Friday, September 29, 2006

news from Ayaan Hirsi Ali


Remember Ayaan Hirsi Ali, who was ‘chased out’ of the Netherlands some months ago by a media frenzy about the status of her nationality? She made the headline yesterday, saying that the Parliament she spent three and a half years working in is “weak, unscrupulous and lacking in memory.” According to her, important decisions are often taken in the ‘side chambers’, whereas many pressing issues, like the rise in child abuse is being neglected. On the war in Iraq or the decision to send Dutch troops to Afghanistan, Hirsi Ali says that discussions took place in the form of “group therapy”—mere talk but no influence could be exercised effectively by the parliamentarians. Her main concerns are about the integration debate, fearing that the debate is being “monopolized by radical Islamists on the one side and Le-Pen like fascists on the other.”

Hirsi Ali received the prestigious German “Das Glas der Vernunft” award today—which is awarded to people who have made contributed to spread the ‘Maxims of the Englightenment—winning over ideological restrictions, reason and toleranc. Hirsi Ali was recognised for “her contribution to the integration of immigrants and against the discrimination of women.”

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