Now, the way my mind works I see a connection between a woman born a Muslim in Somalia who could not flee that culture and the mind sets of people who live in a condominium in South Florida.  You see, it is like this: Ayaan Hirsi Ali had her genitals cut as a child in Somalia, was forced by her father to marry a cousin but became a refugee who fled to Holland. She became university educated and worked on behalf of abused women finding that most of them were Muslim women suffering from differential treatment by men following the Islamic faith.  This was reported on page A4 “The Saturday Profile” in today’s NY Times. People, though living in the same place, may be oceans apart.

The enlightenment of Ms Ali to the mistreatment of Muslim women caused a reaction that has echoes around the world.  By raising this issue of the treatment of women as chattels and recipients of institutional abuse she became the target of hate mail and death threats from other Muslims.  Simply put, she rightly protested traditional treatment of women as sexual objects only to find herself the target of abuse by those who felt that it was proper treatment. To object was against Muslim “Law”. This is in Holland where such behavior is unlawful.

It is interesting to compare notions about law by people inhabiting the same world. In the Netherlands through Ms Ali the non-Muslim majority has heard the call of the “second sex” of Muslim women who do not benefit from being in a western nation with enlightened practices written into its laws. Ms. Ali is persecuted by the Islamic cultural interpretation of the role of women so she had to flee a second time from a place she had learned to call home. The phenomenon exists of two separate and unequal beliefs in the same land. It is easy to recall the Muslim and Hindu worlds cohabiting India before 1948. The solution adopted there was to create separate nations. Yet, differing practices can and do exist by people of different religions and beliefs living in the same nation.In the Netherlands it is possible to criticize the nation and be heard.  In the Muslim world within the Netherlands Ms Ali has been threatened with death for her raising the issue of institutional abuse of Muslim women.  This is an echo of the way Salmon Rushdi was condemned in his own country, although culturally a European, for writings universally accepted in the western world as just that, writing.

The parallel is that within the small world of a condominium here in South Florida there are two populations.  One is an increasingly small group of citizen voters in local, state and national elections and another group of non-citizens who do not vote even in the condominium where they live. All should live by rules and regulations that all occupants are expected to obey. Values and morality of each differ, however.

Non-citizens have the same rights as other owners of apartments yet they do not see it that way. They still behave as citizens of other countries, in awe of mechanisms of self-government and do not participate as citizens of the US.  They are in a limbo of their own making but are the cause of most of the complaints of non-compliance with rules but they demand fair and equal treatment. The culture of “Leave Us Alone” denies that there is responsibility for cooperative behavior and using the ballot to find what the majority will accept. We have people who demand preferential treatment while they do not participate in crafting the rules the majority creates. There are parallels here. More than two cultures operate simultaneously in most places.  Ms. Ali, from Somalia, has adopted western ways and standards yet her past followed her to her adopted land. Her co-religionists will not “Leave her Alone”.