Something New?

clipped from blogs.news.com.au IF there is an intellectual establishment, and I suppose there is, the attacks on Ayaan Hirsi Ali radiate from its centre. And this, the campaign against Hirsi Ali - this, like the anti-Semitic mob assault during the Paris peace march of 2003, or like the spectacle of millions of Britons marching under the leadership of an Islamist organisation, or like the calm discussions in The New York Times of why it would be wrong to condemn with any vigour the stoning of women to death - this does represent something new. Something like a campaign against Hirsi Ali could never have taken place a few years ago. A sustained attack on an authentic liberal dissident crying out against injustices in remote parts of the world and even in the back streets of western Europe, a sustained attack that appears nearly to have erased the mention of women’s oppression and the struggle for women’s rights from discussion - no, this could not have happened yesterday, except on the extreme Right.

How I wish it were...