But they all deserve it. How can one make a choice among such people?*

Posted by: Hugh at December 9, 2005 4:39 PM

Only 14 votes so far? Get cracking people!

Posted by: Gary at December 9, 2005 4:41 PM

You're right, Hugh. They all deserve an award. Glad to see three women on the ballot.

Posted by: 3812Michelle at December 9, 2005 4:53 PM

This one is going to take some careful thinking - even then it may come down to a coin toss as they are all worthy. Fallaci perhaps since this may be her last chance.

Posted by: johnb at December 9, 2005 5:12 PM

I chose Fallaci, as it sound like she is quite ill from cancer. But any of the women deserve this award. I'm not familiar with the men. Who are they and what have they done?

Posted by: kelley at December 9, 2005 5:19 PM

kelley:

John Howard is the PM of Australia. He's been a stalwart friend of the USA since 9/11. Although he's hated by the left wing press in Australia, he's still a popular PM. It's too bad he isn't a US citizen - he can't be our President in 08.

Posted by: Darius LaMonica at December 9, 2005 6:41 PM

Bat Ye'or did invent the word 'dhimmitude.'

Enough said.

Posted by: Cornelius at December 9, 2005 7:03 PM

I have concluded that I suffer from OCD (okay, a very mild form - I've suspected it for quite some time in any case). Now IF this award were called the "Bat Ye'or Anti-Dhimmi Internationale 2005 Award" (named after Ye'or herself, whom as Cornelius points out coined the term) )AND if there was a separate "life-time" achievement award for Fallaci, then I might well vote for Rasmussen, because he is the closest stand-in for my actual pick - the Danish paper (Jylland-Posten) that published the cartoons of Muhammad and because I totally applaud Rasmussen's defense of the paper as an example of the sort of anti-dhimmitude that all western leaders should display in defense of the west's values and also because he made the news prominently in 2005 (my literalist side again).

But weighing it all together, I have to go with Fallaci. She probably won't live long enough to garner a lifetime achievement award or even the 2006 Anti-dhimmi Internationale award. She deserves to win it now. I hope Rasmussen is still going strong in 2006 and I hope the award itself gets renamed next year in Bat Ye'or's honor.

Posted by: Caroline at December 9, 2005 7:29 PM

Kelly:

Anders Fogh Rasmussen is the Danish Prime Minister who has stalwartly defended the right to freedom of the press in Denmark after cartoons of Mohammed were printed in a Danish newspaper. Various Muslim groups, followed by Muslim countries and now the UN have tried unsuccessfully to intimidate Denmark into prosecuting the newspaper and cartoonists. Rasmussen has politely told them to sod off.

Posted by: johnb at December 9, 2005 7:55 PM

Caroline, I know OCD quite well... and if I can remember the book I read that helped me get over it, I shall post the title for you.

Posted by: Gary at December 9, 2005 8:02 PM

Gary - I plan to to have yet another serious go at quitting smoking in 2 days (after 33 years and it's definitely having an effect now that worries me). I think smoking has a great deal in common with OCD so if you've got a book to recommend to me, you couldn't have picked a better time for it :-)..

Posted by: Caroline at December 9, 2005 8:26 PM

Caroline~ I found the book quite by accident some years ago. It was in a box of books at TV Host, the cable magazine company I worked for... I am afraid it is back in Pennsylvania. I won't have it on hand for some time... but here is a link that might help a bit:

http://www.uniquelygifted.org/ocd.htm

Posted by: Gary at December 9, 2005 8:48 PM

Gary - very kind of you and thank you for the link. Fortunately I don't suffer from Tourette's! You can imagine the consequences on a site such as this if I did! Thank God for nicotine gum is all I can say. It's worked in the past. Now if someone will just kindly explain to me how to get off the nicotine gum..:-)

Posted by: Caroline at December 9, 2005 9:43 PM

I think that Australians Peter Costello, Bronwyn Bishop and Sophie Panopoulous, are all good examples of anti-dhimmis.

Posted by: Voltaire at December 9, 2005 9:51 PM

John Howard for President of the World Comittee for the Preservation of Humane Values! He is the closest thing we have to a leader in this world, though Bush is not far behind.

Posted by: tokyobk at December 9, 2005 10:29 PM

I have not had so much fun since my horse-racing days! Being 25% Danish & 100% Aussie, it makes me ..sniff, sniff.. proud to have two starters in such an elite field of six. For the record, Ayaan Hirsi Ali got my vote for her "courage, heroism, refusal to blink, and steadfastness in telling the truth despite jihadist intimidation peaceful and violent."

Voltaire: good picks, you have read the form well!

Posted by: islamophobic pride at December 9, 2005 10:50 PM

Fallaci and Ali should share the award. They are both courageous as any soldier. The European Muslim community wants both of them dead.

Rasmussen should win the American anti-dhimmitude award because he deserves it more than our candidates, especially any of our politicians.

Posted by: Beagle at December 10, 2005 12:28 AM

Voltaire! Click and leave a message, mate.

Caroline, last time I tried to quit smoking I also tried to invent "cigarette-butt flavoured coffee." I'm divorced now, but I still smoke.

(Whoa, I need a smoke after a confession like that.)

Posted by: sonofwalker at December 10, 2005 1:19 AM

Caroline, sonofwalker and all other JW smokers: please QUIT! We need you now; we will need you in the future! Plenty fresh fruit, no coffee/tea, no alcohol (that was my biggest hurdle, but its not forever),exercise, change of routine, pamper thyself(candy, etc)..it worked for me.

Posted by: islamophobic pride at December 10, 2005 1:33 AM

Anders Fogh Rasmussen, in addition to his anti-dhimmitude in the cartoon "scandal", made it very clear in a recent, absolutely brilliant speech at his party congress that Denmark is not going to accommodate Sharia law. He appealed to the Danish tradition of freedom of speech, separation of religion and state, moderation in faith and gender equality and made it quite clear that Islam is now threatening all these principles and challenging Danish social cohesion. He said Muslims in Denmark should learn to respect Danish values and live according to the rules of Danish democracy and that the principles of one (secular) law for all, gender equality and freedom of speech will not be compromised. I dare say Fogh Rasmussen is the only European mainstream politician, certainly the only head of state who really "gets it" about Islam and is not afraid to reinforce the European values that all the other dhimmi politicians are more and more willing to sell out. Just as the king of Denmark claimed to be the first to wear the Star of David upon the Nazi invasion, Denmark is ahead the rest of Europe again.

Fallaci as a journalist, Hirsi Ali as feminist and apostate "ex-insider" and Ye'or as scholar are all exceptional and unique in their own categories, just as Fogh Rasmussen is in politics; I'd love to vote for them all; but my vote goes to Fogh Rasmussen this time, because an anti-dhimmi prime minister in Europe is even more of a rarity than anti-dhimmi individual thinkers, writers and activists.

Posted by: rahel at December 10, 2005 5:50 AM

I voted for Rasmussen because of his stance on the Muhammad cartoons.

Posted by: DavidE at December 10, 2005 11:57 AM

This is the most difficult vote of all. Each candidate deserves to win. I wish our presidential elections could be like this.

Ali and Rasmussen stand out the most right now.
What Rasmussen has done is similar to what
Roosevelt did by moving forward on A bomb development.

The behavior of the Danes shames me. All of these
papers that mock other religions can't even draw
inoffensive pictures of Mohammad? How cowardly!

Posted by: American at December 10, 2005 1:36 PM

Definitely a difficult decision.

I went with Hirsi-Ali because I believe she is more important to the movement, living in Holland on the front lines of jihad. Holland and other European nations are a model of what's to come here in America, and she is a central character in that country's fight to recognize and fight jihad.

She continues to vigorously fight the jihadists at every turn, at great risk to her own life and I'd imagine at great inconvenience to her.

All on this list are great people, and all have done well, but Hirsi-Ali is a hero. One hopes she does not become a martyr.

Posted by: Ibn_Iblis at December 10, 2005 3:18 PM

My vote will definitely go to Mr Anders Fogh Rasmussen. There are a lot of people deserving the price. Being a head of state as he is it’s easy to resort to PC but he has not. It’s indeed pleasing reading about, and watching, Mr Rasmussen.

I somehow take pride in the fact that I'm living in a neighbour country to Denmark. My own (Swedish) politicians give nothing of the kind. Anders has, as a head of state, shown integrity and sincere anti-dimmitude. Go Denmark, lead the way!

Posted by: Observerone at December 11, 2005 6:10 AM

I voted for Oriana because her serious illness may well mean that by next year she may no longer be with us. The tireless and ground-breaking scholar, Bat Ye'or, is my second choice.

Posted by: commonsense at December 11, 2005 4:37 PM

Well, what candidates do we have?

- Oriana Fallaci, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oriana_Fallaci
- John Howard, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Howard
- Bat Ye'or, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bat_Ye%27or
- Anders Fogh Rasmussen, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anders_Fogh_Rasmussen
- Peter Costello, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Costello
- Bronwyn Bishop, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bronwyn_Bishop
- Sophie Panopoulous ?
- Ayaan Hirsi Ali, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ayaan_Hirsi_Ali

Allt those candidates are truly worthy of our deepest respect, but my vote goes to Anders Fogh Rasmussen.

I am extremely thankful for writers and intellectuals who contribute with their efforts, and to those who act out of their own personal experiences with courage, truthfullness and integrity. But that is what I would like to expect from any person worth taking seriously - and especially a member of the cultural establishment. They do their job, excellent.

But Anders Fogh Rasmussen is a mainstream politician. Unfortunately we haven't become used to expect much of a sense of obligation to the kind of intellectual honesty we should rightfully demand from any intellectual, nor any can we interpret his actions as based on personal experiences as in the case with a truly heroic person like Hirsi Ali.

His political choices are so much different from our other politicial leaders, unpopular in mainstream media, and desperately needed in a Europe deeply infected with leftist political correctnes, fear of "provoking" violence and wishful thinking that "we will all be able to get along" just as long as we are "tolerant" and pretend there is no problem.

So, I might not sympathize with him in every way, but he and his danish followers does not do what everyone expects of them. They choose to see the coming dangers and deal with reality instead of giving in to their hopes and fears.

As an act of appreciation in contrast to the manipulations of our ruling political and media elite, and this awful cowardness of most of our european population who presently doesn't seem to deserve any better - most definately, Anders.

Posted by: runnymede1215 at December 11, 2005 7:00 PM

Actually, I can think of others not on the suggested list, and there's no write-in category.

Nonetheless, Orianna will prevail and deserves to prevail, for so many reasons I don't have the time to list.

Posted by: Matt at December 11, 2005 9:37 PM