Forgiveness and cultural suicide
Never send me an email if you don't want me to take your thoughts for inspiration that ends up in my blog. This weekend, I got the following email from a friend:
Check out today's WSJ and the chilling article about Aayan Hirsi Ali, Somali born critic of radical Islam and a Dutch parlimentarian. Seems the Dutch are mad at her for trying to make them aware of a problem about which they'd rather stay in denial, so her neighbors got her evicted, the country is kicking her out, and she is fleeing to – guess where – the USA. Fleming Rose, the Danish editor responsible for the Mohammed cartoons, is also contemplating moving here. We truly are the port in the storm.
Soon, all of amoral, anti-American Europe will be trying to flee here once their continent becomes Eurabia.
My friend is absolutely right, of course. In addition to agreeing with her, I started thinking about forgiveness and redemption in Western society — that is, what we're willing to forgive lately. Here's the response I sent her:
I’ve been following the Hirsi Ali story.
It’s interesting the take on Hirsi Ali's misrepresentations on her asylum application. Apparently some of them were a bit substantive (such as saying she was mired in Somalian poverty when she was actually living a middle-class-ish life somewhere else in Africa). That’s not the interesting bit. The interesting bit is that (a) she confessed to this 9 years ago and (b) she’s not being forgiven. It’s the last that’s especially unusual. Holland has always considered itself a forgiving society. It forgives drug use, infanticide and (as does any good Western nation) any number of sexual failings. What it won’t forgive is a long-ago confessed transgression, minor in the grand scheme of asylum seekers, by someone who has dared to stand up and identify the hate-infused ideology filtering through Dutch society.
It’s very peculiar watching worlds commit suicide. In Europe, they’re bowing their neck to the Islamic sword. In America, we're abasing ourselves at the feet of immigration extremists. It makes me wish I hadn’t had children sometimes, because I find terrible the world we’re bequeathing them.
It’s interesting the take on Hirsi Ali's misrepresentations on her asylum application. Apparently some of them were a bit substantive (such as saying she was mired in Somalian poverty when she was actually living a middle-class-ish life somewhere else in Africa). That’s not the interesting bit. The interesting bit is that (a) she confessed to this 9 years ago and (b) she’s not being forgiven. It’s the last that’s especially unusual. Holland has always considered itself a forgiving society. It forgives drug use, infanticide and (as does any good Western nation) any number of sexual failings. What it won’t forgive is a long-ago confessed transgression, minor in the grand scheme of asylum seekers, by someone who has dared to stand up and identify the hate-infused ideology filtering through Dutch society.
