Following last week’s Islamic terrorist attacking in Paris and the ongoing flood of Muslim refugees and migrants into Europe, Ayaan Hirsi Ali is calling on Europe to change its immigration policies and reinforce its border security.
In an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal, Ali warned that if political leaders in Europe follow Merkel’s example of “making a virtue of the openness of their borders,” then right-wing populist movements will continue to grow. Given the threat of Islamic extremism, Ali says that Europe must revisit its treaties, laws, and policies in order to tighten its controls of the flow of people into and throughout the continent. She called for cultural and ideological screening of those wishing to make Europe their home.
Ali also called for a determined “war of ideas” against Islamists. European leaders, Ali said, must pursue the “infrastructure of indoctrination”: mosques, Muslim schools, and Islamic websites. Pretending that Islamic terrorism has nothing to do with Islam and Muslims, however, will prevent this from being possible. Given the multicultural ethos of Europe, this recommendation of Ali’s is all the more difficult to actualize. Multiculturalism discourages cultural integration of immigrants, contributing to ghettoization and Balkanization. It is also fused with cultural relativism, further obstructing the acculturation of immigrants by discouraging the promotion of Western values. If no culture is superior to any other, why should Europe preserve its own in light of cultural change brought in by the mass immigration of Muslims? Ali’s proposal to proselytize the values of Western Civilization is only possible in an environment which believes in the superiority of Western values over alternatives.
Ali heralded Israel’s counterterrorism systems as a model to be emulated by European security services. From Israel’s founding, it has dealt with the threat of Islamic terrorism. Nowadays, Ali says, such a mass casualty attack in Israel as was seen in Paris is unthinkable. Islamic terrorists in Israel, she continued, are now relegated to using knives and vehicles. “We should stop demonizing Israel. We should start learning from Israel,” said Ali.
“We should start by naming it.”
Ayaan Hirsi Ali on Radical Islam
Joining Megyn Kelly last night, Ali exposited on her article. She said that President Barack Obama’s rhetorical strategy of denying the overlap between Islamic terrorism, Islam, and Muslims is a “failure.” After acknowledging that a nuanced grasp of Islam and Muslims is necessary in order not to indict the entire religious group for acts of Islamic terrorists, Ali stated that radical Islam must still be seen as a subset of Islam. The attempt to excise Jihadism and completely separate it from Islam and Muslims makes it impossible to effectively combat it. “We should start by naming it,” said Ali. Ali rebuked the view that carefully crafted rhetoric denying the religious underpinnings of Islamic terrorism will pacify its perpetrators.
Ali warned that this is a long-term struggle, saying, “Islamic extremism is older than this election cycle, and the last one, and 9/11. It’s going to outlast this election cycle.”