Somali-born Dutch MP Ayaan Hirsi Ali has been living for years under mortal threat as a direct consequence of her criticism of fundamentalist Islam. Sadly, there’s no shortage of western intellectuals willing to criticize her for her views on Islam and skate disingenuously around the edges of blaming her for the situation she finds herself in.
In his essay Enlightenment fundamentalism, or racism of the anti-racists? Pascal Bruckner takes aim at the cultural mindset of such critics, focusing on two in particular: academic Timothy Garton Ash, who deemed Hirsi Ali irresponsible, and a “simplistic Enlightenment fundamentalist,” and writer/academic Ian Buruma, who in a New York Times column titled Hard Luck for a Hard-Liner wrote the following statement, which perfectly exemplifies the – almost aggravating – willful blindness of so many in the west: “Ms. Hirsi Ali…had referred a few weeks ago to the ‘terror regime of political correctness ruling our nation.’ It was as though she were being punished in a timid country for being an outspoken critic of Islam.”
Bruckner:
Relativism demands that we see our values simply as the beliefs of the particular tribe we call the West. Multiculturalism is the result of this process. Born in Canada in 1971, its principle aim is to assure the peaceful cohabitation of populations of different ethnic or racial origins on the same territory. In multiculturalism, every human group has a singularity and legitimacy that form the basis of its right to exist, conditioning its interaction with others. The criteria of just and unjust, criminal and barbarian, disappear before the absolute criterion of respect for difference. There is no longer any eternal truth: the belief in this stems from naïve ethnocentrism.
Anyone with a mind to contend timidly that liberty is indivisible, that the life of a human being has the same value everywhere, that amputating a thief’s hand or stoning an adulteress is intolerable everywhere, is duly arraigned in the name of the necessary equality of cultures. As a result, we can turn a blind eye to how others live and suffer once they’ve been parked in the ghetto of their particularity….This is the paradox of multiculturalism: it accords the same treatment to all communities, but not to the people who form them, denying them the freedom to liberate themselves from their own traditions. Instead: recognition of the group, oppression of the individual…
In the putative name of respecting race, he notes, “individuals are imprisoned in an ethnic or racial definition.”
Ayaan Hirsi Ali, for her part, clearly understands what’s going on far more than her critics do:
“Colonisation and slavery have created a sentiment of culpability in the West that leads people to adulate foreign traditions. This is a lazy, even racist attitude.”
Is it too much to ask that our heroes not be homewreckers?
Woman, how have you used your freedom?
It’s all about fear and cowardice disguised as spunk and courage. Schoolyard bullies from long ago have conditioned these dreadful progressives to side with the tormentors in some sort of Stockholm syndrome-like behaviour.
Sickening.
Mr. X
That was terribly profound and accurate….remarkable in it’s brevity.
So according to Bruckner’s reasoning slavery is ok if it is part of your culture. Give me a break!!
I know I’m in the minority on this, but my culture is superior to the culture of immigrants who come here or they would have stayed where they came from.
My cultural view is that multiculturalism is just a Trojan Horse that covers the Balkanization of my nation.
The reason that the Trudeau Liberals enacted multiculturalism was to fragment the country, the easier to divide and conquer, and make assimilation into a One World Government, which they tried to foist on us at Copenhagen last December, simpler.
Progressives prove time and again that they are mentally defective. Their reasoning is not based in actual ‘reason’ nor is any of it logical.
We have brain chemicals that allow us to ‘feel’. Those feelings provide motivation to do some things that are in our best interest or do to do something pretty horrid. Our brain is also capable of logic and reason in order to keep our ‘feelings’ in check.
Progressives simply let their feelings run the show.
Too much logic may keep a mathematician awake at night, but too much feeling will put you in a nut house or in jail. That, my friends, is where most progressives belong.
Spok could not live on planet Earth and I’m having a lot of problems with it too.
I know people who won’t vote conservative because they are worried about abortion being taken away by some Christians hidden behind the Conservative party. They did however say I was just like a Nazi for critisising Muslims who they have no problems with.
These are reasonably intelligent people in all other things but this. It baffles me.
I think it just great that she recognizes the close, straight-line, relationship between those who have a “sentiment of culpability in the West” and their “lazy, even racist attitude”.
She’s right (as usual). It’s sentimental, not intellectual or rational, and it is consistently racist.
If you don’t know who the racists really are you’re not paying attention.
What Oz said.
I was 21 years old when Turdeau first ran for PM. My first time in the voting booth. Even then, as a young idealist, I sensed something was terribly wrong with him. Couldn’t put my finger on it but he just didn’t smell right.
Moral- Trust your judgement.
When Mr. Trudeau first campaigned in Edmonton, Atric, I was just a teenager, yet my friend John F. and I wrote out placards on sticks and went and protested his policies and his campaign. Why? Because we were young libertarians. These sorts of problems ~ gender, race, origin, &c ~ would all be solved if we were all libertarians, because libertarians don’t believe that people should be categorized as anything other than themselves. Solely on that basis of individual character, not on the matter of any particular collectivist grouping, should individuals be judged. Unfortunately there is no end of players who would corrupt this basic truth in the name of personal advancement, power, and wealth, including perhaps the worst aggressors, as EBD has so well highlighted in his essay: fundamentalist Islamists.
Reminiscent of the Northern ‘conquers’ in the American Civil War. Once the Yanks had brought the Southerners down and ‘freed’ all the former slaves; they did not want the former slaves moving into their states, they didn’t want them working in their businesses and they certainly did not want any former slaves as son or daughter in laws! The Yankees proved to be much more prejudiced against former slaves than the Rebs – you must read original, written accounts from the 1860s to learn about this fact. Seems that the very same attitude exists in Canada among the same ilk of people. They demand that other people practise what the ‘holier than thou’ preach but they certainly don’t plan to practise their fanatical rhetoric in their own lives.
My North American Indian friends (and family) certainly don’t want to be around any creepy, feely, touchy progressives who ‘feel for them’ and ‘understand their hate’; they would rather be with their ‘redneck’ friends and relatives who fail to give any concessions or judgements based on ancestry – ancestry that overlaps in the case of family.
Slavery is never good if you are the slave. All people should die a free person rather than exist as a slave. That would end ownership of souls by humans, in any way.
“Born in Canada in 1971”..
Oh, the shame! Oh, the ignominy! And – oh, it’s completely wrong.
Trudeau NEVER wanted a multicultural Canada; his policy was “bi and bi” – bilingual, bicultural. Joe Clark, the chimp, was the first to propose multiculturalism with his “community of communities”, which Trudeau promptly derided.
Trudeau realized he couldn’t eradicate English culture in Canada; the numbers were against him. So he attempted to dilute and weaken it through any number of steps. Changing the anthem, changing Dominion Day, increasing immigration from Asian countries while throttling down the number of immigrants from the UK – all of these were part of parcel of this French snob’s plan to remake Canada as a strongly French and weakly British nation.
But to suggest that a French elitist, in Canada or in France, would ever support all cultures as being equal? Only in Fantasyland.. or the NYT editorial room, I suppose.
You were young and naive back then, right Vίtruvius?
Libertarianism = Utopia.
In the face of Communism, of which Islam is merely the newest frontline client as were disaffected brown people generally living in the receding frontiers of the European Empires in the first 2 1/2 decades following WWII, most Libertarians are at a loss concerning the existence of a communist threat let alone an answer to it.
The threat from a collectivist juggernaut faced by mere non-aligned individuals?
Yeah, there is a reason why libertarians get less votes than even the Green Party does.
(doesn’t it cause cognitive dissonance to think that being an individual libertarian means to join a group known collectively as libertarians?)
Patriotism is the new tribal alliance.
Culture is the clarion calling card.
But to suggest that a French elitist, in Canada or in France, would ever support all cultures as being equal? Only in Fantasyland.. or the NYT editorial room, I suppose.
~KevinB
In Trudeau’s day French Canadians were the strongest cohesive cultural group.
They were united by race, language, history, and religion.
The ploy necessary to make French an official language in Canada rested on multiculturalism and the hope, by smaller ethnic minorities, that one day their language and culture would attain that which was obtained by the French.
Well, Trudeau’s gambit was basically successful.
Anglophone culture has become fragmented while French Canadian culture is basically what it was in Trudeau’s day if not stronger and more entrenched.
If you wish to mischaracterize my statement and position and the nature of a pragmatic libertarian perspective, Oz, go ahead: I’m not going to debate it with you ~ and not simply because I’ve already made my point and there’s no margin in it for me to correct your mistakes ~ but more importantly because to do so would distract from the topic of EBD’s essay (and that’s against the rules). Good day, sir.
I had inferred before that Vίt was 58. but I had thought for some reason that he would have spent his formative teen years down in ontariaario. still stand by that he lives near [deleted. I’m leaving the rest of your comment up so that your nick can stay attached to it. – EBD]
before tapping out this missive, i feel obliged to remind others that things come and go.
today, in a report fom http://www.cyberpresse.ca (forewarned is forearmed – the text is in french)the “extreme” right in france has been censored / censured for posters being «anti-musulmanes».
the twist in the story is that intellectual property rights have been transgressed – in that – the posters used in france by the politician Le Pen use symbols and graphics originating from the swiss campaign to restrict the building of mosques with minarets (which btw was approved).
boy, am i ever glad that i did not grow up to be a lawyer.
The first I had ever listened to Hirsi Ali was when she ripped the little socialist comrade Avi Lewis to shreds in a CBC interview. I wonder if the whooping she gave him was responsible for his move to Al-Jazeera :
http://hotair.com/archives/2007/07/13/video-cartoonishly-anti-american-canadian-interviews-ayaan-hirsi-ali/
He, like most leftists, seem determined to attack the US and other successful western countries. Meanwhile, they are blind to the real dangers of Islam, multiculturalism and the welfare state. If they’d open their eyes they can easily find a concrete example of the failure of setting up parallel cultures and supporting dysfunctional societies – native reserves. All of the elements are there: physical separation, a separate language/education/law, collectivism and an all-powerful governing class (band chiefs). The result is a demoralized, disenfranchised underclass cursed with addiction, abuse and crime. And it’s not just the reserve system since Russia’s problems from the communist experiment yielded much the same results. Wherever you find progressives talking social justice and doling out money to a group, you’ll soon find the ghetto they have created.
mr. bennet,
“you’ll soon find the ghetto they have created.”
with a grain of salt (no longer legal in restaurants in new york city) you must be referring to the “community” created.
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil.
I read Hirsi Ali’s book, Infidel, when it first came out. First, I was struck by her courage for extracting herself from the culture that would have destroyed her. Next, I was struck by the clarity of her thinking.
The article is worth a re-read or two. So far, what I have gleaned is that folks who claim to be enlightened and tolerant make it difficult for those who would like to escape from the bonds of out-moded and repressive ways of thinking, to do so. They have to remain frozen in some sort of time warp as a living testament to those who would like to be seen as progressive. Instead of holding out a rescuing hand, we would urge a woman to go back to wearing a tent and being beaten in order to prove that all cultures and beliefs are equal and that we are oh so accepting and tolerant. (I hear some kind of sound track here–We Are the World perhaps?)
I’m only on my second scotch. I’d better go and think some more.
Listen people.
For crying out loud!
STOP USING THE WORD “PROGRESSIVES”
Why would you let these F#$king ASSHOLES define the linguistic term for what we’re supposed to call them ?
The proper term is LEFTIST,Stalinist,commie,or socialist,or MARXIST.
You are letting the filthy RED scum cover up what they really are.
If you want to use their made up word,then put at the end of the word a *qualifier*,some thing like- (read leftist)
For example:
“All progressives(read leftists) want to undermine the West and destroy our way of life.
or another example:
“Jack Layton,who calls himself a “progressive”(read Communist) has spent the last 35 years of his life doing everything in his power to undermine our economic freedoms and destroy our Canadian way of life”
Wake up people,they call us “Right Wing”
So then what,are YOU going to turn around and call them “Progressives”?
There isn’t a damned thing progressive about the left ….. g …. we’ve been over that around here a long time ago.
Nevertheless … you have a point.
How about leftards….?
“When Mr. Trudeau first campaigned in Edmonton, Atric, I was just a teenager, yet my friend John F. and I wrote out placards on sticks and went and protested his policies and his campaign..”
I was the Hamilton Forum when Trudeau spoke back in the early 70’s. We got in trouble for heckling him. After we left we saw David Lewis speak at Westdale Highschool. After that I became an NDP supporter.
Then I grew up.
You’re right JohnnyOL, I recently misplaced my converting English-to-Progressive language handbook. Shame on me but, to be fair, it’s difficult to recall the newest PC lingo without it.
BTW, you can call me LC…gender titles are so restrictive. 😉
I find it impossible to understand “white guilt”. Colonisation has been going on since time immoral and was not invented by the “whites” or Europeans. And slavery was not invented by “whites” or Europeans either. Only those totally ignorant of history would accept that Europeans are solely responsible. Frankly I admit to having no patience for this kind of ignorance, and no, it does not mean that I find slavery acceptable.
The same goes for racism that only whites seem ready to accept culpability. This is evidence that such people have never lived abroad in non white cultures, for they would discover that whites do not have a monopoly on racism. Again I have no patience with racists of any colour, group or culture, but I resent the lie that only whites can be racist.
The concept that all cultures are equal however seems to have been invented by whites or Europeans. It is clearly absurd unless one sees no problem in human sacrifice, the complete subjugation of women, honour killings and many other things. People being of different colour or race is not the problem, but people being of an unacceptable culture that they insist on importing to the host country is a big problem, which is why multiculturalism must be terminated.
Don’t know how old you are, Oz, but I lived in Toronto in the early 1960’s. The only question at the time was “Were you Anglican or one of the other Protestant churches?”. Our neighbourhood was almost completely British. There were two Japanese girls at my public school; they were the only non-whites. Victoria Day was a bigger celebration than Dominion Day. Dinner at any restaurant was some variation on “meat, potato, and 2 veg”. A really exotic Chinese meal from the one take-out place in a ten mile radius was fried rice, chow mein, and sweet and sour chicken balls.
Every morning, we sang “O Canada”, “God Save The Queen”, and if the teacher thought we were in good voice, we’d throw in “The Maple Leaf Forever”. We all recited the Lord’s Prayer, even the one Jewish kid in my class. The map of the world that hung on the wall still depicted the Empire – oops, sorry, the Commonwealth – in pink.
The flag debate, which doubtless you forget or were too young for, outraged everyone of British origin. My grandparents, who came from England, were apoplectic; my parents, born in Canada, were merely disgusted, and considered it a Quebec plot.
English Canada was pretty well united at the time; they weren’t fractured until Trudeau got through eliminating every last one of British traditions, ensuring the upper levels of the federal bureaucracy were disproportionately French, and watering down English strength through the introduction of an endless stream of immigrants who wouldn’t assimilate into English culture, preferring to maintain their own.
Mr. G;
I picked up the term “progressive’ from Glen Beck. Glen explained that ‘progressive’ is an old term that got the Red wingnuts(read Marxists, no offence to hockey team names) of America turfed in the 1940s so the Red wingnuts (read Bolsheviks) switched their name to ‘Liberal’; thus ruining that once honorable word.
Lately, ‘Liberal’ has oxidized and become a tarnished word so the tarnished ‘Liberals’ have reclaimed the old ‘progressive’ mime.
‘Progressive’ tacked on to any word makes that word mean something else or the opposite – eg. Progressive Conservative, Progressive Democrats, Progressive thought.
I think that maybe some Red wingnuts (read bloody Bolsheviks) think ‘Progressive’ is a compliment (even from right wingers who are right (read correct) – I certainly do not wish to be misleading; most of the time harsher Adjectives/Gerunds should be used, in Canada – at this time.
Hey kevinB
It’s 2010 now. Get the memo?
Trudeau definitely provoked strong reactions. I remember getting NEP bucks in grade school as prizes in geography bingo (featuring PET giving the one finger salute). I also remember the only time I heard grown men swear in mixed company usually when PET’s name came up, usually “that f’n Trudeau”.
In a one word, I believe Mr. Bruckner is “dangerous.”
There’s something not quite right in all of this. Bruckner goes after multiculturalism, which is part and parcel of the Marxists’ war on western culture (at least the notion of equality of cultures; a cultural practice that does not involve the use of force by one person on another is in most cases nothing to worry about). But he wants to use sources from that very school. His Wikipedia page sums it up this way: “Bruckner draws on modern philosophers from Heidegger to Gadamer, Derrida, Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno to mount a broad attack on the Enlightenment, claiming that they argued that ‘all the evils of our epoch were spawned by this philosophical and literary episode The Enlightenment: capitalism, colonialism, totalitarianism'”.
The likes of Heidegger (who supported the Nazis), Horkheimer and Adorno (Frankfurt School) are deeply part of the problem, and not the solution. Multiculturalism is their baby, and one can hardly attack it by way of its own advocates. In other words, Horkheimer and Adorno (and of course Marcuse), following Kant and Hegel, were themselves mounting an attack on the Enlightenment. And it hardly need be reminded that capitalism and totalitarianism are polar opposites.
Both Ian Buruma and Timothy Garton Ash are frequent contributors to the Globe and Mail op-ed page. For what it’s worth, I personally criticized one Buruma column here a couple of months ago.
I remember Ayaan Hirsi Ali, particularly her deft strafing of Avi Lewis.
And he got outta Dodge real quick!!
I add the same link from previous poster.
http://hotair.com/archives/2007/07/13/video-cartoonishly-anti-american-canadian-interviews-ayaan-hirsi-ali/
Ayaan Hirsi Ali is right about Islam, but she’s wrong about the West. Yes, she’s got spunk, and she’s smart, and thank goodness for her willingness to stand up to the bullying. But she herself is in her own way one who who despises the Western cultural heritage and “adulates foreign traditions”: she lied to get into Europe in the first place, she’s an atheist, and she’s an adultress. These actions are all decidedly opposed to Western values.
one aspect in the discussion that is of great interest is the necessity to recognise that segments of any given population actually submit willingly and want to be guided/controlled.
given that choice is a sacred cow – most could agree that any exercise that entails convincing anyone – “their” choice is misguided is literally getting off on the wrong/left/right foot.
choose any or all of the above.
real problems only begin to surface when debate is closed and imposition of ideology hits the fan. thank goodness for sda.
ps – yikes!
LC it is and LC it shall remain.