Should Ayaan Hirsi Ali get EU protection?
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Somali-born author/activist and former Dutch parlimentarian Ayaan Hirsi Ali is asking for political asylum in France and a fund to be created for public figures who speak out against Islamist violence.
Hirsi Ali has been living in the United States in the employ of the Amercian Enterprise Institute, a Washington D.C. based political think tank. In October of 2007 the Dutch government decided to cut security funding for Hirsi Ali since she was living abroad and it was merely deemed unfeasable.
On Sunday the former parlimentarian was seeking asylum in France with the help of several French public intellectuals such as Bernard Henry Levy among others. Appeals were made to French President Nicolas Sarkozy who was asked to make good on his campaign promise to help oppressed women and children throughout the world.
But the idea of a fund for public figures under threat of violence or death from religious radicals will be debated in Brussels when Hirsi Ali travels there with several French intellectuals lobbying for the fund’s creation.
Hirsi Ali’s asylum request in France will most likely be granted but the creation of a fund for the aforementioned reasons brings up several interesting questions.
As citizens of western democracies should we be compelled to provide tax money for such a fund? The argument runs two ways. Some argue that public figures making political statements know the risks involved and take them whereas not all citizens of any one state are willing to bear the burden that such risks entail. Police protection, a cornerstone of any western democracy is there to be enjoyed by all but what about police protection amounting to a wittness protection program for public figures who make controversial statements that may even run contrary to the pervailing public sentiment?
Others argue that funding the protection of such public figures is absolutely essential to the protection and preservation of western democracy itself. Indeed, in the current state of world affairs balking on protection measures for such individuals may be seen as a capitulation to radicalism.
What is a liberal democracy after all if the conditions of the possibility for an open dialogue are not allowed to exist?
Seems like we have not heard the last of Miss Hirsi Ali by a long stretch.
Tags: american enterprise institute, ayaan hirsi ali, european union, france, Islam, netherlands
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February 12, 2008 at 5:58 pm
This is a no-brainer. Of course! This fund has become an absolute necessity.