Alms for Anti-Jihad Dissidents: Who is Responsible for Funding Their Security?

Yesterday, I wrote a glowing piece about a glowing event: My son’s wedding. But let it not be said that I have deserted my post as a champion worrier. I remain on duty about:

The meeting in Annapolis which is hard upon us; Saudi Arabia’s hot and poisonous war against Israel and the West–a war that we ourselves are funding by our enormous dependence on Saudi oil; the insanely vindictive punishment meted out to a young female victim of gang rape in the Saudi Kingdom; the recent Islamist mob assault upon and expulsion of Bangladeshi feminist author, Taslima Nasrin, from two cities: Kolkata and Jaipur, in India; and the ongoing danger that both Wafa Sultan and Aayan Hirsi Ali must live with in America.

I recently worked with both Sultan and Hirsi Ali. Sultan is an intense and passionate speaker. She is also a tiny woman whose husband hovers protectively nearby. She wrings her hands about her security. Hirsi Ali is linguistically brilliant and cool-witted and cuts a somewhat hilarious (although sobering) picture since she travels with a posse, rock-star style. When I first met her, she was surrounded by four assistants from the American Enterprise Institute, three or four learned friends from Holland, and at least two indoor and possibly two outdoor security guards.

Alas, as everyone now knows, although Hirsi Ali is a Dutch citizen and a former member of the Dutch Parliament, the Dutch stopped funding her security. The question of whether private or governmental bodies should now undertake her security (and the security of all those who protest and resist Islamist totalitarianism and who have had fatwas issues against them) is also hard upon us.

Should private citizens take up alms to pay for Hirsi Ali’s security? Should Wafa Sultan, Taslima Nasrin, and Ayaan Hirsi Ali live and work together? Should the international community set up a sovereign state composed of dissidents and fund an army, navy, and airforce for them–because trust me, before this latest Islamist jihad abates, we may need an Israel-like state for anti-Islamist dissidents.

What do you think? Private funding for dissidents, both for their self-defensive lawsuits and for their security? Or should sovereign democratic governments fund their lawsuits and their security?