"Hirsi Ali the first political refugee from Western Europe since the Holocaust."
I'm afraid that is not quite true.
But some of the other refugees from Europe that would have more right to that title America has dealt with in a way the perpetrators of the holocaust would have applauded.
I'm talking about Ernst Z??ndel and Germar Rudolf, who were cowardly handed over to their persecutors. In Zundels case this was admittedly done by breaking the law. After having been illegally deported to Canada Ernst Z??ndel was then delivered into the hands of the German oppressors, as the first and only person to be extradited using the canadian 9/11 anti terrorist provisions, that were scrapped right after.
The dealings described above were influenced by lobbyists from the same part of the political spectrum that now supports Ayaan Hirsi Ali.
If we have to make analogies to the Holocaust, we would do good to remember that those refugees from Western Europe who fled to America were persecuted by a government.
Just like Ernst Z??ndel, Germar Rudolf, Jurgen Graf and the others intellectual dissidents who are hiding around the world.
Hirsi Ali is not persecuted by a government. She is the victim of persecution by deluded individuals, criminals, religious fanatics.
Ernst Z??ndel and Germar Rudolf are persecuted, like Ayaan Hirsi Ali solely for their opinions.
But they were cowardly handed over to their tormentors, under pressure from the same lobby that is so interested in the well being of Ayaan Hirsi Ali.
Some times the truth is not so pretty, and sometimes those who claim the moral high ground, are not so moral and righteous as they would like to appear to the world.
Bankrolling Ali’s Asylum
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Ayaan Hirsi Ali stands at the nexus of forces shaping the 21st century—and it's a very dangerous place to be. The Somali-born author, who repudiated traditional Islam in her best-selling memoir, "Infidel," fled her adopted Netherlands for America this year in the face of threats from radical Muslims, thereby becoming, as Salman Rushdie and Sam Harris wrote in the Los Angeles Times, the first political refugee from Western Europe since the Holocaust. She also lost her Dutch bodyguards. Now Harris, author of "The End of Faith," is raising money to (putting it bluntly) keep Ali alive. It's an issue that unites Harris with evangelist Rick Warren, who offered to help after Harris e-mailed him. (The two debated religion in NEWSWEEK this year.) "Rick," Harris jokes, "may yet convince me that Christians are more moral and socially engaged than atheists."
It's a matter of life and death to Ali, who has needed protection since Theo van Gogh—her collaborator on a documentary about the repression of women under Islam—was murdered in 2004. Reached in Paris last week, Ali said she was "deeply grateful" to Harris and others who have come to her defense. (The cost of her protection is secret, but it's believed to exceed $2 million a year.) She's working on a new book, "Shortcut to Enlightenment," in which the Prophet Muhammad comes back to tour New York City and debate modern (although dead) philosophers John Stuart Mill and Friedrich von Hayek—not a subject likely to calm Islamist anger. She awaits the day, she says, "when there are no longer people who believe they can get to heaven by killing me"—or when her dissent from Islam has gathered enough adherents "that it won't pay to kill one or two of us." Until then, says Harris, those who believe in freedom of thought have an obligation to try to keep her alive.
© 2007
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