C L O S E R – Hirsi Ali & Loyalty

Looking at the press reports and internet forums, it seems that many Muslim migrants and second generation are very glad that Hirsi Ali is going to leave this country and are not very sad about what happened to her. (A few seem to regret it but to me it looks like a minority but I have to admit I haven’t talked to many in real life about this).

I am wondering if they should be really pleased about all of this.

Let’s imagine the following. You are an asylumseeker. You have changed your story in such a way that you know you have more chance that the Dutch will grant you a status as a refugee. (The ones who never changed a story so that it would fit bureaucratic institutions, stop reading.) At that time you are in an asylum shelter (A field somewhere in the country side with some old second hand trailers). 10 years later you are in parlaiment, well known in the West, your Dutch is quite good, you have finished a university education. Well done huh? And no that is not easy, if it was easy there would be more like you.

Then after 10 years, people conclude that you have no right to have a Dutch citizenship. No matter what you did in those 10 years: university, parlaiment and so on. It doesn’t matter. Most reactions: rules are rules and go back to your country. No sense of loyalty, no idea that you might be a member of the Dutch ‘imagined community’. And if this can happen to a member of parlaiment, it can happen to every migrant citizen. So, I truly think some Muslim migrants should be more careful in expressing their relief that Hirsi Ali is leaving. What happened to her can happen to them, could be the conclusion. And most people don’t have an elite for support like Hirsi Ali has.