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POPS'We Are Making Fools Of Ourselves In The Eyes Of The World' How much is her life worth, according to Minister Balin's budget? How does he calculate this? These are politically sensitive questions, questions that former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher never asked when it came to the life of Salman Rushdie, wherever he happened to be. Dutch society has no choice in this case. Canceling Ayaan's protection would be the equivalent of a death sentence. She can lead a relatively quiet life in the United States, but not in the Netherlands. And because she is so well known in the Netherlands and practically lives the life of a prisoner, not even able to go out on the street, the most humane solution is to continue to provide her with protection in America. Both Hirsi Ali and Hirsch Balin can only lose. The winners are the extremists who laugh about our inability to offer this courageous woman quiet and safety. You see, it's too expensive. In fact, though, it makes you want to weep.
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POPS"Honor Killings" In America but multiculturalism hits a crossroads when honor killings come to America. The United States has avoided this bloodstained trend until recently. Some consider Kanwal's death the first documented honor killing here. Others point to the murder of sisters Amina and Sarah Said in Irving, Texas, on New Years' 2007. (Their MySpace page remains up. Featuring assimilated teen culture and American music, it is haunting.) Their father remains on the run from police. In upstate Monroe County just a few days ago, a girl was stabbed by her brother for wearing immodest western clothing and wanting to move to New York City. According to court documents, Waheed Allah Mohammad explained the stabbing by saying his sister was a "bad Muslim girl." "Honor killing is a misnomer," author and exile Ayaan Hirsi Ali told me. "The killing occurs because these girls have allegedly brought shame on their family. The paradox is that these are individuals who have emancipated themselves.
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POPSSam Harris appeal for Ayann Hirsi Ali : Urgent. This is a direct link to the security trust set up for Ayann's protection. Even 10 dollars a month from readers will ensure her safety for life. I am so grateful to be able to play a small but essential role in her life: I think she is absolutly amazing and I am inspired and humbled by her work.
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POPSThe Strange Journey of Ayaan Hirsi Ali: From Devout Muslim to Outspoken "Feminist" Critic of Islam
The former "liberal" who becomes an outspoken right-winger has become an American political archetype. Ronald Reagan and David Horowiz are two prime examples of the breed. They use the rhetorical tool of claiming to be just as caring and compassionate as their previous political incarnation, but the left's irrationality and hatred of (you pick it) the West, America, Christianity, capitalism, etc. caused them to wake up one morning and see the light. And having transformed from lefty caterpillar into a right-leaning butterfly, they present themselves as qualified to comment on liberalism's moral and intellectual failures. related version of this turncoat persona : a "reformed" Muslim woman who favors crushing Islam under the boot of Western militarism. Once very devout in her Muslim beliefs, Ali has transformed into an outspoken critic who bases her calls for the destruction of Islam on feminist and human rights principles.
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POPSURGENT APPEAL Please take the time to read this and consider her bravery. It is a chance to really support freedom in a tangible way. Thank you.
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POPS Holland A Divided Society Dutch society became, and remains, bitterly divided in the wake of the Van Gogh murder. Some of Hirsi Ali's compatriots decided it was time to address the issues of women, Islam and integration head on. The Dutch writer Leon de Winter, a defender of Hirsi Ali, talks openly about his country's failure to integrate Muslim immigrants, attributing the problem to the Dutch "guilt complex": "As soon as we let people from the Third World come here to work in our rich country, we . . . somehow saw them as sacred victims."
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POPSAyaan Hirsi Ali - an Islam Story The interviewer is one of those 'unbiased' media guys. But the woman is great, especially considering her past and sentiments. The interesting thing is that this woman is black, brought up under islamic rule, lived in various countries (none of which I've been to... except for Canada) and yet she has exact same sentiments on America as me, although I'm a white man from former USSR. Very different upbringing, lives, ethnicity etc., similar only in the fact that she's seen something else and is an immigrant to the US, and she has the exact same sentiments.
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POPSAyaan Hirsi Ali I am in awe of this woman. Her story is amazing ! "Her ordeal has caused an outcry in the Netherlands, a country already uneasy with its recent waves of immigrants and asylum seekers, now representing almost 10 percent of the population. Many Dutch see the threats as an intolerable assault on the country's democratic principles. The threats have also intensified a fierce debate — one that can be heard these days across Europe — about what moral values and rules of behavior immigrants should be expected to share."
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POPSComments from Ayaan Hirsi Ali at Harvard My personal favorite: "In our countries, government terrorized you. Here, government served the people. Governments did nasty things to you, they terrorized you, they took your money. In the West, they did things like take your garbage away. It was unthinkable.”