When
I first learned of a self-confessed 'dissident of
Islam', Ayaan Hirsi Ali, she was under death threat
for scriptwriting the film, Submission.
Her collaborator on the project, Theo Van Gogh, was
murdered in Amsterdam by a theocratic fascist
determined that there would be no free speech. The
film sought to explore repression of women within
Islamic culture.
Born
in Somalia in 1967, she underwent genital mutilation
as a child. When her family moved to Saudi Arabia
she was compelled to wear a veil and remain indoors.
She was educated in a secondary school in Kenya.
In 1992 she escaped to Holland to avoid being forcibly
married to a cousin from Canada. There she furthered
her education by taking a degree in political science.
In 2002 she joined the Dutch Social Democratic Party,
but switched allegiance the following year to a
more right wing party known as the VVD. A humanist
who does not believe in God or the afterlife, she
is a former Muslim who came around to sharing the
views of the murdered Dutch politician Pym Fortuyn
that Islam was a backward religion. Opposition to
her attempts to raise this onto the agenda of the
Social Democratic Party led her to move to the VVD.
On its ticket she became a member of the Dutch parliament.
Since then a Dutch poll found that she was the second
most popular politician in the Netherlands.
Much
of her energy in Holland has been used highlighting
the suppression of dissenting opinions within Islam.
She believed that Islam was such a tightly controlled
religion that its rigidity precluded any self-reflection,
which led to any critique being viewed as offensive.
These
Islamists seek to convince other Muslims that their
way of life is the best. But when opponents of Islamism
try to expose the fallacies in the teachings of
Muhammad then they are accused of being offensive,
blasphemous, socially irresponsible - even Islamophobic
or racist.
For her, real offence lies elsewhere. 'If you're
a Muslim woman and you read the Koran, and you read
in there that you should be raped if you say 'no'
to your husband, that is offensive.' She has actively
promoted the need for women's emancipation within
Islam. In doing so she has provoked the ire of Dutch
Muslims who label her a traitor to Islam. She seems
undeterred. 'What these people are telling you is
simply, "Leave us alone, and let us continue
to oppress our women." No civil society must
accept this, no government must accept this.'
I
am a feminist who fights for the integrity of our
body, for the right of all girls to go to school,
to learn, to decide when and whom they want to marry,
when they want to get pregnant. I fight for them
to live, love and still believe in God … you
cannot simply kill your sister or your daughter;
you cannot lock her up in the house, cut her genitalia
out or marry her against her will.
She
was forced to leave the country after receiving
death threats as a result of her having collated
information on Muslim women who had been subject
to violence both physical and sexual. She only ventured
back into Holland when she was guaranteed police
protection. Determined that she will never submit
to theocratic dictat she extols the values of free
speech:
I
come from a very poor country, Somalia, where I
never knew freedom of opinion. I still find it quite
electrifying to be able to say what I think and
what I feel. Also, the fact that my government protects
me gives me strength. In any Muslim country, my
head would be chopped off for what I have been saying:
in Somalia, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and even in Jordan.
I am probably the first Muslim woman of my generation
who has been subjected to things like the excision
of my clitoris and forced marriage and who articulates
her opinions in public.
She
also hits out at the treatment gay people are forced
to endure in many Muslim societies. 'In Islam, homosexuals
are killed and disowned by their families and in
some countries, Egypt for example, they are put
in cages.'
She
fears that while many Muslims are peaceful, tolerant
and devoid of persecutionist zeal - 'as far as I
am concerned they have every right to be faithful
to their convictions' - within Islam exists 'a
hard-line Islamist movement that rejects democratic
freedoms and wants to destroy them.'
The
recent cartoon controversy which led her to sign
a 'manifesto against
totalitarianism' along with eleven other writers,
led her to call for others to republish the cartoons.
Shame
on those papers and TV channels who lacked the courage
to show their readers the caricatures in The Cartoon
Affair. These intellectuals live off free speech
but they accept censorship. They hide their mediocrity
of mind behind noble-sounding terms such as 'responsibility'
and 'sensitivity'… Evil governments like Saudi
Arabia stage "grassroots" movements to
boycott Danish milk and yoghurt, while they would
mercilessly crush a grassroots movement fighting
for the right to vote.
In
spite of her commitment to so many progressive causes,
on the economic front her views are right wing.
A seemingly naïve believer in the American
dream she has little to say about the destitution
inflicted on the most marginalised within US society
by rampant capitalism. And she views the welfare
state as undermining the power of immigrants to
make a go of it. She seems to lack any concept of
structural discrimination, thinking that self-reliance
is the key to success. It is difficult to see how
poverty can produce the type of enlightenment she
so vigorously argues for.
Her
life's philosophy is perhaps best gleaned from recent
comments she made in the German city of Berlin:
I
think that the prophet was wrong to have placed
himself and his ideas above critical thought.
I think that the prophet Muhammad was wrong to have
subordinated women to men.
I think that the prophet Muhammad was wrong to have
decreed that gays be murdered.
I think that the prophet Muhammad was wrong to have
said that apostates must be killed.
He was wrong in saying that adulterers should be
flogged and stoned, and the hands of thieves should
be cut off.
He was wrong in saying that those who die in the
cause of Allah will be rewarded with paradise.
He was wrong in claiming that a proper society could
be built only on his ideas.
Demanding that people who do not accept Muhammad's
teachings should refrain from drawing him is not
a request for respect but a demand for submission.
It
seems incredible that for holding these views, the
theocratic fascists who constitute only a minority
in the Islamic world can force her to live under
a cloud of fear.
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