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by Douglas Murray
• April 9, 2017 at 5:00 am
- Like other criticisms of Hirsi Ali, the effort was to
portray her as the problem itself rather than as the response to a
problem.
- That this type of campaign can succeed -- that speakers can
be stopped from speaking in Western democracies because of the
implicit or explicit threat of violence -- is a problem our
societies need to face.
- There is a whole pile of reasons why Islamists want to stop
her explanations from being aired. But why -- when the attacks
keep on happening -- do our own societies collude with such
sinister people to keep ourselves the dark?
Ayaan Hirsi Ali, author and human-rights activist.
(Image source: The Aspen Institute)
Only a
fortnight after a vehicular terrorist attack in Westminster, London,
another similar attack took place in Stockholm, Sweden. On one of the
city's main shopping streets, a vehicle was once again used as a
battering-ram against the bodies of members of the public. As in Nice,
France. As in Berlin. As so many times in Israel.
Amid this
regular news there is an air of defeatism -- a terrible lack of policy
and lack of solutions. How can governments stop people driving trucks
into pedestrians? Is it something we must simply get used to, as
France's former Prime Minister Manuel Valls and London's Mayor Sadiq
Khan have both suggested? Must we come to recognise acts of terror as
something like the weather? Or is there anything we can do to limit, if
not stop, them? If so, where would we start? One place would be to have
a frank public discussion about these matters. Yet, even that is easier
said than done.
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