couldn’t classify, so socially moderate overall. She has gotten criticism on the left and the right – even within her own political party – for certain views in this arena. MP Hirsi Ali is pro-choice on abortion, supports gay rights, supports ‘positive discrimination’ (known as affirmative action in USA) for women, and believes that an obsession with sexual morality has crippled Muslims. She would abolish religious schools, and use state power to forcibly integrate Holland’s increasingly segregated schools and neighborhoods. However, her conservative side comes up as a staunch critic of multiculturalism, critic of victimology rhetoric, her belief that cultural differences and not racism mostly explain different employment rates in Holland, and her staunch defense of Western values. As many people across the ideological spectrum hold similar views, we couldn’t classify her opposition to female and male circumcision, haranging health authorities to examine schoolgirls for evidence of genital mutilation, her status as a champion of free speech, support for immigration but also assimilation of immigrants into Dutch society, and support for strict separation of church and state (which definitely cuts across the ideological spectrum in Europe).
On foreign policy:
MP Hirsi Ali has 71% conservative rating on foreign policy issues. She supports the War On Terrorism and the war in Iraq, opposes Turkey’s ascension to the European Union, is pro-Israel, and is one of Europe’s most vociferous critics of Islamism. We were unable to find any liberal positions from her in this arena, although 29% of her views are unclassifiable: she supports the European Union constitution, and supports E.U. power to crack down on ‘honor’ killings on the continent.
Further evidence of confusion with regard to Ms.Ali (via Butterflies and Wheels):
In a series of “Letters to Hirsi Ali” published this spring in the newspaper De Volkskrant, several well-known, mostly male writers charged her with poisoning the political atmosphere with her strident attacks on Islam and the Prophet Mohammed. They argued that by pandering to Dutch prejudices and putting Muslims on the defensive, she contributes to the very Islamic radicalization she claims to want to stop. In a book rushed into print in February, the popular historian Geert Mak went so far as to compare Submission to Joseph Goebbels’s infamous Nazi propaganda film The Eternal Jew. He warned that the Netherlands could be on the road to civil war. “When the time comes for us to tell our grandchildren, how will we tell the story of the last months of 2004?” Mak asked breathlessly. “The tone, the new tone that suddenly had taken hold? Where did it all begin?”
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