HUIBSLOG - Journal

Yesterday, I wrote in my blog At Home in Europe: Hitchens has been (too) well served by the Dutch Right.

Here are some quotes:

My point of view was, and is, that Hitchens was preparing a new use for the 'Moor' Hirsi Ali ('The Moor has done his job, the Moor may dispose!' - Fr. Schiller, famous German author, friend of Goethe), after her uses had been exhausted by the Dutch VVD conservative party.

And I also foresaw a new element in the Hirsi-Ali exploitation, to be expected from the American neoconservatives: putting her forward as a witness for the European softness and dangerous appeasement leanings, concerning the Great Muslim Conspiracy, that is a mortal danger to this world.

Now, in his latest Slate column, 'Holland's latest insult to Ayaan Hirsi Ali', Hitchens cashes in his gains like a card player who won too early, too much:
The Dutch have served him all he hoped for, on a silver plate. He correctly feels, that, like in 'religious sects', or in prison (or, for that matter the Trotskyist sects, which he knows better), the leadership doesn't accept a voluntary good-bye: the dissenting and onerous member has to be evicted before he or she leaves freely. That is, what former prison warden immigration minister Rita Verdonk, cerberus hound against refugees and immigration, last Monday tried to do.
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His only problem is, that he did not win where he intended to, i.e.: at the cost of the Dutch and European left. He won from another card-player, the Dutch (and European) populist and pro-Bush RIGHT.

Actually, those whom he (and Hirsi Ali for that matter) nails to the pillory as the willing collaborators of the Islam Conspiracy against the West, were the only ones, who timely and worthy protested against the methods and ways, the Dutch populist Right wanted to dispose of Hirsi Magan.
Look here:

"Opnieuw gedwongen te vluchten" (Forced anew to fly) - manifesto of Dutch personalities*) against the right's handling of Hirsi Ali, NRC-Handelsblad, May 16, 2006. Click on the image to see a less unreadable version.

On May 16, 2006, a group of Dutch LEFT-leaning intellectuals, writers, retired politicians, were the ONLY ones to come forward in an open letter in the most prestigious Dutch daily, NRC-Handelsblad, AGAINST driving out Ajaan Hirsi! This was published, BEFORE Parliament called minister Verdonk to order. At the same time, most of the political right was showing satisfaction at the disappearance of Hirsi Ali from the Dutch scene.How does Hitchens handle this embarrassing anomaly?He takes on the famous co-author Ian Buruma (professor in the US, of Dutch origin) of "Occidentalism", who wrote an Op-Ed in The New York Times about Holland and Hirsi Ali. Rather timidly, Buruma made some critical observations on the ways in which the Dutch right has manipulated Hirsi Ali during her participation in Dutch politics.

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You're welcome at my European blog, to see all of my article.