Global, Justice, Religion, Sex & Gender

Silencing Ayaan Hirsi Ali

hirsi.jpgIt is more than fair and a good idea for nations to tighten immigration restrictions towards those populations whose domestic communities have proven hostile and dangerous breeding grounds to the nation where they immigrated.
But it is also a good idea to make exceptions for the dissidents.  Not only is this morally the proper thing to do, but it is strategically a smart thing to do, as it encourages criticism in regimes where there is little personal benefit in making an intellectual stand against these regimes, but plenty of personal risk.  More people, including those in relatively high levels of public and private life, may be willing to speak out only if they have a possible exit strategy.
Certainly we can sympathize that a lawmaker should not have herself broken the law.  But the loss to Holland (and to the West) with the exit of Ayaan Hirsi Ali is a tremendous boon to the aggression of the West’s Muslim Fundamentalists.  Again, one of their high profile critics will be removed from Holland’s public square.
The Boston Globe notes,

The soft-spoken but passionate politician has lived under continuous 24-hour protection, provided by the Dutch government, since the 2004 murder of film producer Theo van Gogh, with whom she collaborated on a documentary denouncing violence against Muslim women. Her life was specifically threatened in a note impaled on van Gogh’s body with a knife.

I would like to see her given asylum in the U.S.  There is plenty of challenging work she could find to do here.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali is a hero to disparate political factions, including feminists, and the author of the best selling book, ”The Caged Virgin: An Emancipation Proclamation for Women and Islam.”  She was circumcised as a young girl in Somalia. 
But unlike many feminists in our own community (who are not circumcised), Ayaan Hirsi Ali (who is circumcised) disputes the idea that there is nothing in common between male and female circumcision. Rather, she feels they are quite similar, and has been an advocate against both.  According to U.S. Newswire, on Dutch television she even went further, declaring that “the consequences can be worse for boys than for girls’ when compared to some common types of female circumcision.”
 
In the comments section, please feel free to pretend she is comparing the more radical forms of FGM to male circumcision when she is clearly not talking about those, and to then state that this comparison (which she is not making) is ridiculous.  Double standards are critical when defending certain aspects of Jewish feminism, and as feminism is paramount in the liberal Jewish community, certainly more than race or even Zionism or any other “ism”– so too, all ends employed–no matter how intellectually dishonest–will be greeted with sympathy by most. 

20 thoughts on “Silencing Ayaan Hirsi Ali

  1. David, I agree with you that the US would have benefited from offering asylum to Ayaan Hirsi Ali. But I’m a little bit confused by the end of your post. You wrote:
    Double standards are critical when defending certain aspects of Jewish feminism
    Are you implying that male circumcision is primarily or fundamentally a Jewish feminist phenomenon?
    That would baffle me, inasmuch as brit milah has been a part of Jewish practice for an awful lot longer than feminism has been around.

  2. Like you I admire and support Ali, and also have mixed feelings about some of her views. I admire that she is unambiguously in favor of individual rights and classical liberal civil society: free speech, equality before the law, acceptance of diverse sexualities, etc. and that she is willing to go head to head with the imams who the polite Europeans won’t criticize because it wouldn’t be PC and because they are afraid of being killed.
    However she lumps all religious expression together, whether it is oppressive or not. She is an Enlightenment Liberal in the tradition of Voltaire. I can understand this: Islam is to her what the Catholic Church was to Voltaire: oppressive, dogmatic, censoring different views, subordinating the government to itself. Most of Islam is like that, the moderates and reformers are in a minority, or else those who agree with them don’t speak out.
    In Europe the radical imams who are funded by the Wahabis represent Islam and she is fighting them. So she thinks all religion is violent and superstitous. She doesn’t think religious day schools should exist, or outward signs of religious identity. Her views on circumcision fit into this world view.
    You have been already answered by Jill Hammer that the brit isn’t a product of feminism, and I think that’s obvious. Are you saying that to even things out Jewish girls should have an equivalent surgery? I think comparing the brit to FGM is useful because in conversation with rational atheists like Ali the subject will come up, as will all other aspects of religious life that could be regulated by the state.
    Here’s what I think so far: The brit does not intend to remove sexual pleasure, FGM does. Along with keeping women in the house and denying them education, FGM performs a social function of making women less likely to seek sex outside the marriage. The brit just doesn’t have the same function. The brit is one of the most deeply embedded identifiers of Judaism, one of the earliest commandments. FGM is an African tribal custom which was adopted into Islam and spread. It isn’t part and parcel of Islam.
    To clarify about Ali’s troubles in Holland: she came clean about her citizenship when she joined Rita Verdonk’s party 4 years ago, and Verdonk said no problem. Now that Ali is more well-known and controversial, a Dutch TV show made a documentary trying to delegitimize her (the program was called “The Holy Ali” to give you an idea). Verdonk suddenly recinded her citizenship. Fortunately their political party rebelled and forced Verdonk to back down. But I think Ali is leaving anyway.

  3. Yehudit,
    Nice to hear from you. I hope you are well.
    You wrote,
    “Here’s what I think so far: The brit does not intend to remove sexual pleasure, FGM does.”
    According to many classical Commentators, brit most certainly does intend to curb sexual pleasure and power, not remove them, just like the mildest forms of FGM. Their interpretation fits much, much better than those who seek to deny any negative effects of brit, particularly when it was clearly a latter (therefore harder) test for Abraham.
    You wrote,
    “Along with keeping women in the house and denying them education”
    That has nothing to do with FGM itself. There is a correlation, but it is not causative.
    You wrote,
    “FGM performs a social function of making women less likely to seek sex outside the marriage. The brit just doesn’t have the same function. ”
    It has the same function according to the classic Commentaries.
    You wrote,
    “Are you saying that to even things out Jewish girls should have an equivalent surgery?”
    If any culture want to “even things out,” they must either circumcise both the girls and the boys, or circumcise neither. Alternatively, they can decline to “even things out,” and accept that, though this will bring all subsequent demands for complete egalitarianism into question to some degree.
    You wrote,
    “The brit is one of the most deeply embedded identifiers of Judaism, one of the earliest commandments. FGM is an African tribal custom which was adopted into Islam and spread. It isn’t part and parcel of Islam.”
    It is not as widespread, but it isn’t for us to dictate what is “part and parcel of Islam. ” That is for Muslims to decide.

  4. Rachel,
    You asked,
    “Are you implying that male circumcision is primarily or fundamentally a Jewish feminist phenomenon?”
    No, not at all. I am saying that current attempts to make it more “egalitarian” are futile. At best.

  5. “I would like to see her given asylum in the U.S. There is plenty of challenging work she could find to do here.”
    Actually, Ali is coming to the US to work at the American Enterprise Institute.
    I am glad David is concentrating on the issue of circumcision itself , and not on the gender of whoever is wielding the knife.

  6. I agree with David Kelsey. Feminism will kill circumcision. What boy wants a group of women around while he is having a very private (no pun in 10 did) ceremony. Try taking this to it’s logical extreme, what if only women participated in the bris?
    Men don’t intrude on the women in the kitchen while baking challah. I think this proves one thing: Whatever activity is practiced by men in overwhelming numbers (science, martial arts, computer gaming) will increase the prestige of that activity in the eyes of women. Any activity!
    Despite everything feminists have accomplished, they’re still only following the lead of men.

  7. Men don’t intrude on the women in the kitchen while baking challah.
    Huh? I’m a man who likes to bake bread–I don’t have Challah down, but I want to. Does this mean I’m really a woman? Will June Cleaver come and help me bake? Or maybe June’s Jewish friend Esther?

  8. Quote:
    “If any culture want to ‘even things out,’ they must either circumcise both the girls and the boys, or circumcise neither.”
    I can’t agree with that. A tit-for-tat is the hallmark of an immature and selfish pre-occupation with the human self. Halakhic reasoning typically considers the community in the context of personal rights and equality.
    Take the Lieberman clause in a conservative ketubah. Men don’t have the rights in the Lieberman clause, but does that make the conservative ketubah an inequittable document? Not at all, by the reasoning of those who created it. In fact the Lieberman clause *makes* the document more equitable and gender-equal.
    The point? Gender equality is more complex than a black-and-white status quo. We all have our individual responsibilities and some of those differ along gender lines. That doesn’t necessarily mean that one gender has more to bear than the other. (Although that certainly has been the case historically.)
    Personally, I am proud both of my circumcision (done as an infant) and of the feminist tradition in conservative Judaism. Nothing about the two makes them necessarily in opposition to each other.

  9. “If any culture want to ‘even things out,’ they must either circumcise both the girls and the boys, or circumcise neither.”
    And men should give breast milk to their infant child. Seriously guys, I understand you feel uncomfortable when ‘people’ refer to ‘smart Jews’ but this is not the way to refute it.

  10. It is more than fair and a good idea for nations to tighten immigration restrictions towards those populations whose domestic communities have proven hostile and dangerous breeding grounds to the nation where they immigrated.
    Huh? This has been bothering me for days, so I have to comment. You’re proposing that immigration policies be determined on the basis of a perception of damage caused by particular national, ethnic or religious groups? So, no more immigration (or less immigration, I don’t want to put words in your mouth) from country or religion X on this basis? It’s a throwaway paragraph, but more alarming for that reason.
    The position of Muslim communities – and the challenges posed by ghetoization – differ widely between European countries. The Netherlands is currently grappling with one manifestation of this whole debate. But restricting immigration based on a huge generalization? This is a massive red herring that dodges all sorts of complex issues: the existence of large numbers of Muslims who are Dutch, French, British, etc, by virtue of birth, and who have been alienated for all sorts of complicated economic, cultural, religious and urban/geographic reasons; European notions of what assimilation is, that often differ wildly from US and Canadian models (themselves very different); problems relating to ties between church and state in European countries. And, not least, the presence of a very European brand of liberal fascism of the Pim Fortuyn variety (s the British comic Mark Thomas once put it, “only the Dutch would have a gay sociologist fascist”), that justifies discrimination against groups deemed insufficiently tolerant.
    Remember that in France publicly wearing a yarmulke is often seen as a sympton of a failure to assimilate. French secularism is an entirely different beast to American secularism. Throwaway lines about the right to curtail the immigration of populations deemed problematic dodges the complexity of all these issues, and the degree to which much of the European debate on immigration is deeply alarming and shows a lack of comfort with hetereogeneity.

  11. htrouser, you wrote,
    “This is a massive red herring that dodges all sorts of complex issues: the existence of large numbers of Muslims who are Dutch, French, British, etc, by virtue of birth, and who have been alienated for all sorts of complicated economic, cultural, religious and urban/geographic reasons”
    These are not two mutually exclusive approaches. You can hold off on immigration to the general population of the country or countries you are having problems absorbing, and also try to improve your relationship with the current population you are having diffiulty with.
    You wrote,
    “Remember that in France publicly wearing a yarmulke is often seen as a sympton of a failure to assimilate. French secularism is an entirely different beast to American secularism.”
    If in response, Jews, of say, Moroccan descent, begin rioting and committing arson on a widespread level, or started killing (after torturing) others because of their religion or ethnicity, or engage in violent attempts to censor through threat of and actual assassination, I assure you I will support a French moratorium on immigration for Jews from Morrocco until the situation is considered stable for the long term.

  12. Well, to this (David Kelsey) I would say two things. In reverse order (pardon the poor structure):
    1) Your hypothetical point about Moroccan Jews presumes (reading between the lines here) that the recent riots in France were an Islamist affair. This seems to be patently untrue (whatever Christopher Hitchens might have said in Slate). Aside from the fact that poor, disenfranchised Jews also took part (albeit in very small numbers), much of what happens seems related to French urban geography, to the placement of housing projects in rings around city centres, isolated from mainstream French life, to patterns of unemployment, police harrassment, etc. Your mention of “killing (after torturing) others because of their religion or ethnicity” is, I assume, a reference to the recent anti-semitic attack on a young French Jewish man. This was, I believe, perpetrated by someone from West Africa (Sierra Leone? I’m blanking on the country right now). So, which is it, North Africa, West Africa? All of the Middle East? Do we end all non-European immigration to Europe?
    2) This speaks to your first point (and sorry for the confusing reverse order here): “You can hold off on immigration to the general population of the country or countries you are having problems absorbing, and also try to improve your relationship with the current population you are having diffiulty with.”
    Well, clearly there’s a problem in France surrounding issues of assimilation, competing definitions of and attitudes to multiculturalism, disaffected [sub]urban youth, unemployment, substandard housing, etc. There is also clearly a problem with anti-semitism in France, in such diverse quarters as the descendants of North Africans, West African immigrants and (lest we forget) vast swathes of white, middle class France (or at least anyone who would even contemplate voting for Le Pen, tactically or not).
    Given the terrifying complexity of all this, I don’t see where a moratorium on or radical reduction of immigration from countries deemed to be a problem can be a viable solution, even in concert with trying “to improve your relationship with the current population you are having diffiulty with.” Just this approach, Sarkozy’s new immigration law, prevents families from joining each other, and inflames existing tensions. It also shirks a colonial legacy that was itself caused by, and is the responsibility of, France and other European countries.
    Cracking down on immigration is a policy diametrically opposed to the very difficult, long-term amelioration of all this: it presumes an easy fix, or a readily identifiable scapegoat (immigrants), rather than addressing problems in a complex situation that already exists and urgently needs attention.
    My main point (finally!): Identifying specific ethnic, national or religious groups panders to the far-right, and specifically casts the terms of the debate in ways that strengthen people such as Le Pen.
    All over Europe centre and centre-right politicians are trying to outflank the far-right by adopting their policies. Much of Tony Blair’s immigration policies are attempts to appeal to disaffected members of the white working class, in order to stave off votes for the overtly fascist BNP (which holds several city council seats). The Danes have passed immigration laws that are so draconian that foreigners who marry Danish citizens now find themselves having to live in Sweden. I don’t see any of this solving any of these larger, complicated issues. It creates more tensions, hardens the debate and alienates existing communities who, we should not forget, are French, British, Danish and Dutch citizens themselves.
    As Jews it behooves us to reject any and all scapegoating, and eschew anything that panders to fascism.

  13. htrouser, you said,
    “Identifying specific ethnic, national or religious groups panders to the far-right, and specifically casts the terms of the debate in ways that strengthen people such as Le Pen.”
    Actually, it would probably take away much of their appeal. Which you seem to concede.
    “As Jews it behooves us to reject any and all scapegoating, and eschew anything that panders to fascism.”
    Not letting someone into your country is simply not scapegoating. Putting them in jail or charging them with a crime they didn’t commit is scapegoating.
    I don’t see the wisdom of setting policy where fears of pandering to any ism should be the paramount concern. There is no end to it. Certainly not in our community, where fear of “facism” is terribly overplayed as a trump card both in terms of accuracy and frequency.
    The goal should be to set decent policy which is good for the country, and protects its population, not to piss off disaffected white working class men as much as possible.

  14. I suspect we’re getting into that whole blog comment thing where we start to slightly mischaracterize each other’s arguments. To wit, I certainly don’t concede that crackdowns on immigration simply erode the popularity of Euro-fascists. Instead, they calcify precisely the kinds of divisions that, in the long-term, cater to their popularity.
    In Britain it used to be the Tories who ramped up the anti-immigrant rhetoric during election time. Now it’s a race to the right in an attempt to outflank the BNP. The result? Racist attacks escalate massively during elections in the UK. There are numbers to show this, which of course I don’t have handy (this being a comment on a blog written near midnight!).
    But my point is that this isn’t just a rhetorical game. It does real harm, to real people, using real violence. Even conceding that the politicians engaging in this sort of stuff might be well-intentioned (though I don’t personally buy that) and that this does cost the BNP votes (or Le Pen votes) in the short-term, it is dangerous rhetoric that leads to actual attacks on immigrants. You can’t, then, separate the narrow appeal of actual fascist parties (narrowly defined) from the broader culture of anti-immigrant rhetoric and racist attacks.
    In the long-run, Jews are victims of these attacks too. I have no idea where you are geographically, but I think it’s important to point out that the European debate over immigration is pernicious in ways that are unique to Europe (just as the US debate has its own uniquely cancerous tendencies). Many well-meaning and otherwise liberal white people in many parts of Europe still harbour a residual sense that to be European is to be white and, if not Christian, then secular in a post-Christian way. I think that such attitudes are one of the reasons why this debate is playing out differently in Europe to the US and Canada. Just as French secularism means not the separation of church and state but the removal of religion from the public sphere (yarmulkes, hijabs and all), so assimilation in many parts of Europe means giving up parts of your culture, language and religion in ways not demanded in the US and (especially) Canada.
    So I’m not advocating “piss[ing] off disaffected white working class men as much as possible”, just as I don’t think I’m casually throwing around the term “fascism”. This debate has real consequences. The rhetoric has real consequences. You can’t simply say, “look, New Labour’s tough stance on immigration successfully erodes the BNP’s vote” because it also solidifies the very debate that in the long run caters to fascist parties and brings them into the mainstream.
    The nightmare scenario is, of course, Russia as it now stands, where Jews, Muslims, Africans and anyone else are getting the shit kicked out of them on the streets on a regular basis. I don’t think western Europe is heading in that direction, but anti-immigrant rhetoric – including that used by mainstream parties in a misguided attempt to outflank the far right – certainly takes a more than a few steps down that path.

  15. htrouser,
    What happened in Spain, England, and even Holland was not the usal run of the mill tensions between Christian whites and people who are different and “taking jobs away from[fill in nation’s working class group here].”
    This was some seriously aggressive behavior on the part of terrorists, and I am not advocating ending all immigration anywhere. But when things start to go boom, a nation has a right, and is probably obligated, to do much to stop such things from escalating. Part of that should be to not allow people into your country when there is a proven risk that they will be hateful towards it, and your way of life.
    The communities that bred terrorists obviously do not consider themselves primarily British or Dutch. This is not racist speculation. It is terribly clear that their allegiance is elsewhere, and has nothing to do with a conflicting domestic vision. And these attitudes and religious centers were tolerated by these communities. Nations have a right to stop accepting continued immigration from these communities. It is never just a couple of guys.
    It takes a village.

  16. Part of that should be to not allow people into your country when there is a proven risk that they will be hateful towards it, and your way of life.
    Absolutely. Do not allow the specific individuals into your country if it is proven that those specific individuals are a proven risk.
    But whole religions, nations or ethnic groups? That’s racism.
    The July 7 bombers were British-born. By your logic, there should then be some sort of generalized campaign against British-born Muslims. You know, the same British-born Muslims who were also victims of the attacks (yes, somehow blowing up buses and trains doesn’t, in fact, discriminate… that’s why the call it “indiscriminate violence”). It’s as if this entirely issue is incredibly complicated and can’t be solved by simplistic faux-solutions.
    The communities that bred terrorists obviously do not consider themselves primarily British or Dutch. This is not racist speculation.
    Really? Are you quite sure about that? All British Muslims don’t consider themselves British? 50%? 20%? I know plenty of British Muslims who consider themselves British. Odds are, many who don’t have been told so again and again by, yes, racists. Hmmm… perhaps deeming these people non-British or non-Europeans is part of the problem.
    You have every right to hold these views. But they betray a lack of knowledge of the day to day reality that millions of Europeans are Muslims, consider themselves Europeans and belong in Europe. Like European Jews.

  17. htrouser, you wrote,
    “By your logic, there should then be some sort of generalized campaign against British-born Muslims.”
    That would be much harder, and much more problematic. They are already nationalized. It is easier to prevent more of them from coming.
    “You know, the same British-born Muslims who were also victims of the attacks (yes, somehow blowing up buses and trains doesn’t, in fact, discriminate”
    True, tragic, and irrelevant.
    “Really? Are you quite sure about that? All British Muslims don’t consider themselves British?”
    Of course many do. But they are not the ones going to the most radical mosques, nor the cafes where this sort of thing is entertained, nor sending their children to the same after-school programs. They are not a part of the same Muslim community.
    Of course, there is a range of affiliation, it is not always so cut and dry…
    “Like European Jews.”
    Not the ones who blow shit up, nor the ones who equivocate saying they “condemn the violence, but also condemn the way France/England/Spain etc.”
    “That’s racism.”
    No. It is targeting a specific country or countries where the immigrants have proven problematic, but most countries, including Middle Eastern countries, are comprised of many races, even if they are all but all Muslim.

  18. Well, I for one am completely appalled by your views and will now respectfully duck out of this. What do other folks think?

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