A number of readers sent me a link to Johann Hari's piece Islam in the West in Dissent, which I discussed earlier here. Still it is worthwhile to revisit this article.

In it Hari highlights the schism between the two camps that are framing the debate about Islam and in particular, Islam in Europe. On the one hand there is what Hari calls the "Clash of Civilizations" crowd and on the other the group that doesn't necessarily dispels the basic claims of the 'Clash Crowd', but one that strongly believes in a moderate Muslim strain that can help bring about fundamental change to the troubled religion.

This assessment is largely correct and an excellent and recent example of this division can be found in that well-known laboratory for Western-Muslim relations, The Netherlands. Take a look at this interesting piece of news, Hirsi Ali's ally attacked by fellow Islam critics. The basic argument is that emerging "Clash of Civilization" style politicans have rebranded the original debate about the conflicting Western and Muslim values into a hard and uncompromising political agenda:

Early this month, columnist Afshin Ellian dealt the first blow: Mr Wilders, Afshin Ellian wrote in his column in the NRC Handelsblad newspaper of 3 March, is radicalising and rapidly developing into an extreme right-wing politician.

Notably, Afshin Ellian backed his criticism with a reference to former conservative VVD politician Frits Bolkestein who, in the early 1990s, opened the attack on Islam but has been saying for some time now that people like Geert Wilders have taken things too far. Others, including author Leon de Winter, philosopher Bart Jan Spruijt and Labour ideologist Paul Scheffer have made similar comments.

It is an interesting observation and it is correct. Perfectly well reasoned criticism of fundamentalism has in many cases mutated into a sort of hateful bile that no longer offers solutions, but only bitter confrontation. Enter one of The Netherlands most respected academics, Professor Van Doorn - whose 'Organizational Sociology' class I attended in the 80s - with the following comment:

According to Professor Van Doorn, commentators like Afshin Ellian and Sylvain Ephimenco have for years been 'prompting' Geert Wilders. He is their disciple. But now that Geert Wilders is putting their words into action, they are taking fright and turning their backs on him. However, Professor Van Doorn argues it is now too late to pull back: "The aforementioned commentators would do better to ask themselves whether they are not complicit in Geert Wilders' crusade."

Even left-wing magazine De Groene Amsterdammer has devoted a sarcastic commentary to the 'change of heart' on the part of the Dutch Islam critics. The item's author, Hubert Smeets, says that Ayaan Hirsi Ali and her friends appreciated the outspokenness of the late populist politician Pim Fortuyn who was killed in 2002.

But Geert Wilders actually puts his money where his mouth is, and that's giving The Friends of Ayaan Hirsi Ali a bad case of cold feet.

Not necessarily so and it has always been a trademark for the leftish establishment to equate the pioneers in the debate - Ellian, Fortuyn, Hirsi Ali, Van Gogh etc. - with some of history's less palatable characters. And that is a very flawed approach as all of them in essence were and are free-thinkers whose quest for openness and debate unfortunately enabled real hate-mongers and closeted fascists to emerge. Not that Wilders is one, but his rhetoric has reached a level at which it has become difficult to consider him a credible and reasonable voice in this debate.

Exactly the same phenomenon has surfaced in the right-of-center blogosphere where previously well-written or original blogs have descended into being repetitive cesspools of Islamophobia. Not good. Fortuyn, Van Gogh, Ellian and Hirsi Ali initiated a debate in order to ensure that viable criticism of Islam and its radical offshoots could finally enter the mainstream, not for it to become a radical and divisive ideology on the fringe. I suspect that the parting of ways within this group has only just started, to the detriment of the issue that all were once so vigorously debating together.

UPDATE: Here is another voice weighing in on the debate:

Fortunately because I have lived and worked in a more cosmopolitan world than most of America, my views of Islam and its followers has been quite different from what is being advertised by many non-Muslim voices with political agendas running past their ability to reason or engage in reasoned discussions. Radio talk show hosts come to mind, although print and cyber sources are just as polluted by ignorant, broad-brush rants as their big-mouthed broadcast brethren.

Read the entire post here.

The German weekly Der Spiegel chronicles the outrage and confusion across the political spectrum over a court ruling which cited certain passages of the Koran in its ruling in a divorce case. It's a lengthy piece but worth your time as it goes right to the heart of the discussion about integration vs. the 'parallel' society.

Radio Netherlands is running a series of interviews with Muslim thinkers. The first one is Syrian Sadiq Jalal al-Azm, a retired professor of European philosophy at the University of Damascus a city where he still spends a part of his time. Sadiq al-Azm is above all a secular thinker which hasn't made his life any easier, but he decided to stay put in Syria and Lebanon. I do not share his idea that secularization has become an irreversible process, but he is most likely correct in stating how difficult it will be to reform Islam from within:

The problem is that most of my colleagues who claim to reform Islam from the inside do not address this problem, probably because they fear it will alienate them from their audiences. Modernists such as Fatima Mernissi keep playing this game of quoting texts of Koran and Prophetic Traditions in support of their case, implicitly assuming the literal truth of these texts. And if they do not find anything that supports them, they twist and torture the meaning of the text until it suits their demands.

Will keep you informed if an when other interviews in this very insightful series appear.

There has been some buzz around an article - It is not the lie that governs, but the dark threat - by Dutch Islam expert Hans Jansen in the new online newspaper named Opinio, arguing that the Dutch remain far too tolerant in confronting radical Muslim excesses.

There is a summary of what he said in English here but it doesn't quite capture Jansen's argument. Of course, I read the original Dutch piece and noted that it is really about the omnipresence of threats in Dutch society and how that has dramatically affected freedom and an open debate. The various threats are often explained away (“he or she has probably deserved it”) or is it safely assumed that only a few high profile personalities have been served death threats. Not so, says Jansen who also underlines why so many well-meaning Muslims remain quiet too in summing up a list of groups that have been forced to be very careful about what they say and do:

Moroccan writers, columnists, TV-personalities, politicians form all sides, publishers, journalists, entire editorial boards (not just newspapers, but from publishers too), comedians, Muslim schoolgirls, translators, ghostwriters, teachers at higher professional education and universities, bookstores – and more – are all on the list of people that have been or are threatened.

And he presents a recent case of how threats generated some self-censorship during one of the nation’s pivotal literary events:

The participants of “The Evening of the Book”, a literary quiz from public broadcaster NPS and the NRC Handelsblad, were kindly requested to not talk about the threats that have recently victimized writer Naima El Bezaz. If Elsbeth Etty had failed to report that in the NRC of March 13 no one would have known about that immoral request. “The Evening of the Book” continued as scheduled and viewers have again without being aware of it, watched a censored show on public television.

[Editor's Note: Naima El Bezaz actually withdrew from the show altogether after receiving numerous threats following the publication of her recent book which deals with a young Moroccan woman falling in love with a Jewish man]

Jansen goes on to point to the general unpreparedness to wage a struggle to defend core democratic values. The Dutch are indeed notorious non-fighters and Jansen talks about it as follows:

Even verbally we are not all that good in dealing with violence, so it is not hard to see how we will deal with it if real blood is spilled and things get serious. In order to increase our general well being we have rebranded the police as ‘neighborhood support' and the army focuses on ‘reconstruction', something in which the army’s top brass appear to take pride. The AIVD (Ed.: Dutch intelligence service) is restricted to analysis and observation. A report from the AIVD is not all that different from a thesis or a dissertation. Research and analysis are of course of crucial importance, but who will carry out – without us knowing it – the dirty work?

We suffer from the collective amnesia that a peaceful enclave like The Netherlands can not rely on its own peacefulness but that a number of disciplined bastards are required to fight a shadow war and get their hands dirty in their fight for peace and freedom. It will not be an easy task to explain that to all these nice people from the Christian-Democrats and Christian Party (Ed.: parties currently in the coalition government). And to the rest.

It is important that once more we are reminded of the steady advance of self-censorship in Europe's free and democratic heartland. Many media outlets are increasingly reluctant to talk about it and as a consequence sanitized content has become an integral part of media distribution as we have seen in this particular Dutch case.

The Opinio initiative by the way is a good one and can hopefully be a counter-voice in this increasingly difficult climate. Note that it has been funded by former Compaq executive and venture capitalist Roel Pieper who has appeared on Peaktalk’s pages before after an encounter with a knife wielding man in his backyard. At times he must wonder why he ever returned home and didn’t stay in the US.

Bernard Lewis picked Europe and Islam as the topic for his 2007 Irving Kristol Lecture. It condenses some thousand years of history, defines the current challenges today within Europe and the Muslim world and offers a way out for future relations between the two. Recommended reading.

As the Daily Kos puts in a fairly favorable review of Ayaan Hirsi Ali's 'Infidel', here. Key quote:

The "Clash of Civilizations" folks would use Christians and Jews vs. Muslims as their rallying cry. But I think Hirsi Ali cuts right through all of that stuff. It's really the battle between secularism and rationality vs. religious intolerance.

Being the secular feminist that she is, it's been an odd experience to see how Hirsi Ali has become a darling of the right. Of course it is the warped legacy of political correctness and the left's reluctance to abandon it in favor of a new brand of radical feminst thinkers. It looks as if the success of her latest book is allowing for some tentative movements to give Hirsi Ali a fair hearing on the left side of the divide. A good thing as that to a very large extent has been the point of promoting her views all along.

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This time it is Hitchens who takes on Buruma and Garton Ash who have relegated our good Dutch-Somali heroine to the absolutist corner and questioned her ‘enlightenment-fundamentalism’.

As you may recall Buruma is one of the more nuanced writer-historians who was vilified for taking a seemingly neutral stance in his excellent Murder in Amsterdam. His crime? He was insufficiently clear in taking Theo van Gogh’s side and failed to denounce Muslim fundamentalism in an unequivocal manner. Yes, ‘fundamentalism’ has become a very fashionable term and given our inherent suspicion of the extreme we should, I think, be thankful that writers like Buruma try to take a step back and paint a more dispassionate picture of the news.

Personally I do not think that Hirsi Ali can credibly be pictured as a fundamentalist. However one can understand Buruma’s point that her training in the Muslim Brotherhood perhaps has exposed her to a certain kind of zealousness. And that she is now applying in defending western freedoms with sometimes mixed results. Most Dutchmen will recall her visit to a local Muslim school where she tried to argue her point by asking twelve year old pupils to make a choice between the constitution and the Koran. Actions like that can be interpreted as waging a personal secular war against anything that would remind Hirsi Ali of her own religious upbringing. Getting schoolchilden into the debate in this manner is of course fodder for her critics who have qualified this sort of behaviour as utterly reckless and in that they have a point. And it is precisely this approach that irks measured intellectuals like Buruma and Garton Ash, but I do agree with Hitchens that does not make one a fundamentalist. At the same time I sense that Hitch’s diatribe against these two writers is not just about Hirsi Ali, but probably about something that runs quite a bit deeper.

NOTE: Our good friend Myrtus whose own biography is very similar to that of Hirsi Ali (Muslim from Africa → Holland → USA) has a few critical thoughts too.

By the way if you haven’t already, buy 'Infidel' here.

And here is round-up of some of Peaktalk's key posts on Hirsi Ali.

MORE: Laura Ingraham interviews Ayaan.

Last Friday, I watched Glenn Beck's show and his guest was the inimitable Irshad Manji - Muslim reformer and author of The Trouble with Islam Today. These interviews always have a few memorable moments and I found this exchange between Beck and Manji both perplexing and revealing:

BECK: OK. Real quickly, we have about a minute. What -- who is standing with you as a woman`s organization? Who -- what National Organization of Women is coming up and saying I`m with you?

MANJI: You know there isn`t one.

BECK: Why?

MANJI: Fear. Fear of offending. So many people today in America come up to me to say, "Irshad, I wish I could support your call to reconcile Islam with human rights, but if I do, you know I`ll be called a racist for sticking my nose in somebody`s else`s business."

During the interview Beck laments that we live in a 'PC World' making it difficult for the viewpoints of someone like Manji to be aired. Well, a lot of progress has been made as having commentators like Beck and Manji discussing Muslim fundamentalism and reform on a CNN outlet would have been unthinkable only a few years ago. So yes, there are notable changes in breaking the mold of political correctness in the mainstream media. At the same time, it is both dispiriting and disquieting to note that someone like Irshad Manji will have to wage her fight for reform and justice without any support women’s organizations.

Just got a note from Bruce Bawer mentioning that his book While Europe Slept finally gets noticed by the NYT. Well, it took a controversy over the book's nomination for the National Book Critics Circle award to get it, but there you are. Apparently the debate within the nominating committee wasn't all that pretty, but I like this part of the NYT's piece however:

Mr. Bawer’s book jacket is covered with admiring blurbs from well-known conservatives, but he does not fit the typical red-state mold. An openly gay cultural critic from New York who has lived in Europe since 1998, Mr. Bawer has published books like “Stealing Jesus,” a harsh critique of Christian fundamentalism. “Some people think it’s terrific for writers to expose the offenses and perils of religious fundamentalism — just as long as it’s Christian fundamentalism,” he wrote on his blog.

Imagine someone who is critical of radical Islam not fitting the pre-fabricated stereotype.

If you haven't already, buy Bruce's book, it is the only book on the market today that has a quote from yours truly in it.

Ian Buruma tries to unveil Tariq Ramadan, to some the face of moderate Islam in Europe, to others a radical waging war against the free west. Not sure if Buruma unravels it all, but it is a worthwhile read.

UPDATE: Frum is more certain:

Tariq Ramadan, however, is not that person. He is doing precisely the opposite: seizing on European Enlightenment liberalism and exploiting it for his own very different ends.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali's book tour is in full swing and so there is lots to be had in terms of interviews and press commentary. Here is a selection of worthwhile pieces that appeared in the following outlets: The Guardian, The Times and the WaPo.

There is too much to excerpt, but if I had to pick one it would be this one:

But for all her clinical rhetoric, Hirsi Ali is not really interested in carving the world into two blocks of clashing civilisations. At heart she is a universalist, a passionate believer in human rights. If you believe in equality for women, then you must believe in equality for all women, regardless of their culture or religion. Her deepest wish is to allow the world's oppressed peoples, especially women, to share in the fruits of reason. 'And to do that,' she says, 'someone's got to shake the tree.'

As I have mentioned earlier Hirsi Ali's new book is a definte must-read and you might as well buy it now by clicking here.

Talking about multiculturalism and some of its consequences, here is a TV-interview with Munira mirza one of the authors of the hotly debated report ‘Living Apart Together: British Muslims and the paradox of multiculturalism’. Note the last part where the interviewer tries to steer Mirza towards the 'Clash of Civilizations' theory. In response, she makes it very clear that conflicts and confusion within the West as well as ruptures within the Muslim world are the key dynamics that are currently fueling radicalization and jihadist sentiments.

While the blogosphere jumped on a British report which argues that multi-culturalism has driven an entire generation of young Muslims to radicalization, few noticed how some jurisdictions try very hard to pre-empt this phenomenon. A town in Quebec (!) passed a drastic motion seeking to preserve certain 'western values':

A rural Quebec town has taken the unusual step of formally declaring that it is forbidden to stone women in public — part of a list of “norms” that it says is aimed at potential immigrants.

Herouxville, about 165 kilometres northeast of Montreal, passed a document at a town council meeting this month that outlines what it considers to be its official behavioural norms.

The document, sent to both the provincial and federal governments, states that “a woman can. . . drive a car, sign cheques, dance, decide on her own.”

However, covering one's face other than on Halloween, burning women alive or burning them with acid is not considered acceptable.

Let's just say that its rural location helped in getting this motion in place, as I am not too sure it would have received a particular warm welcome in some of Quebec's urban centers.

UPDATE: Of course, a backlash against Herouxville's attempt to curb the excesses of multiculturalism is underway and when that happens the distinctions between 'race' and 'religion' blur almost instantly:

But some Muslim leaders have called the code a thinly-veiled example of xenophobia.

"Racism is coming out of the woodwork now, and it's not being obscure or subtle," said Salaam Elmenyawi of the Muslim Council of Montreal.

NOTE: If you have the time, you may want to consider reading the entire report about the British situation at the website of the think tank, Policy Exchange, here. Its lead author, Munira Mirza, has been featured on Peaktalk before.

Henryk Broder, one of the few non-Anglo-Saxon writers to focus on Europe's dark future has written a book called "Hurra, Wir Kapitulieren!" ("Hurray! We're Capitulating"). Judging from the excerpts there are probably few new insights offered by Broder, but the German setting gives us some fairly unique anecdotes. This in particular struck me as, well, instructive:

Oskar Lafontaine, a one-time chairman of the Social Democratic Party and German chancellor candidate, sees "commonalities between leftist policies and the Islamic religion." In an interview with Neues Deutschland, he says: "Islam depends on community, which places it in opposition to extreme individualism, which threatens to fail in the West. The second similarity is that the devout Muslim is required to share his wealth with others. The leftist also wants to see the strong help the weak. Finally, the prohibition of interest still plays a role in Islam, much as it once did in Christianity. At a time when entire economies are plunging into crisis because their expectations of returns on investment have become totally absurd, there is a basis for a dialogue to be conducted between the left and the Islamic world."

Lafontaine called upon the West to exercise self-criticism ("We must constantly ask ourselves through which eyes the Muslims see us") and expressed sympathy for the "indignation" of Muslims. According to Lafontaine, "people in Muslim countries have experienced many indignities, one of the most recent being the Iraq war. What we are seeing here is resource imperialism."

Lafontaine's theory of "commonalities" is a very good example of how Europe's future might unfold and I find it a more realistic scenario than the demographic takeover Steyn pictures. At the same time it is equally scary, maybe even scarier if you contemplate that it is Europe’s progressive camp that is now more than willing to subordinate freedom and western values in order to fish in a pond of huge electoral potential.

Some may consider Lafontaine to be on the fringe, but his Linkspartei (‘Left Party’) did extremely well in the last German federal election. As the traditional Social-Democrats are increasingly moving to the center as Merkel’s coalition partners, there is room on the left and Lafontaine’s party will no doubt move into this fresh and attractive space. That by the way is not dissimilar to the Dutch situation where Labour was pounded in the recent election, forced to join a coalition with the Christian-Democrats and the Socialist Party is cleverly picking up the traditional left and new-left voters. They too will have discovered the benefits of finding ‘commonalities’.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali has started promoting her new book. As always, book tours are good for some interesting snippets of news and during her stop in Barcelona Hirsi Ali revealed more about the sequel to Submission which is currently in development.

Note by the way how one book is branded for different geographical markets. In Dutch - the version I read - it is 'Mijn Vrijheid' or 'My Freedom', in Spanish it is 'Mi Vida, Mi Libertad' which translates as 'My Life, My Freedom'. The English is blunter: 'Infidel'.

Richard Fernandez returns to The Philippines to write a fascinating essay about the century old Muslim insurgency in the southern parts of the island nation:

Dalasi, the King of Bulig had crossed from Basilan with a hundred ships. Three thousand kris-wielding Muslims closed in on on all sides of the fort to annihilate the Spaniards. Amid the noise of battle, a desperate council was held in the Spanish commander’s quarters. One priest volunteered to descend the walls by rope. He evaded the Moro pickets, stole one of Dalasi’s sailing vessels and made his way alone five hundred miles north to Manila to get reinforcements. Dalasi was killed and Fort Pilar beat back a two-month siege. The garrison’s survival was considered a miracle by the local community. But though that battle of Zamboanga was over the Moro war continued. It continues to this day.

It is revealing to note that successive presidents in Manila have never been able to either quell or settle the conflict. And as Fernandez reports, the initiative may now be firmly in the hands of the Muslim forces, funded through various overseas sources.

Tomorrow you can read Part II.

Johann Hari reviews the recent avalanche of books on Europe and Islam and is able to muster some optimism:

It is a long, slow process, but it has already begun. Amidst the sound of suicide-murders and screaming on European streets, it is possible to hear the slow creaking of those gates – and the low rumble of the Islamic Enlightenment.

While I do not as yet share Hari's confidence about Europe being the cradle of true Muslim reform, I have noted the signs of progress that he refers to in the past: here and here. Not so much a 'cracking of the gates' but rather some sparks of hope. And note that these examples revolve around progress effected by Muslim women who have grasped the opportunities that are on offer in the free west. Any Islamic enlightenment will start with a redefinition of the role of the sexes and in that Europe is probably one of the better places to get this process started.

Amid tight security and an ongoing debate, the opera Idomeneo finally took the stage in Berlin last night. Still, a bitter taste lingers:

Director Hans Neuenfels did not attend Monday's performance and publicly ridiculed the Deutsche Oper's performance.

Although Neuenfels complained that the rehearsals hadn't gone well, he also said he was still sore over the Oper's original decision to cancel the show.

In this case the absurd act of self-censorship sparked a debate and an eventual reversal, but Neuenfels is right in pointing to the stain of stifling free speech which will forever be associated with this opera.

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Kirsten Powers, a former Clinton appointee and columnist, is as perplexed as I am by what is on offer these days as role models at your local toy store. Powers has some revealing photos on her blog in order to illustrate the sad state of affairs.

There are however ways in steering our kids away from Britney & Barbie and of course the Bratz - which our girls find extraordinary cool - and that is by encouraging other options. And believe it or not, our kids have developed an unusual ability to translate our disapproval to finding workable alternatives. Last week they submitted their wish lists which are quite wholesome with the Cabbage Patch doll probably as the best example of a return to basic values. No idea where they got it from and I have also no idea how they cope with schoolfriends that drown in Bratz-stuff, but they do it.

Yet, there are other less ambiguous options to neutralize the confusion resulting from the Brat-Hilton-Whore culture and that is Fulla:

Fulla as you can see has discovered virtuousness, something we can't instill early enough in our young kids. And what's more, Fulla bucks the trend of being young and independent:

Maan Abdul Salam, a Syrian women's rights advocate, said Fulla was emblematic of a trend toward Islamic conservatism sweeping the Middle East. Though statistics are hard to come by, he said, the percentage of young Arab women who wear the hijab is far higher now than it was a decade ago, and though many girls are wearing it by choice, others are being pressured to do so.

Trying to find a middleground between Britney and Fulla and taking the time to learn young girls to make positive choices may seem obvious, but there are few parents that can actually manage it. It is too easy to succumb to the crass culture on offer, or, to just accept that "a certain idea of womanhood" has some undeniable and easy answers. Take your pick.

Ayaan Hirsi’s tainted relationship with her adoptive homeland. The latest:

The [Dutch] cabinet has denied that it put Ayaan Hirsi Ali in political isolation following the terrorist murder of Theo van Gogh. Justice Minister Ernst Hirsch Ballin rejects suggestions that Hirsi Ali was sent to the US to prevent her unleashing more Islamic violence with her sharp tongue.

Columnists Afshin Ellian and Leon de Winter wrote in an article in newspaper De Volkskrant in October that the government decided to send Hirsi Ali temporarily to the US following the 2 November 2004 murder of her friend and filmmaker Van Gogh. A Muslim cut his throat on the street in Amsterdam and on his body, stuck a knife with a letter saying Hirsi Ali would be the next victim.

In her biography – English version to be released in February 2007 – Ayaan Hirsi Ali devotes some twenty-four pages to her bizarre adventures following Van Gogh’s murder. The Dutch security services arranged, as a precautionary measure, for her to disappear from the public scene, which resulted in two separate overseas stays in the northeastern US and a brief sojourn in Germany. The levels of security as well as the various actions of the justice apparatus appeared to be overzealous and at times even illogical.

Hirsi Ali describes that initially she was barred from phone and internet access, allegedly to avoid her being tracked down by would-be assassins. A curious approach as I can’t imagine any jihadist monitoring internet activity would instantly conclude that someone googling ‘Van Gogh murder’ in a Best Western in Portland, Maine would pinpoint that as the secret location of the infamous Dutch parliamentarian of Somali descent. At the same time her security detail went to the extreme lengths to avoid her being recognized, but when a Turkish hotel proprietor in Germany identified her correctly as that Dutch-Somali parliamentarian “whose friend had been murdered” Ayaan was told it was late, not that big a deal and asked to stay in the said hotel where she consequently spent a restless night.

It is beyond the scope of this post to summarize the whole two month adventure, but in view of the news above and what Hirsi Ali says in her book, I believe the claim that she was ‘neutralized’ in the immediate aftermath of the Van Gogh murder is credible. What is also evident to me is that this was not a deliberate move by Dutch authorities, but that its potential became evident during the process of securing Hirsi Ali. She was moved around a lot the first few days and security levels went up steadily, while at the same time the reactions to the murder in Dutch society accelerated to levels where the outcome was increasingly unpredictable. The Dutch government had an obligation to protect Hirsi Ali, but in doing so realized it had the perfect means to silence her too. And surely, that is something that will never be formally acknowledged.

Hirsi Ali herself won’t speak out on this either, and for good reasons by the way. Although she has moved to the Washington, DC area, her security is still partly provided by the Dutch government and it would be rather counterproductive and ungrateful to question their work based on what essentially is a theory of some of her friends. That by the way should also be taken to heart by journalists who can’t resist asking her about her security. Hirsi Ali can’t and won’t answer these questions not because she needs to remain tactful towards her minders, but because her life remains on the line for as long as she lives.

Here's an interesting podcast over at PJM by the Sanity Squad, discussing Europe and the latest from Iraq. There is quite a bit that needs to be added to the discussion I think, but for now suffice it to say that there are limits to explain the continent's future from a perspective of 'demographic dogmatism'. There is for instance also a trend reported by Dutch statistics that immigrants over time adapt to European birth rates as economic pressures force women to start working – after all we’re debating burqa bans not because Muslim women are all confined to their homes.

What I do believe is that Europeans will disengage and adapt rather than fight. Most of my family and friends are right-of-center in ideology, but they don’t hesitate to vote for parties on the left as a way of preserving the status quo. Many did so in last week’s Dutch general election. Peace and stability above all.

The Peters-model of radical ethnic cleansing is more likely in Eastern Europe where the population has a materially different economic and social history, but also less immigrants – at least at the moment – to contend with. Again, this also brings home the point to start making the clear distinction between the three tiers of Europe (Old/EU, New/Eastern and Russia) and bring in economics as one of the key drivers for social and cultural change.

The debate gets more complicated, but it is getting better too.

Well, here is the hallmark of a free society. If the government plans to outlaw your habitual garb, you can protest it:

About two dozen Muslim women protested Thursday outside the Dutch parliament against a proposed ban on the burqa, the head-to-toe Islamic robe.

Several protesters wore long robes and veils exposing only their eyes, known as a niqab.

"We live in a free country and the government cannot tell us what to do with our religion," protest organizer Ayse Bayrak told The Associated Press. "We don't live in a dictatorship. We don't live under the Taliban, which oppresses women."

Apart from the impressive turn-out, the utilization of the Taliban as an argument in favor of wearing a burqa can only lead to hilarious situations. Luckily, a reporter with a brilliant sense of humour went out to find them, and here is his video report, in Dutch. And while the protesting burqas did not exactly share his wit, one lonely hijab wearer at the scene broke down in laughter at the suggestion she looked like a whore.

Once more, a ban on burqas is ridiculous and any free society to propose it should be embarrassed. At the same time the burqa-wearing protestations over ‘free choice’ and ‘respect’ sound highly suspicious, but at the very least a free society gives these ladies a constitutional option to take it off. That choice is usually not offered by the Taliban.

There was a lot of mail and news over the past few days on the proposed Dutch ban on burqas. Various blogs weighed in too, but it was Thaddeus Tremayne at Samizdata who posed the essential question:

The more interesting question, as far as I am concerned, is whether this is (a) an unacceptable state repression of personal liberty and freedom of choice or (b) a necessary and welcome bulwark against the growth of radical Islam in Europe?

Judging from the comment section those answering 'A' are well ahead of the 'B' contingent. Unfortunately, the real answer is both 'A' and 'B' knowing that in fighting radical Islam we are poised to make steps that we will regret dearly as time passes.

David Frum has an interesting analogy as he comes out in favor of a ban:

Extremist Islam regards women more or less as the old Klan regarded black Americans: as natural slaves and as perpetual threats to a social order based upon their slavery. Like the Klan, extremist Islam conducts a low-intensity guerilla war against women who dare to assert their freedom: casting acid in the faces of unveiled, beatings and rape in the home, honor killings. In the American South, it was the slave-masters who wore the masks as they waged their war against their former slaves. In extremist Islam, the masks are forced upon the slaves themselves.

As for the Dutch situation I reiterate my earlier point that a blanket ban is counterproductive. A more intelligent debate, free of electoral pressures, needs to be waged about how Muslim women can be empowered and how fundamentalist incursion into public life can be neutralized. We have only just started on that journey.

NOTE: Michael van der Galien at TMV notes that some Muslim countries ban veils too.

ALSO: In the Sunday Times, 'Liberal Holland hits the cultural panic button'

The threat of terror:

MI5 knows of 30 terror plots threatening the UK and is keeping 1,600 individuals under surveillance, the security service's head has said.

Dame Eliza Manningham-Buller warned the threat was "serious" and "growing".

She said future attacks could be chemical or nuclear and that many of the plots were linked to al-Qaeda.

It is remarkable that the once so secretive MI5 has now become a very visible public agent. But then the threat has altered in nature too. Nuclear and chemical devices are no longer the domain of powerful foreign entities, they may well be assembled in a kitchen in a Manchester suburb. Or one in Amsterdam. Or one in Los Angeles. The threat is still there.

UPDATE: Manningham-Buller's comments to the press are unusual indeed:

Agencies and academics in Canada were taken aback by the tone and the candour of the spymaster's comments.

“The director-general rarely, capital R-A-R-E-L-Y, speaks publicly,” said Martin Rudner, a counterterrorism expert at Carleton University in Ottawa. “The fact that she spoke and spoke to empirical data, is to be taken very, very seriously. This is not chit-chat.”

Not at all.

Posted by Pieter Dorsman at 09:59 PM | Permalink | TrackBack (0)

Another first:

The Netherlands may become the first European country to ban Muslim face veils after its government pledged yesterday to outlaw the wearing in public spaces of the niqab, or veil, and the burka, or full-length cloak covering the head.

The right-leaning coalition said last night that it would look for a way to outlaw the wearing of all Muslim face veils.

The right-leaning coalition is, with some ten days to go to the election, in its last throes and it will be hard to put this measure in place on such a short notice. In addition, this is a blanket ban and would no doubt run into some serious parliamentary resistance. Not only would it conflict with the principle of religious freedom, it would be seen as a serious invasion of personal freedom. The latter would not just alarm the left; it would surely create some discord on the right as well.

We have seen many attempts all over Europe to do something about these veils, but it seems that limited bans - for public employees, or in public spaces - are far more effective. And, they serve a clearly defined goal, such as security or the impartiality of government workers. Again, immigration-related issues are proving to be quite attractive in the final stretch of the campaign, but don't count on any of the proposals that are floating around now to become law anytime soon.

Of course, I should have paid some attention to her last week, which was free speech week here. Irshad Manji, whose website 'Muslim Refusenik' can be found here, has launched a new initiative by building an archive of articles by reform-minded Muslims who seek to restore "reason and humanity to Islam". I have always liked Manji and her approach and I encourage you to check out her initiative as she builds it out over time.

Dan Gardner from the Ottawa Citizen traveled to Europe to see whether all the alarmist rhetoric about Europe had a basis in reality. He visited Denmark for a lengthy assessment of the roots of the cartoon crisis and to Holland where he came away with a relatively positive feeling.

Gardner is right in pointing out that things aren’t as bad as they are sometimes made out to be, something which I have pointed out before. Yet, there are too many variables at play to settle on either a positive or negative outcome. Blindly banking on the repeat of historic accomplishments - like the 19th century integration of Jews into Dutch society – is probably not the best approach to guarantee future success in a situation that is materially different. It requires clearly defined policies and action from visionary politicians, something that is in short supply at the moment.

Gardner gives us a time estimate for integration success:

The usual theory on immigration holds that three generations are necessary for full integration into the larger society. There aren't many third-generation immigrants in countries like the Netherlands and they are mainly to be found in playgrounds and primary schools. It's simply too early to declare Europe's experience with immigration a failure.

And that's if the generations are measured from the arrival of the first guest workers. Arguably, it should not be. The better baseline is the moment when both newcomers and governments realized and accepted that immigration is a reality. And that wasn't until the 1990s.

So, that is somewhere between three or four generations depending on when you start counting. A projection not that different from Ahmed Marcouch, a Moroccan who did manage to integrate successfully and who as a politician has first hand experience in managing the process in some of Amsterdam's most notorious neighborhoods.

UPDATE: This Dutch media personality argues that negative attitudes of the native Dutch about themselves, have contibuted to the current malaise in the lowlands. He's written a book about it, Long Live the Netherlands:

Coming back after 10 years in America, I discovered that there's a terrible lot amount of grumbling and moaning in the Netherlands. We even talk a lot about our 'growling' culture, and this leads to a negative self-image. At the same time, I noticed that there are so terribly many Dutch people who are trying things a different way and are saying, "Enough of that moaning, enough of the grumbling. Let's deal with the problems'."

Long Live the Netherlands contains a number of elements which might best be described as 'right wing'. For example, the author describes the Netherlands' regulations on sacking employees for having a 'stifling effect' on enterprise; he says that some people who live below the poverty line only have themselves to blame, and he believes more Dutch women should be working a full week instead of part time.

This is the sort of language that is hardly new to longtime Peaktalk readers and Groenhuijsen's instincts are generally correct. The fact that he has kept his primary residence in Washington, DC however is not exactly a vote of confidence for a new Dutch miracle.

I have been a longtime fan of Camille Paglia, in particular because she is a non-conventional thinker and able to destruct both the left and the right with her razor sharp wit. The interview with her yesterday in Salon - in which she covers a variety of current topics - is a must-read.

While clearly identifying Iraq as a mess and Bush as "out of his depth" this onetime Democrat has no qualms about reducing her party to absolute rubble. More importantly, she understands the challenges of our future better than most of her contemporaries, note the following:

But my generation of baby-boom Democrats hasn't done much deep thinking about international issues except in terms of postmodernist fragmentation or fuzzy, smiley-face multiculturalism. We desperately need better candidates.

As for looking to the future here are Paglia's key indicators of impending doom:

I'm worried about the future of America insofar as our academically most promising students are being funneled through the cookie-cutter Ivy League and other elite schools and emerging with this callow anti-American, anti-military cast to their thinking. How are we ever going to get wise leadership or sophisticated diplomacy from people who have such a distorted, clichéd view about everything that's wrong with the United States?

And my favorite:

The more liberal parents are, the less contact their children have with religious ideas. That will surely disable our future American leaders from being able to understand the religious commitment of Islamic fundamentalists. Liberal journalists often seem incredulous about how anyone would seek death for religious principles. But that was the entire history of early Christianity, when the saints willingly sought martyrdom. We're heading into that world again.

Paglia is not calling for a religious revival, but for a measure of historical and religious awareness. Looking around me I am astounded to note how incredibly shallow historical knowledge is these days, especially among the 'well-educated' middle classes, the group supposedly forming the backbone of our society. It is one of the key reasons why western societies are so divided over rogue nations going nuclear and Muslim zealots blowing themselves up on commuter trains: most of us simply can’t recognize the phenomenon, much less conceive of any action to protect ourselves against it.

Even as a secular person, I would still strongly advocate to regain some of the moral bearings that religion has given us and at the same time try and raise a new generation with some basic historical awareness. The fact that I grew up in a house stacked with historical works and a father who had seen – and taken me – to war cemetery after war cemetery in Europe did at least leave me in a position where I could write the stuff that I write here on this site.

And Paglia is therefore on the mark in arguing that the absence of any clear leadership from either the right or the left in these challenging times is so troubling. So far we’ve been lucky in escaping any real disaster but we better start investing in a new generation that is bound to face situations where luck is no longer a sufficient enough tool to ward of our destruction.

Have a good weekend. Next week it will be Theo Van Gogh week over here.

The Mark Steyn interview on Hot Air continues today. Note how Steyn describes the recent emergence of sharia in the Muslim world and how absent it was in many regions only decades ago. Here is a good example of that:

Mr Musdaruddin is the overseer of something that for the time being remains unique in Indonesia. Aceh - where more than 160,000 people died as a result of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami - has in the past 18 months become the only one of Indonesia's 33 provinces to enforce Koranic law, or Sharia. Some people fear that makes it the potential vanguard in a movement to bring Taliban-style law to the world's largest, and still overwhelmingly moderate, Muslim nation.

It is believed that the Indonesian government has allowed the implementation of sharia as part of its settlement with rebel forces from Aceh, an area which has through the ages always been quite restive. So, the question now is if with this form of domestic appeasement the Indonesian government has created a beachhead for an ideology that runs counter to the moderate way in which the nation has historically been practicing Islam. There are enough regional differences within Indonesia to thwart any rapid spread of this phenomenon, but the vigor with which sharia is now being enforced in Aceh is reason for deep concern.

This one is quite rich:

The nation's most senior Muslim cleric has blamed immodestly dressed women who don't wear Islamic headdress for being preyed on by men and likened them to abandoned "meat" that attracts voracious animals.

It may open up an opportunity for the moderates to start speaking out, and apparently they are doing so. One Iktimal Hage-Ali, an Australian female Muslim advisor responds here in an audio interview and there is lots more over at Tim Blair's, of course.

Fascinating piece in Der Spiegel about sex in the Islamic world. Since fundamentalism is a very effective way to neutralize ambivalent feelings about sex, it goes a very long way to explaining why so many young male Muslims in Europe turn to it. And radical and pure beliefs are no longer just a vehicle for immigrants, many westerners too convert to Islam in order to reject the perceived loose morality that surrounds them. Therein lies one of the keys to understanding the global attraction of Muslim fundamentalism which, as a result, is not attracting the most stable characters. And that in turn explains why seemingly regular guys that appear to have integrated quite well in their new environment all of a sudden blow themselves up on a commuter bus.

... for those interested to learn that a possible burqa ban will be (a) general, ie. not restricted to public employees only and (b) continues to be studied by a committee of wise men who will advise the government in early November.

Prediction: excpect a pragmatic Dutch compromise, not to be mistaken for 'tolerance'.

Richard Fernandez at the Belmont Club makes an excellent observation about the French riots:

Some may deride Chirac or de Villepin as appeasers. However the probable truth is that no one has yet figured out how to stop a vigorous ideology in its tracks. The West's own experience with Nazism and Communism shows that both accommodation and confrontation can fuel, rather than retard their growth. There is no magic formula; and perhaps there is no formula.

And that explains why politicians from both sides of the aisle struggle to find the right message, especially when it is election time. The intractability of violence fueled by cultural disconnects and social breakdown – a void nicely filled by religion – calls for a pragmatic diversion to ‘easier’ topics. And that is not just a European phenomenon:

With his party facing a difficult midterm election, President Bush is focusing on the positive this week: a growing economy he is using to try to persuade voters to keep Republicans in power in Congress.

White House advisers say Bush is not trying to change the subject from a deteriorating situation in Iraq, and that he will continue to talk about Iraq and the war on terrorism as the Nov. 7 election nears. But Bush advisers said they think the president should get more credit for recent positive economic news.

It all depends on how you look at it. But I see some eerie parallels in the ways in which both American and European politicians steer away from the hard issues and try to lull the electorate back into a sense of oblivious complacency. In the meantime we have a fully fledged civil war in Iraq and a nascent one in the streets of Paris.

Meet Sweden's new immigration m