I sense the stirrings of a cyclical, seismic shift within the conservative “movement” that will manifest itself more clearly as the 2016 presidential election inches closer.
Sounding a lot like an Irshad Manji – or a Daniel Pipes – the previously adamant Islamic apostate has suddenly decided that, ISIS, Boko Haram, Al Shabab, Hezbollah, Hamas et al notwithstanding, there’s a glimmer of a ghost of a shot that Islam, may, after all, be reformable.
To those of us who have read and admired Hirsi Ali
in her previous incarnation, this volte face has come as the equivalent of, well, a slap in the face. (…)
Was it, perhaps, her years of living in America? Was she infected by that nation’s gung-ho attitude, it’s unbridled sprit of optimism (even though, in recent years, an American president who does not believe in American exceptionalism has done his best to snuff it out)? Was there a degree of opportunism behind it in that she knew she could read a wider audience — perhaps even an NPR/MSNBC/Oprah type of crowd — were she to harp on the positive instead of the negative, thereby turning herself into Norma Vincent Peale (or is it the Baraka Obama?) of Islamic hope ‘n’ change.
