A suggestion for Blackwater
I’m going to appoint myself as Blackwater USA’s public relations adviser, and in that capacity I’ll now suggest that the company sign on to protect Ayaan Hirsi Ali — for free.
Hirsi Ali, as you may know, is the Somalia-born woman who fled both her country and her Muslim faith to settle in the Netherlands, where she eventually became a citizen and was elected to the Dutch parliament. She crusaded on behalf of Muslim women — even helping to produce a film called “Submission,” which focused on the appalling treatment inflicted upon female Muslims in Holland — and her reward for that was the murder of her film collaborator and a death threat for Hirsi Ali herself. She was later evicted from her home and generally made to feel that she’d brought her problems upon herself. The Dutch government continues, grudgingly, to protect her in the United States (where she now lives), but is considering cutting Hirsi Ali loose to fend for herself.
Slate columnist Christopher Hitchens has suggested that Americans take responsibility for her protection, a fine and noble idea that he explains in detail here. I’ll go Hitchens one step further. I think Blackwater should take the job, if for no reason other than to put some points on the karma scoreboard.
After all, ensuring the safety of notable people is Blackwater’s primary line of business — at least in Iraq, where it has a fat contract to guard State Department personnel. (This is, by the way, a topic I address in the next issue of Business North Carolina magazine, where I am now a columnist.) Considering the number of bodies Blackwater’s hired guns in Iraq have left strewn in their wake, and the resultant uproar that now threatens the company’s ability to do business there, company executives ought to be alert for good deeds they can perform to help leaven public outrage. What better service than the protection of a defenseless crusader for the rights of Muslim women? At this point in history, that’s a custom-made opportunity for the beleaguered firm.
Gentlemen of Blackwater, it’s time to step up and do the right thing. In fact, I’ll even kick in something myself toward this effort. I’ll waive my customary PR consulting fee for such valuable advice. This one’s on the house.