spencer, author of The
Politically Incorrect Guide To Islam, assures me that “Holland would
rather become a Sharia state than have to put up with someone who is
trying to stop that from happening.” To be fair, Holland has recently
strengthened its immigration policies in ways that Muslims claim are
“offensive” and “discriminatory.” Would-be immigrants will now have to
pay 350 euros ($430) to take a “civic integration examination,” must
already speak Dutch, and must indicate a willingness to live in a
country in which nude beaches and homosexual marriage are legal.


This represents a late-in-the-day, but serious, effort to control
immigration. But Holland has also just sacrificed and exiled their most
important prophet. Theo von Gogh, Hirsi Ali’s collaborator on the film
Submission, was murdered by a second-generation Dutchman of Moroccan
origin. Since then, Hirsi Ali has lived under 24-hour guard. Her Dutch
neighbors did not want to live near such a high security risk (which
also lowered their property values) and brought a lawsuit to have her
evicted. On April 27, they succeeded. Then, a documentary aired in
Holland which alleged that Hirsi Ali had “lied” in order to be granted
political asylum and Dutch citizenship. Former Immigration Minister
Hilbrand Nawijn called for Hirsi Ali to be “stripped of her Dutch
nationality and deported.” Nawijn was head of Immigration and
Naturalization Service when Hirsi Ali applied for asylum. Hirsi Ali’s
own family provided “evidence” against her in the film. According to the
Wall Street Journal, on May 15, Holland’s current immigration minister,
told Hirsi Ali that “her passport, granted in 1997, would be annulled.”


Like Oriana Fallaci, who dares not travel to her beloved native Italy or
to Switzerland lest she be arrested and tried for her views about Islam,
Hirsi Ali will now also be living in exile in America—the last, and
perhaps only, bunker against jihad. Will she be granted political asylum
in America? And if so, on what grounds?


The American Enterprise Institute (AEI) has offered Hirsi Ali a
position. Karlyn Bowman of AEI tells me that “President Christopher
DeMuth extended the offer to her on May 16 to become a resident
scholar.” Ali had visited AEI last year and spoke to a small group, who
were “impressed by her extraordinary odyssey and by her courage, charmed
by her easy manner, and also impressed by the scholarly projects she
wants to pursue.”


So, one of the world’s leading feminists has been offered a safe perch
by a conservative think tank. I am not surprised. My own views about
Islamic gender- and religious-apartheid have been received warmly and
respectfully by conservatives, while such views have been attacked by
many feminists as ”white nationalist” and ”racist.” To the best of my
knowledge, the American feminist movement, with its vast access to
university positions, has not offered Hirsi Ali a perch. Perhaps
multi-culturally correct feminists are ambivalent about challenging
Islamist misogyny—lest they too be censured as “racists” or threatened
with death. Indeed, as I document in my book The Death of Feminism:
What’s Next in the Struggle for Women’s Freedom, among most feminists,
race trumps gender. Many feminists are now more concerned with the
alleged “occupation” of Palestine than with the occupation of women’s
bodies under Islam, and they tend to blame America and Israel for the
sins of Islam.


America’s Nation magazine presented a critique of Hirsi Ali (who is a
black African and former Muslim) as a “reactionary” who “puts all the
blame on Islam” instead of blaming “patriarchal customs” and for failing
to focus on the “role the West has played... in assisting the rise of
the Islamist movements.” On the other hand, according to NOW President
Kim Gandy, “Hirsi Ali forced the treatment of immigrant women into the
public arena in the Netherlands—and she suffered for it. Perhaps her
outspoken advocacy will push the issue into the U.S. consciousness as well.”


However, female whistle-blowers constitute a psychological challenge for
many women. They defy the unspoken rules of female behavior.
Whistle-blowers are neither conformists nor passive. They do not aim to
please or appease those whose criminal misdeeds they expose. Female
whistle-blowers are not ”indirectly aggressive.” Hirsi Ali is not
slandering or shunning other women—the approved outlet for female
aggression and competition. She is directly and publicly challenging
corrupt male authority on behalf of women. Less courageous women,
including feminists, may not identify with or feel compassion for her.
In addition, women often find it hard to support a woman who enjoys more
public attention than they themselves do.


Will Hirsi Ali find the support she deserves in America? I certainly
hope so, but I am not overly optimistic. The Islamization of America is
also well under way. The process is not the same as in Europe. Despite
the myth of an all-powerful Zionist lobby, Islamists and their Western
supporters have an increasing influence on American campuses and, to a
large extent, the mainstream media. Here, Islamist hate speech and Big
Lies are often protected as free speech and as worthy of academic
freedom. Whereas in Europe, many stood in solidarity with the Danish
cartoonsists and reprinted their work widely, the cartoons did not
appear in the American mainstream media.


Hirsi Ali has increasingly referred to the Dutch betrayal of its Jewish
citizens during the Holocaust—but she 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.


Like Fallaci, Hirsi Ali has argued that, if Europe does not stand up to
Islamists, European civilization is doomed. She says: “Radical Islam is
not just against me. It’s against [my Dutch neighbors] too. By having me
evicted, the terrorists have won. It makes the situation more dangerous
for everyone.”


She is right. God help America if we are not able to protect her and all
other such truth-tellers.


—Phyllis Chesler PhD is an emerita professor of psychology and women’s
studies and the author of 13 books including Woman’s Inhumanity to Woman
and The New Anti-Semitism. Her forthcoming book is titled The
Islamization of America. She may be reached through her website
www.phyllis-chesler.com.
"

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