That are some nice hyperlinks. Did you read them all? I'm a longtime big fan of Ayaan Hirsi Ali (AHA) and wrote a lot about her on my Dutch non-vfp weblog. Currently I'm writing there about Eshan Jami, the 22-year old apostate muslim. This saturday he will speak on a congress of his political party (which is also still my party, although I no longer really feel at home there). Certain political hotshots (including the chairman) no longer support him. They are of opinion that he heats up the debate too much and that he does not show enough respect for muslims.

In the Netherlands the necessary debate is only in part about the problems. Many politicians and columnists unconsciously focus mainly on the TONE of the debate. When they criticize people like AHA and Jami, they complain mainly about their tone. Probably this is more the case in my country than in e.g. France. Polderen (a Dutch word that is used by us to characterize our attitude to form committees that come together many times and try to establish compromises) requires a certain 'tone'. Strong opinions are bad for polderen (let's call it poldering: http://thirdside.blogs.com/forum/2006/01/creating_peace_.html). This may be the hidden drive to criticize people like AHA and Jami. It is probably not coincidental that AHA is originally from another culture. However, for me she is the perfect person to awaken the Dutch, who fell asleep in the past 40 years while they should have paid attention to alarming signals.


>This is not designed to criticize either approach. I am hoping that we will see in the end that the more tolerant approach will succeed. However, given that the U.S. actually employed that approach for years I am not overly optimistic. The U.S. did negate that approach with other policies though and since I am not aware of the Dutch doing the same thing, hopefully they will be successful where the U.S. has failed. If they fail as well, who will they go to for support? The U.S? The EU? The UN?
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>http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article2426314.ece
>http://www.martinfrost.ws/htmlfiles/dutch_experience1.html
>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ayaan_Hirsi_Ali
>http://www.aivd.nl/contents/pages/65582/jihad2006en.pdf
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>The New York Times says that the Netherlands has been “the world’s most tolerant, open-minded society, with full sexual equality and same-sex marriage, as well as liberal policies on soft drugs and prostitution.” Is it true that before 9/11 the Netherlands had the largest number of wiretaps in the world? Let's hope that Netherlands has more success than the U.S. has had. I hope history proves that pacivism, tolerance and dialogue are successful as long as it doesn't involve capitulation.
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>Here’s what Ayaan Hirsi Ali has to say about Islam:
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>All of Europe is in a state of denial. It thinks these killings will go away, but they will not. The Holy Book says infidels must be destroyed. Osama bin Laden is a puritan Muslim. That is why he keeps insisting on the Koran. Islam is not a religion of peace, or only of peace with other Muslims. We should acknowledge that it’s a very violent religion, say, yes, you are right, instead of pretending, like Bush, that this violence is not true Islam. And then we should encourage Muslims to say that they will remain Muslims, but reject those verses incompatible with human rights, with a decent coexistence between men and women. We should demand an Islamic Reformation.
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>If she is right, then neither approach will succeed in the long run and we all set on a path to a world of Sharia Islamic Law.