Ayaan Hirsi Ali - Human Rights vs. Tolerance

Ms. Ayaan Hirsi Ali, member of the Dutch Parliament, was recently found to have falsified her refugee information when she arrived in the Netherlands in 1992. I just heard a radio interview with her on WNYC about her new book The Caged Virgin. Her views on Islam, as I see them, are influenced by her earlier interactions with the religion: her grandmother performed a circumcision (FGM) on her when she was six years old and then her father attempted to marry her off to a distant cousin when she was twenty-two. In all, she has not had a particularly positive relationship with Islam and Muslims.

That is why, while I may agree with her that certain tenets in Islam are contrary to western liberal thought, it is unfair to say that we should not be tolerant of apparently intolerant cultures (as she says in her interview on WNYC). Protection of female rights and cultural tolerance, while closely entwined in her context, are not the same issue. Religious tolerance stems from an idea of cosmopolitanism that is a strongly-held tenet of western liberalism and female rights belong to the idea of universal human rights, also a major aspect of liberalism.

Ms. Hirsi Ali, as far as I can tell, wishes to do away with cultural tolerance to preserve human rights. I would propose we follow something of a middle path, one that will neither ignore human rights nor eschew cultural tolerance. Within countries that hold the same set of beliefs, ie western liberal countries (I daresay the US may not be one with our recent anti-abortion legislations), we protect the human rights of individuals, be they citizens, residents, visitors, or refugees, against any malefactors. After all, if a group of people wishes to practice their cultural traditions, it must ensure that the beliefs of that culture do not clash with the policies of the nation in which they have chosen to reside. However, outside this set of nations, our government pursues a policy of cosmopolitanism - governmental agents and agencies do nothing that will offend the residents of nations outside the group outlined earlier.

However, that does not restrict NGOs from carrying on their own campaigns for human rights, campaigns such as those discouraging child marriages and female genital mutilations and encouraging the use of sexual contraceptives. As long as the NGOs are not coercive in their tactics and merely attempting to educate and equip people with the knowledge and tools to improve their lives, they are within their bounds. On the other side, we must allow NGOs from other nations access to our populace. They must be able to educate and equip any members of our population who agree with what they are saying. Again, their actions must be limited to non-coercive tactics that do not violate the laws of our nations, much like NGOs from our nations cannot violate the laws of their nations.

I believe that such practices will reduce the objections that people like Ms. Hirsi Ali may have against cultural tolerance. I realize that she feels she has suffered a lot of intolerance at the hands of a culture that we are tolerating, but eschewing tolerance would destroy western liberalism far more quickly and assuredly than any amount of repeated attacks by outside cultures.

References:

Ms. Hirsi Ali's May 5, 2006 Interview with Brian Lehrer on WNYC
Ayaan Hirsi Ali - Wikipedia article

Update:

An interesting epilogue: Upon leaving the Dutch Parliament, Ms. Hirsi Ali is going to the United States, where she will be joining a conservative think tank, American Enterprise Institute - slightly confusing, considering her stated allegiance to western liberal thought.