Moral Equivalences

09/simplistic_enli.html”>Garton Ash and Buruma:

Ali’s own story has been told in countless profiles and interviews. In fact, she is irresistible copy for journalists, being a tall, strikingly beautiful, exotic, brave, outspoken woman with a remarkable life story, now living under permanent threat of being slaughtered like van Gogh. Among the many awards listed on the back cover of her new book of essays, The Caged Virgin, next to the Moral Courage Award, the International Network of Liberal Women Freedom Prize, Dutchman [sic] of the Year 2004, the Coq d’Honneur 2004, and the Danish Freedom Prize, is Glamour magazine’s Hero of the Month Award. That’s how we like our heroes—glamorous. It’s no disrespect to Ms. Ali to suggest that if she had been short, squat, and squinting, her story and views might not be so closely attended to.

But at least she wouldn’t have been patronised.