A Brief Aside

I'm in the middle of writing my next dispatch, but I want to quickly weigh in on a Dutch debate that has far-reaching effects. Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende publically announced last week that Ayaan Hirsi Ali's security funding would be cut off on the grounds that she had obtained her permit for permanent residency in the United States--which she worked towards because she was essentially booted out of The Netherlands a year ago.

This is a polarizing issue for Dutch citizens, and the issue will be up for a parliamentary debate and vote this week. A few of the more exceptional op-eds I've read:

Sam Harris and Salman Rushdie in the Los Angeles Times (who also give a good summary for those unaware of Hirsi Ali's past):

Hirsi Ali may be the first refugee from Western Europe since the Holocaust. As such, she is a unique and indispensable witness to both the strength and weakness of the West: to the splendor of open society and to the boundless energy of its antagonists. She knows the challenges we face in our struggle to contain the misogyny and religious fanaticism of the Muslim world, and she lives with the consequences of our failure each day. There is no one in a better position to remind us that tolerance of intolerance is cowardice.

Anne Applebaum in Slate:

[O]nce again, the Dutch will be confronted with the fact that Hirsi Ali remains a Dutch citizen; that the threat to her life comes at least in part from groups based in Holland; that she lives abroad because the Dutch political situation forced her to live abroad; and that when she speaks out, she does so in defense of what she believes to be Dutch values.

Whether the Dutch like it or not—and I'm sure most of them don't—revoking her police protection will therefore send a clear message to the world: that the Dutch are
no longer willing to protect their own traditions of free speech. Resources will be found, and she will recover. But will Holland?

Christopher Hitchens, again in Slate:

The Dutch parliament debates this question later this week, and I hope that its embassies hear from people who don't regard this as an "internal affair" of the Netherlands. If a prominent elected politician of a Western country can be left undefended against highly credible threats from Islamist death squads, what price all of our easy babble about not "appeasing terrorists"? Especially disgraceful is the Dutch government's irresponsible decision to announce to these death squads, without even notifying Hirsi Ali, that after a given date she would be unprotected and easy game. (Lest I inadvertently strengthen this deplorable impression, let me swiftly add that at present she is under close guard in the United States.)

From this selection, it's pretty clear where I stand on the issue. These were all selections from American publications, but from what I understand the editorials here are about equally divided.

Holland has a proportionally large Muslim population (somewhere around 1 million, out of a total population of 16 million), many of them illegal immigrants living in very low-income housing--not slums, but, as Hans told me, in danger of becoming slums if enough attention isn't paid to the problem. This understandably looms large in any decision made by governments here.

I don't have a very good impression of the political party in power here so far (for reasons which will probably slowly become apparent), but I think there is reasonable evidence to hope that the parliament will come out with a decision to continue to stay committed to funding her protection.

This, and the upcoming debate on the future of the Dutch contingent in Afghanistan, will be extremely interesting to keep an eye on.