Andy McCarthy at National Review Online links us to a piece that you just have to laugh at even at the risk of being labelled "insensitive." McCarthy calls our attention to an article in The Brussels Journal about a lefty Dutch journalist, Joanie de Rijke, who "went to Afghanistan to conduct a sympathetic interview with Taliban jihadists who had just killed 10 French troops. Naturally, she was abducted and serially raped for six days. And now she is angry ... not at the chief Taliban thug - who showed her "respect," though, regrettably, "he could not control his testosterone" - but at the Dutch and Belgian governments who refused to pay the $2 million ransom the jihadists demanded."
Not only are the governments of Belgium and Netherlands getting heat over their refusal to play along with the Taliban extortion, but minister of Parliament Geert Wilders is the object of European opprobrium for a speech he gave on this incident to the Dutch Parliament. In the speech Wilders said:
"She was raped, but she was not angry. The journalist who went looking for the Taliban in Afghanistan saw her curiosity end in a cruel ordeal of multiple rape. While this would make others angry or sad, this journalist shows understanding. She says: 'They also respected me.' And she was given tea and biscuits."
"This story" Wilders went on to say, "is a perfect illustration of the moral decline of our elites. They are so blinded by their own ideology that they turn a blind eye to the truth. Rape? Well, I would put this into perspective, says the leftist journalist: the Taliban are not monsters. Our elites prefer to deny reality rather than face it. One would expect: a woman is being raped and finds this unbearable. But this journalist is not angry because the Muslim involved also showed respect. Our elites, whether they are politicians, journalists, judges, subsidy gobblers or civil servants, are totally clueless. Plain common sense has been dumped in order to deny reality. It is not just this raped journalist who is suffering from Stockholm syndrome, but the entire Dutch elite. The only moral reference they have is: do not irritate the Muslims - that is the one thing they will condemn."
The Brussels Journal then notes that:
Rather than trying to refute Wilders, the Dutch establishment attacked him, accusing him of "immorally abusing de Rijke's ordeal for his own political goals."
Her reaction confirms precisely what Wilders was trying to say. In reality the Taliban are not monsters because they call themselves Taliban, but because they behave like monsters. People like de Rijke, however, no longer judge people by their behavior and their actions, but condone them for the noble motives which they imagine have driven them to commit their acts. As Wilders said, "They are so blinded by their own ideology that they turn a blind eye to the truth."
Those who have been abducted and suffer from Stockholm syndrome usually have not placed themselves in danger willingly. They had the misfortune to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. The phenomenon illustrated by the case of Joanie de Rijke is that of people who for ideological reasons deny the existence of danger and subsequently put themselves in danger. Unlike ordinary Stockholm syndrome sufferers they do not begin to shown signs of loyalty to the criminal while in captivity, but have already surrendered to the criminal before their captivity, and, indeed, have ended up in captivity as a consequence of their ideological blindness.
And so, in a way Joanie de Rijke is right. She did not develop Stockholm syndrome while in captivity. She had the syndrome even before she left for Afghanistan. It is natural that she should resent her state of mind being described as Stockholm syndrome, because she considers it to be the state of mind of a righteous and intelligent modern intellectual. It is the state of mind which she shares with almost the entire political and intellectual class of Europe today, that of the hostage to political correctness.
The Brussels Journal article is worth reading in its entirety. It contains further details about Ms de Rijke and her experience, some of them funny and none of them flattering.
RLC