Tel-Chai Nation

Here's the first official report on Hot Air. It's not really a good thing though, because, aside from the fact that local Islamofascists have welcomed her departure and are saying "good riddance", Europe is losing a very good freedom fighter.

She's not leaving without problems, though. The foreign minister, Rita Verdonk, threatened to rescind her citizenship, as Hirsi Ali notes her official press statement:

I am completely certain that I have, in my own way, succeeded in contributing to the debate. Issues related to Islam - such as impediments to free speech; refusal of the separation of Church and State; widespread domestic violence; honor killings; the repudiation of wives; and Islam’s failure to condemn genital mutilation — these subjects can no longer be swept under the carpet in our country’s capital. Some of the measures that this government has begun taking give me satisfaction. Many illusions of how easy it will be to establish a multicultural society have disappeared forever. We are now more realistic and more open in this debate, and I am proud to have contributed to that process…

[M]ay I say that it is difficult to live with so many threats on your life and such a level of police protection. It is difficult to work as a parliamentarian if you have nowhere to live. All that is difficult, but not impossible. It has become impossible since last night, when Minister Verdonk informed me that she would strip me of my Dutch citizenship.

I am therefore preparing to leave Holland. But the questions for our society remain. The future of Islam in our country; the subjugation of women in Islamic culture; the integration of the many Muslims in the West: it is self-deceit to imagine that these issues will disappear.

It's a good thing that Verdonk's actions have backfired on her, and now, the Dutch parliament's voted against Verdonk's initial actions (also via Hot Air). But what's really appalling is to find that the Dutch population may have betrayed her. The Wall Street Journal (registration may be required) had this report, and it's horrors galore:

THE HAGUE -- Dutch politician Ayaan Hirsi Ali has been threatened repeatedly with "execution" by Islamist extremists. She lives in an apartment with bulletproof windows, and is driven to work at the Dutch Parliament by armed guards, who vary the route to outfox would-be hit men.

But an unexpected menace emerged closer to home: her own neighbors. They have fought to evict her, complaining that the presence of a well-known terrorist target in their luxury apartment tower in this Dutch city has upset their family lives and reduced the value of their property.

"Once this lady leaves, the problem is no longer there," says Ger Verhagen, a retired executive who owns a place two floors above the hunted politician. He says he has nothing personal against Ms. Hirsi Ali. But along with other residents, he wants to banish the fears stirred by the proximity of Holland's most acid -- and most frequently threatened -- critic of Islam.

Yesterday, Ms. Hirsi Ali's neighbor got his wish. Three weeks after a Dutch court ordered her out of the building in response to complaints from Mr. Verhagen and other residents, she resigned from Parliament and said she would leave Holland altogether. Her decision follows a cascade of problems: angry neighbors, a government threat to revoke her citizenship and, more generally, growing public disenchantment with her denunciations of both radical Islam and more conventional Muslim doctrines.

The travails of Ms. Hirsi Ali, 36 years old, raise questions about how Europe, seeking calm rather than confrontation, is grappling with the challenges posed by Islamic extremism in its midst. Born in Somalia and raised in Saudi Arabia, Ethiopia and Kenya, Ms. Hirsi Ali says the attitude of her neighbors smacks of World War II-style "appeasement." Others say they sympathize with her predicament but fault her for polarizing society with her attacks on Islamic custom as backward and incompatible with Western values.

I know that in France, where there's many more Muslims, many people have begun to wake up, and are rightfully angry. But in Holland, it looks like Britain, plagued with prejudice as they are, may have found a Little Brother to their Big Brother. And to make matters worse:

On state television last week, a satirical talk-show host joked about it, asking a guest -- the Dutch lawyer of an Islamist militant who killed filmmaker Theo van Gogh in 2004 -- whether Ms. Hirsi Ali would be safest living in a mosque, at Guantanamo Bay or "six feet under in a garden." The audience roared with laughter.

Shudder. I once went to Holland, and now, I'm not sure I'll want to go there again anytime soon. As Hirsi Ali says here:

Ms. Hirsi Ali, who gave a speech in Berlin earlier this year entitled "The Right to Offend," lamented her eviction as a triumph of self-interest over solidarity. In a trademark flash of provocation, she says it could even shed light on the debate "over what people did during the Second World War." She says caustically: "My neighbors seem to confirm the critical view that very few Dutch people were brave enough" during the Nazi occupation.

Sadly, that's something I've wondered too.

Many Europeans initially rallied to President George W. Bush's "with-us-or-against-us" approach to combating extremism after the bombings in Madrid in early 2004 and the subsequent murder in Amsterdam of Mr. van Gogh, the filmmaker. Since then, however, this united front has narrowed in many parts of Europe to a populist battle against immigration. Some now see Islamist violence and the ideology that fuels it as a threat that can be tamed, or at least kept at a distance, by avoiding provocation.

Smells just like Britain, yes siree. And now, here's one part that really needs a note:

During a slow afternoon stroll outside Ms. Hirsi Ali’s building, [Dick van Tetterode] reflected on her predicament and on his own flight from the Nazis during World War II. A student at the time, he spent two years hiding on a Dutch farm. Two of the three people he credits with saving his life were killed by the Germans. Struggling to hold back tears, he says he regrets never thanking their children properly for their fathers’ bravery.

But Ms. Hirsi Ali’s case is different, he says. He admires her conviction, he says, but thinks her rage at Islam belongs in the Middle East and Africa, not the Netherlands. “This is not our fight,” he says.

Orwellianism at its most classic.

Labels: Europe, islam, Netherlands