Ayaan Hirsi Ali

Ayaan Hirsi Ali
Born	November 13, 1969 Mogadishu, Somalia
Occupation(s)	politician, writer
Known for	Submission The Caged Virgin Infidel
Political party	People's Party for Freedom and Democracy

Ayaan Hirsi Ali (; [Ayaan Xirsi Cali] Error: {{Lang-xx}}: text has italic markup (help); born Ayaan Hirsi Magan 13 November 1969 in Mogadishu, Somalia) is a feminist and political writer, daughter of the Somali scholar, politician, and revolutionary opposition leader Hirsi Magan Isse. When she was six, her family left Somalia for Saudi Arabia, then Ethiopia, and eventually settled in Kenya. She sought and obtained political asylum in the Netherlands in 1992, under circumstances that later became the centre of a political controversy.

She is a prominent and controversial author, film maker, and critic of Islam. She was a member of the Tweede Kamer (the Lower House of the States-General of the Netherlands) for the People's Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD) from January 30, 2003 until May 16, 2006. A political crisis surrounding the stripping of her Dutch citizenship led to her resignation from the parliament, and indirectly to the fall of the Second Balkenende cabinet.

She has received numerous awards for her human rights work, and in 2005, was named by Time magazine as one of the 100 most influential people in the world. She is currently a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank.

Biography

In her autobiography Infidel, Hirsi Ali describes her youth in Somalia, Saudi Arabia, Ethiopia and Kenya, and her flight to the Netherlands.

Youth

Ayaan Hirsi Ali was born in Somalia into the Majeerteen sub-clan of the Darod clan. Her first name, Ayaan, means "lucky person" or "luck" in Somali. Her father, Hirsi Magan Isse, was a prominent member of the Somali Salvation Democratic Front and a leading figure in the Somalian Revolution. He had studied abroad and was opposed to female genital cutting, but her grandmother had the traditional procedure performed on five-year-old Hirsi Ali while he was a political prisoner of the Siad Barré.

Shortly after she was born, her father was imprisoned due to his opposition to Somalia's Siad Barre government. When she was six, her father escaped from prison and her family subsequently fled the country as political refugees. Initially they moved to Saudi Arabia, but after three years the Saudis expelled them, again due to her father's political activities. They then moved to Ethiopia, which, as the center of opposition to Siad Barre, welcomed them. But it was also somewhat dangerous for the family, so they immigrated to the much more stable and safe Kenya, where they obtained political asylum.

They settled in the capital, Nairobi, where Hirsi Ali attended the English-language Muslim Girls' Secondary School. By the time she reached her teens, Saudi-funded religious education was becoming more influential among Muslims in other countries, and a charismatic religious teacher who had been trained under this aegis joined Hirsi Ali's school. She inspired the teenaged Ayaan, as well as some fellow students, to adopt the more rigorous Saudi Arabian interpretations of Islam, as opposed to the more relaxed versions then current in Somalia and Kenya. Hirsi Ali sympathized with the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood, and wore a hijab together with her school uniform, which was unusual at the time but gradually became more common. She agreed with the fatwa against British writer Salman Rushdie that was declared in reaction to the publication of his controversial novel The Satanic Verses. After completing secondary school, she attended a secretarial course at Valley Secretarial College in Nairobi for one year.

Early career

Hirsi Ali arrived in the Netherlands in 1992. There is some lack of clarity about the events leading up to her arrival, and she has admitted to making certain false statements in her application for asylum. Hirsi Ali maintains that in 1992 her father arranged to marry her to a distant cousin living in Canada. It is not disputed that in 1992 she travelled from Kenya to visit family in Düsseldorf and Bonn, Germany. It was planned that she would join her husband in Canada after obtaining a visa while in Germany. Members of her family have disputed the story of her forced marriage,. According to Hirsi Ali, she spent her time in Germany frantically trying to devise a way to escape her unwanted marriage. Ultimately, she decided that she would claim to want to visit a relative in the Netherlands, but, once she had arrived, seek help from that relative and claim asylum.

Once in the Netherlands, she requested political asylum and received a residence permit. It is not known on what grounds she received political asylum, though she has admitted that she had lied by devising a false story about having to flee Mogadishu and spending time in refugee camps on the border between Somalia and Kenya. In reality, she did spend time in those camps, but in order to help relatives who were trapped there; she was already safely ensconced in Kenya at the time open warfare erupted in the Somali capital. She gave a false name and date of birth to the Dutch immigration authorities, something she says was necessary in order to escape retaliation by her clan. She is known in the West by her assumed name, Hirsi Ali, instead of her original name, Hirsi Magan. Since forced marriage is not grounds for refugee status, on the advice of an aunt, she told the immigration authorities that she had come straight from Somalia, instead of Kenya, where she had been living for at least twelve years. Hirsi Ali received a residence permit within three weeks of her arrival in the Netherlands.

After receiving asylum, she held various short-term jobs, ranging from cleaning to mail sorting. During this time, she took courses in Dutch and a one-year course in social work. Following this, she studied political science at the University of Leiden until 2000. Between 1995 and 2001, she also worked as an independent Somali-Dutch interpreter and translator, frequently coming in contact with Somali women in asylum centres, hostels for battered women (an experience that marked her deeply—she was dismayed by the extent and persistence of wife abuse, and the helplessness felt by the women), and the National Migration Service (NMS). She saw firsthand the way certain practices (e.g. wife beating, female genital mutilation, honour killings) she thought she had left behind in Africa continued in the West. While working for the NMS, she saw inside the workings of the Dutch immigration system and became critical of the way it handled asylum seekers. .

Political career

After earning a master's degree in political science from the prestigious University of Leiden, Hirsi Ali became a fellow at the Wiardi Beckman Foundation, a scientific institute linked to the left-wing Social Democratic Party PvdA, of which Leiden University Professor Ruud Koole was steward.

During her studies, she was becoming increasingly disenchanted with Islam. Her identification as a Muslim suffered a strong blow after 9/11, when she saw Dutch Muslims celebrating the attacks. The final blow was her reading of The Atheist Manifesto (Atheistisch Manifest) of Leiden philosopher Herman Philipse. She renounced Islam and became an atheist in 2002. During this period, she began to formulate her critique of Islam and Islamic culture, published many news articles, and became a frequent speaker on television news programs and public debate forums. She wrote up her ideas in a book entitled De Zoontjesfabriek (The Son Factory). It was at this time that she first began to receive death threats.

In November 2002, after some disagreements with the PvdA about her security measures, she sought advice from Cisca Dresselhuys, the editor of the feminist magazine Opzij. Dresselhuis introduced Hirsi Ali to Gerrit Zalm, the parliamentary leader of the conservative Liberal Party (VVD), and party member Neelie-Smit Kroes, European Commissioner for Competition. At their urging, Hirsi Ali agreed to switch to the VVD and stood for election to parliament. Between November 2002 and January 2003, she lived abroad and was put on the payroll as an assistant of the VVD parliamentary party. From January 2003 to June 2006, she worked shortlisted number 16 Ali, A. H. (Ayaan) (v) as chosen MP for the party with 30.758 election votes.

During her tenure in parliament, Hirsi Ali made a number of controversial statements about Islam. In a Trouw interview, she said that by Western standards, Muhammad would be considered a pedophile. A discrimination complaint was filed against her on April 24, 2003. The Prosecutor's office decided not to initiate a case, because her critique did "not put forth any conclusions in respect to Muslims and their worth as a group is not denied".

Following a TV news program exposé on her that revealed she had lied about her name, birthdate, and reason for asylum when she sought political asylum, Rita Verdonk (also VVD) announced that her Dutch nationality had to be considered invalid. She was therefore forced to step down as an MP.

Going into hiding

Hirsi Ali wrote the script and provided the voice-over for Submission, a film directed by Theo van Gogh, which criticized the treatment of women in Islamic society. Juxtaposed with passages from the Qur'an were images of Muslim women who had been abused by men. One woman was provocatively dressed in a semi-transparent burqa, under which texts from the Qur'an were projected on her skin. The texts referred to the subordinate role of women. Other women in the film showed signs of physical abuse. The film's release sparked much controversy, and became violent when radical Islamist Mohammed Bouyeri, a member of the Hofstad Group, murdered Van Gogh in an Amsterdam street on November 2, 2004. A letter attached to Van Gogh's body with a knife was primarily a death threat to Hirsi Ali. After this incident, the Dutch secret service raised the level of security that they provided to her. Hirsi Ali has said that although she deeply regrets the murder of van Gogh, she is proud of the film and does not regret having made it. "To feel otherwise would be to deny everything I stand for."

Earlier that year, the group The Hague Connection produced a rap song, "Hirsi Ali Dis", and distributed it on the Internet. The lyrics included violent threats against her life. The rappers were prosecuted under Article 121 of the Dutch criminal code, because they hindered the execution of her tasks as politician. In 2005, they were sentenced to community service and a suspended prison sentence.

After the murder of van Gogh, Hirsi Ali went into hiding in the Netherlands, and even spent some time in New York, until January 18, 2005, when she returned to parliament. On February 18, 2005, she revealed the location of herself and her colleague Geert Wilders, who had also been in hiding. She demanded a normal, secured house, which she was granted one week later. On November 16, 2005, she reported being seriously threatened by Sachemic Faa. This imam, who worked in a mosque in The Hague, announced on the Internet that Hirsi Ali would be "blown away by the wind of changing times" and that she should anticipate "the curse of Allah".

In January 2006, Hirsi Ali used her acceptance speech for the Reader's Digest "European of the Year" award to urge action to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons and to say that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad must be taken at his word in wanting to organize a conference to investigate objective evidence of the Holocaust. "Before I came to Europe, I'd never heard of the Holocaust. That is the case with millions of people in the Middle East. Such a conference should be able to convince many people away from their denial of the genocide against the Jews." She also said that "so-called Western values" of freedom and justice are universal; that Europe has done far better than most areas of the world at providing justice, because it has guaranteed the freedom of thought and debate that are required for critical self-examination; and that communities cannot reform themselves unless "scrupulous investigation of every former and current doctrine is possible."

In March 2006 she co-signed a letter entitled "MANIFESTO: Together facing the new totalitarianism". The most notable of the eleven other signatories was British writer Salman Rushdie, whose fatwa Hirsi Ali had supported as a teen. The letter was published in response to violent and deadly protests in the Islamic world surrounding the Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy.

On April 27, a Dutch judge ruled that Hirsi Ali had to abandon her house—a highly secured secret address in the Netherlands. Her neighbours had complained that living next to her was an unacceptable security risk to them, although the police had testified in court that it was one of the safest places in the country due to the many personnel they had assigned there. In early 2007, she stated that the Dutch state spent about 3.5 million euros providing armed guards for her, and the threats made her live "in fear and looking over my shoulder", but she was willing to endure this for the sake of speaking her mind.

The citizenship controversy

In May 2006, the television program Zembla reported that Hirsi Ali had given false information about her real name, her age and the country she arrived from when originally applying for asylum. The program also presented evidence that she was untruthful about the main reason for her asylum application being forced marriage. Hirsi Ali admitted that she had lied about her full name, her date of birth and the manner in which she had come to the Netherlands. However, several sources, including her first book The Son Factory, which had been published in 2002, stated her real name and date of birth, and she had also publicly stated these in a September 2002 interview published in the political magazine HP/De Tijd. and in an interview in the VARA gids (2002). Accordingly, these details were considered by many to be public knowledge. Furthermore, Hirsi Ali has asserted that she made full disclosure of the matter to VVD officials when she was invited to run for parliament in 2002.

Media speculation arose that she could lose her Dutch citizenship because of this "identity fraud", rendering her ineligible for parliament. At first, Minister Rita Verdonk said she would not look into the matter, but after Member of Parliament Hilbrand Nawijn officially asked her for her position, she declared that she would investigate Hirsi Ali's naturalisation process. This investigation took three days. The findings were that Hirsi Ali had not legitimately received Dutch citizenship, because she had lied about her name and date of birth. Dutch official Rita Verdonk moved to annul her citizenship, a move that was later overridden on the urging of Parliament.

On May 15, 2006, after the broadcast of the Zembla documentary, news stories erupted saying that Hirsi Ali was likely to move to the United States in September, and was expected to write a book entitled Shortcut to Enlightenment and work for a conservative think tank, the American Enterprise Institute.

On May 16, Hirsi Ali resigned from Parliament after admitting that she had lied on her asylum application. On that day, she gave a press conference, in which she restated that, although she felt it was wrong to be granted asylum under false pretences, the facts had been publicly known since 2002 when they had been reported in the media and in one of her publications. In the press conference, she also restated that she had spoken the truth about the reason for seeking asylum, which had been the threat of a forced marriage, despite a claim to the contrary on the Zembla program by some of her relatives. Her stated reason for resigning immediately was not the continuous threats, making her job as a parliamentarian "difficult" but "not impossible", but the news that the Minister would strip her of her Dutch citizenship.

After a long and emotional debate in the Dutch Parliament, all major parties supported a motion, requesting the Minister to explore the possibility of special circumstances in Hirsi Ali's case. Although Verdonk remained convinced that the applicable law did not leave her any room to consider such circumstances, she decided to accept the motion. During the debate, she astonished MPs by claiming that Hirsi Ali still had Dutch citizenship during the period of reexamination. Apparently the "decision" she had made public had been merely a report of the current position of the Dutch government. Hirsi Ali at that point had six weeks to react to the report before any final decision about her citizenship was taken. Verdonk was heavily criticized for not acting more prudently in a case that had so many political implications.

Apart from a Dutch passport, Hirsi Ali retained a Dutch residency permit (similar to a Permanent Resident Card) on the grounds that she was a political refugee. According to the Minister, this permit could not be taken away from her since it was granted more than 12 years ago, in 1992.

In a reaction to the announced move, former VVD leader Hans Wiegel stated that her departure "would not be a loss to the VVD and not be a loss to the Tweede Kamer". He said that Hirsi Ali was a brave woman, but that her opinions were polarizing. Former parliamentary leader of the VVD, Jozias van Aartsen, was more positive about Hirsi Ali, saying that it is "painful for Dutch society and politics that she is leaving the Tweede Kamer". Another VVD MP, Bibi de Vries, claimed that if something were to happen to Hirsi Ali, some people in her party would have "blood on their hands."

Christopher DeMuth, President of the AEI, confirmed that this controversy would not affect the appointment. On May 16, he stated that he was still looking forward to "welcoming her to AEI, and to America." United States Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick later stated that "we recognise that she is a very courageous and impressive woman and she is welcome in the US."

On May 23, 2006, Ayaan Hirsi made available to the The New York Times some letters she believed would provide insight into her 1992 asylum application. In one letter, her sister, Haweya, warned her that the entire extended family was searching for her (after she had fled to the Netherlands), and in another letter her father denounced her.

File:RVerdonk.jpg

Rita Verdonk

On June 27, 2006, the Dutch government announced that Hirsi Ali would keep her Dutch citizenship. On the same day a letter was disclosed in which Hirsi Ali expressed regret that she had misinformed Minister Verdonk. Hirsi Ali was allowed to retain her name because the Dutch government believes that Somalis are allowed to carry the name of their grandfather according to Somali family law, and her grandfather had used the last name Ali until his thirties and only then switched to Magan. The fact that this grandfather was born in 1845 complicated the investigation (her grandfather was a powerful warlord, and Hirsi Ali's father was the youngest of his children, born when he was close to 90). Also, the issue of the false date of birth was not that important, according to the Minister.

Later the same day, Hirsi Ali, through her lawyer and in television interviews, made a statement declaring that she had signed the letter that was drafted by the Justice Department under duress. She felt she was pressured into signing the statement in exchange for the passport, but that she agreed to do it, swallowing her pride, in order not to complicate her pending visa application for the U.S. Currently, she still carries her Dutch passport. A close friend of Hirsi Ali, Leon de Winter, presented in his weblog a detailed account of events taking place on June 27 leading to Hirsi Ali signing the statement confirming, in his view, the involuntary nature of her action.

In a special parliamentary session on June 28, questions were raised concerning the alleged coercion of the Hirsi Ali statement by minister Verdonk, the dismissal by the minister of the false date of birth as a relevant issue, and whether Somali law prevails over Dutch law. The ensuing political upheaval on June 29 ultimately led to the fall of the Second Balkenende cabinet.

American Enterprise Institute

Hirsi Ali subsequently took up a position at the American Enterprise Institute,, published her autobiography, Infidel, and is currently working on another book, Shortcut to Enlightenment, a philosophical fantasy about a visit by Muhammad to the New York Public Library, in which he examines the ideas of various Enlightenment philosophers, compares them to the state of Islam today, and then comes to a number of important conclusions. Since arriving in Washington, D.C., her security has had to be upgraded once again due to death threats from Muslim extremists in the United States.

Social and political views

Hirsi Ali is a member of the VVD, a Dutch political party that combines conservative views on the economy, foreign policy, crime and immigration with a liberal stance on drugs, abortion and homosexuality. She states that she is a great admirer of one of the party's ideological leaders, Frits Bolkestein, a former Euro-commissioner. Ali received substantial criticism as a result of her defection from the Dutch Labour Party (PvdA) to the VVD. By way of response she asserted that she would show greater loyalty to the VVD.

She claims that her personal views are for the most part inspired by her change from Islam to atheism. Hirsi Ali is very critical of Islam, especially of its prophet Muhammad and the position of women. Dick Pels describes her as an exponent of what he refers to as liberal fundamentalism, claiming "This ideology is similar to orthodox Islam in the sense that it thinks its perspective is superior and all people should be forced to have it. He thinks the way these liberal fundamentalists try to debate with Islam, by taunting and insulting them, is not constructive. They only deteriorate the relations between migrants and native Dutch people."

Islam

Hirsi Ali is very critical of the position of women in Islamic societies and the punishments demanded by Islamic scholars for homosexuality and adultery. She considered herself a Muslim until 28 May 2002, when she became an atheist. In an interview with the Swiss magazine Das Magazin in September 2006, she said she lost her faith while sitting in an Italian restaurant in May 2002, drinking a glass of wine: "...I asked myself: Why should I burn in hell just because I'm drinking this? But what prompted me even more was the fact that the killers of 9/11 all believed in the same God I believed in." Despite that, in the television program Rondom Tien of 12 September 2002 she called it "my religion". She has described Islam as a "backward religion", incompatible with democracy. In one segment on the Dutch current affairs program Nova, she challenged pupils of an Islamic primary school to choose between the Qu'ran and the Dutch constitution.

In a "no-holds-barred polemic" interview in the London Evening Standard, Hirsi Ali characterises Islam as "the new fascism". "Just like Nazism started with Hitler's vision, the Islamic vision is a caliphate—a society ruled by Sharia law—in which women who have sex before marriage are stoned to death, homosexuals are beaten, and apostates like me are killed. Sharia law is as inimical to liberal democracy as Nazism." In this interview, she also made it clear that in her opinion it is not "a fringe group of radical Muslims who've hijacked Islam and that the majority of Muslims are moderate. [...] Violence is inherent in Islam—it's a destructive, nihilistic cult of death. It legitimates murder."

Muhammad

Hirsi Ali criticises the central Islamic prophet on the grounds of both his morality and personality. In January 2003 she told the Dutch paper Trouw, "Muhammad is, seen by our Western standards, a pervert". She referred particularly to his marriage at the age of 52 to Aisha, who was at the time of marriage six years old, and the time of consummation, nine, according to the collections of hadith. Some Muslim commentators, Dutch and other, have denounced her insulting of Muhammad. The civil court in The Hague acquitted Hirsi Ali of any charges, but warned her against insulting Muhammad.

She also has stated her opinions about his personality. When Trouw asked her about him, she answered, "Measured by our western standards, Muhammad is... a tyrant. He is against freedom of expression. If you don't do as he says, you will be punished. It makes me think of all those megalomaniacs in the Middle East: Bin Laden, Khomeini, Saddam. Do you think it strange that there is a Saddam Hussein? Muhammad is his example. Muhammad is an example for all Muslim men. Do you think it strange that so many Muslim men are violent?" In a 2003 interview with the Danish magazine Sappho, she explains parallels she sees between the personality of Yasser Arafat and that of Muhammad.

Circumcision

Hirsi Ali opposes the genital cutting of girls and the circumcision of boys. In her autobiography, Infidel, she writes: "Excision doesn't remove your desire or ability to enjoy sexual pleasure. The excision of women is cruel on many levels. It is physically cruel and painful; it sets girls up for a lifetime of suffering. And it is not even effective in its intent to remove their desire."

A quotation from her on the subject: "girls dying in child birth because they are too young [...] The rise of radical Islam is an important part of this. I feel I have the moral obligation to discuss the source. I think if I think you are enriching the debate if you question it, you are not the enemy of Islam. We can look elsewhere using reason to discover answer to these problems, and we do not have to abolish religion. But we must do it by finding a balance."

On debate

On August 31, 2006, while addressing the Dutch press on the occasion of her departure for the United States to work for the think tank the American Enterprise Institute, Hirsi Ali said: "...with like-minded people one cannot discuss. With like-minded people one can only participate in a church service, and, as is widely known, I do not like church services."

Freedom of speech

Hirsi Ali is a proponent of free speech. In a 2006 lecture in Berlin, she defended the right to offend, following the Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy. She condemned the journalists of those papers and TV channels that did not show their readers the cartoons as being "mediocre of mind" and of trying to hide behind those "noble-sounding terms such as 'responsibility' and 'sensitivity'." She praised publishers all over Europe for showing the cartoons and not being afraid of what she labeled the intolerance of many Muslims worldwide.

In a speech given in Berlin in February 2006, she said, "I do not seek to offend religious sentiment, but I will not submit to tyranny. 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."

Political opponents

Hirsi Ali supported the move by the Dutch courts to abrogate the party subsidy to a conservative Protestant Christian political party, the Political Reformed Party (SGP), which did not grant full membership rights to women and still withholds passive voting rights from female members. She stated that "any political party discriminating against women or homosexuals should be deprived of funding."

Hirsi Ali has also stated that she wants the Belgian authorities to ban the Vlaams Belang party, claiming that "it hardly differs from the Hofstad Group. Though the VB members have not committed any violent crimes yet, they are just postponing them and waiting until they have an absolute majority. On many issues they have exactly the same opinions as the Muslim extremists: on the position of women, on the suppression of gays, on abortion. This way of thinking will lead straight to genocide."

Vlaams Belang leaders and press statements reacted to her allegations by denying the party rejects in any way the rights of women or in any way promotes genocidal policies, instead pointing out Vlaams Belang's support for Shoah and Armenian genocide commemorations. Vlaams Belang party leader Frank Vanhecke responded to Hirsi Ali's allegations by writing an open letter to Hirsi Ali, stating that she is "closer to the Vlaams Belang with her viewpoints than to the Flemish Liberals." He also rejected the likeness with the Hofstad Group, saying that his party "has never and nowhere called for violence." The Vlaams Belang reacted to the retirement of Hirsi Ali from Dutch politics by stating that the party has "respect for the way she has conducted and promoted the debate in the Netherlands with respect to Islam, female oppression and failed integration."

Opposition to denominational or faith schools

In the Netherlands about half of all education is provided by schools sponsored by a religion, most of them Catholic or Protestant, for historical reasons. Ayaan Hirsi Ali stated in November 2003 that no religious school should receive government financing. This brought her into conflict with Hans Wiegel, a prominent former VVD leader.

She went further in an interview with the London newspaper the Evening Standard in 2007, saying "Close the Islamic faith schools today. [...] Britain is sleepwalking into a society that could be ruled by Sharia law within decades unless Islamic schools are shut down and young Muslims are instead made to integrate and accept Western liberal values. [...] We have to show the next generation of Muslims, the children, that they have a choice, and to do that — to have any hope whatsoever — we have to close down the Islamic faith schools." However, she argued, ‘I haven’t seen anybody coming out of a Catholic or Jewish school advocating violence against women or homosexuals, or wanting to murder innocent people in the name of their religion.’

Development aid

The Netherlands has always been one of the most prominent countries that support aiding developing countries. As the spokesperson of the VVD in the parliament on this matter, Hirsi Ali said that the current development aid policy did not work to increase prosperity, peace and stability in the developing countries: "The VVD believes that Dutch international aid has failed until now, as measured by [the Dutch aid effects on] poverty reduction, famine reduction, life expectancy and the promotion of peace."

Terrorism

In the Dutch newspaper De Volkskrant of April 8, 2006 she proposed the special screening of any Muslim applying for any job for possible links with terrorist groups.

Immigration

In 2003 Hirsi Ali worked together with fellow VVD MP Geert Wilders for several months. They questioned the government about immigration policy. In reaction to the UNDP Arab Human Development Report Hirsi Ali asked the following question of Minister of Foreign Affairs Jaap de Hoop Scheffer and the Minister without Portfolio for Development Cooperation Agnes van Ardenne. Together with parliamentarian Geert Wilders she asked the government to pay attention to the consequences for Dutch policy concerning the limitation of immigration from the Arab world to Europe, and in particular The Netherlands.

Although she always publicly supported the policy of VVD minister Rita Verdonk regarding limited immigration, privately she was not supportive, as she explained in an interview for Opzij. In parliament, she supported the way Verdonk handled the Pasic case, although privately she felt that Pasic should have been allowed to stay. On the night before the debate, she phoned Verdonk to tell her that she herself had lied when she fled to the Netherlands, just like Pasic. Verdonk responded that if she had been minister at that time, she would have deported Hirsi Ali. Subsequent actions of Verdonk led to the possibility of Hirsi Ali's Dutch citizenship. The ensuing political upheaval ultimately led to the fall of the second Balkenende cabinet.

In the Opzij interview, Hirsi Ali also said she supported a general pardon and the granting of Dutch citizenship for a group of 26,000 refugees, who had spent more than five years in the Netherlands without hearing about the status of their asylum. The VVD forbade her to speak her mind on this issue.

Since leaving the Dutch parliament, Hirsi Ali has made further statements in support of restrictive immigration policies. She made her statements on this subject on 1 November 2006 in the television program Aspekte on the German TV station ZDF. She said that she feared that Muslim immigrants, once in the majority, would introduce Sharia legislation.

Israel and the Palestinians

"I visited Israel a few years ago, primarily to understand how it dealt so well with so many immigrants from different origins", Hirsi Ali says. "My main impression was that Israel is a liberal democracy. In the places I visited, including Jerusalem as well as Tel Aviv and its beaches, I saw that men and women are equal. One never knows what happens behind the scenes, but that is how it appears to the visitor. The many women in the army are also very visible.

"I understood that a crucial element of success is the unifying factor among immigrants to Israel. Whether one arrives from Ethiopia or Russia, or one's grandparents immigrated from Europe, what binds them is being Jewish. Such a bond is lacking in the Netherlands. Our immigrants' background is diverse and also differs greatly from that of the Netherlands, including religion."

As for Israel's problems, Hirsi Ali says, "From my superficial impression, the country also has a problem with fundamentalists. The ultra-Orthodox will cause a demographic problem because these fanatics have more children than the secular and the regular Orthodox."

On Palestinians: "I have visited the Palestinian quarters in Jerusalem as well. Their side is dilapidated, for which they blame the Israelis. In private, however, I met a young Palestinian who spoke excellent English. There were no cameras and no notebooks. He said the situation was partly their own fault, with much of the money sent from abroad to build Palestine being stolen by corrupt leaders.

"When I start to speak in the Netherlands about the corruption of the Palestinian Authority and the role of Arafat in the tragedy of Palestine, I do not get a large audience. Often one is talking to a wall. Many people reply that Israel first has to withdraw from the territories, and then all will be well with Palestine."

On the way Israel is perceived in the Netherlands: "The crisis of Dutch socialism can be sized up in its attitudes toward both Islam and Israel. It holds Israel to exceptionally high moral standards. The Israelis, however, will always do well, because they themselves set high standards for their actions.

"The standards for judging the Palestinians, however, are very low. Most outsiders remain silent on all the problems in their territories. That helps the Palestinians become even more corrupt than they already are. Those who live in the territories are not allowed to say anything about this because they risk being murdered by their own people."

Recent activities

On April 17, 2007, a lecture held by Hirsi Ali at the University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown took place under tight security, due to a protest by the local Muslim community. One of the protesters, Pittsburgh imam Fouad El Bayly, stated that Hirsi Ali deserves the death sentence, but that she should be tried and judged in a Muslim country.

Ayaan Hrsi Ali attended the 2007 Sydney Writers' Festival, giving an interview on June 2, and the closing address on June 3. In her closing address (an extract of which appeared in the Sydney Morning Herald of June 4) Hirsi Ali recounted how she had been impressed by the Qur'an before she could even read, and had lived "by the Book, for the Book." She also recounted that as a teenager, she and her sister turned to reading as a pastime, as every weekend and evening they were locked inside. Hirsi Ali told of dreading her arranged marriage to a distant cousin as she would be forced to submit to a stranger, never feel love, never choose her "mate", would have to ask permission before exercising her "everyday freedoms", and would be married to one who could force himself on her sexually with "the Holy Book on his side". She recounted being impressed with Dutch society, and how the books she read in the Netherlands expanded her imagination (but at the same time frightened her as they were different from the Qur'an), and how Freud's literature had placed her in contact with an alternative moral system (one that was not based on religion) and challenged her as a Muslim. Hirsi Ali recounted that on the day of the New York and Washington attacks, she found in the Qu'ran, Osama bin Laden's "words of justification," which led her to regard the Qur'an as relative, a historical record and "just another book." In her speech she stated "I am a Muslim" because she understood why Muslims were silent when the Qur'an was "invoked to behead captured aid workers, journalists and other Western wanderers," as silence is "better than an argument with the author of the Holy Book who has given the command to behead infidels." Hirsi Ali stated that she was also not a Muslim as she had lost the fear of the Qur'an and being "burned alive after death". She added that her empathy lay with girls who were not educated. She added that she was not a Muslim as she had lost respect for the Qur'an, "it's author" and "his messenger"; her loss of respect stemming from "their demands to kill and hate"; and that she felt a "common humanity" with those she once "shunned" such as Jews, Christians, atheists, gays, and sinners "of all stripes and colours." Hirsi Ali stated in her address: "I lost respect not for Muslims but for what they fear." Stating she was accused of hating Muslims, and villifying the Qur'an and Muhammad, Hirsi Ali clarified that she did not hate Muslims, but rather the submission of free will.[16]

Awards

• January 2004: awarded the Prize of Liberty by Nova Civitas, a classical liberal think tank in the Low Countries.
• November 20, 2004: awarded the Freedom Prize of Denmark's Liberal Party, which was the largest party and part of the government at the time, "for her work to further freedom of speech and the rights of women". Due to threats from Islamic fundamentalists she was not at the time able to receive it personally; however a year later, November 17, 2005, she travelled to Denmark to thank Anders Fogh Rasmussen, the then-prime minister and leader of the party, for the prize.
• February 25, 2005: given the Harriet Freezerring Emancipation Prize by Cisca Dresselhuys, editor of the feminist magazine Opzij, "for her work for the emancipation of Islamic women".
• April 18, 2005: listed by American Time Magazine amongst the 100 Most Influential Persons of the World. She was put in the category "Leaders & Revolutionaries"..
• March 7, 2005: awarded the Tolerance Prize of Madrid
• June 2005: awarded the annual European Bellwether Prize by the Norwegian thinktank Human Rights Service. According to HRS, Hirsi Ali is “beyond a doubt, the leading European politician in the field of integration. (She is) a master at the art of mediating the most difficult issues with insurmountable courage, wisdom, reflectiveness, and clarity".
• August 29, 2005: awarded the annual Democracy Prize of the Swedish Liberal People's Party "for her courageous work for democracy, human rights and women's rights." She received the prize at a ceremony at the Swedish Riksdag from the party leader Lars Leijonborg
• Voted European of the Year for 2006 by the European editors of Reader's Digest magazine. At a ceremony in The Hague on January 23, Hirsi Ali accepted this award from EU Competition Commissioner, Neelie Kroes.
• May 4, 2006: accepted the Moral Courage Award from the American Jewish Committee.
• Nominated by a Norwegian member of parliament, Christian Tybring-Gjedde, as a candidate for Nobel Peace Prize of 2006.
• October 1, 2006: given the civilian prize Glas der Vernunft Kassel, Germany. The organisation rewarded her with this prize for her dedication to the integration of migrants and against discrimination of women. Other laureates have included Lea Rabin, the wife of former Israeli prime-minister Yitzhak Rabin, and Hans-Dietrich Genscher, former Foreign Minister of the Federal Republic of Germany.

Trivia

• Hirsi Ali speaks six languages: English, Somali, Arabic, Swahili, Amharic and Dutch.

Works

• De Zoontjesfabriek over vrouwen, Islam en integratie, translated as The Son Factory: About Women, Islam and Integration. A collection of essays and lectures from before 2002. It also contains an extended interview originally published in Opzij, a feminist magazine. The book focuses on the position of Muslims in the Netherlands.
• De Maagdenkooi, translated as The Caged Virgin: An Emancipation Proclamation for Women and Islam. A collection of essays and lectures from 2003–2004, combined with her personal experiences as a translator working for the NMS. The book focuses on the position of women in Islam.
• Mijn Vrijheid, translated as Infidel. An autobiography published in Dutch in September 2006 by publisher Augustus, Amsterdam and Antwerp, 447 pages, ISBN-10 90 457 0112x/ISBN-13 978 90 457., and in English in February 2007. It was edited by Richard Miniter.
• forthcoming: Short Cuts to Enlightenment, a philosophical fantasy in which Muhammad wakes up in the New York Public Library and is "challenged by John Stuart Mill, Frederick Hayek and Karl Popper, [Hirsi Ali's] favourite liberal thinkers".

See also

• Criticism of Islam
• Apostasy in Islam
• Islamic feminism

Further reading

• Ayaan Hirsi Ali profile at the American Enterprise Institute (publications)
• Ayaan Hirsi Ali affairs - Weblog Ayaan Hirsi Ali weblog (English language version)

Interviews

• Ayaan Hirsi Ali speaks with Rachael Kohn at a Sydney Writers Festival event - The Spirit of Things ABC Radio National June 2007
• Speech given to Commonwealth Club of California Mar 16 2007
• Video interview with Stephen Colbert Mar 15 2007
• Interview on The Current, online at CBC Words at Large (audio) Mar 5 2007
• Interview with Ayaan Hirsi Ali in Guernica Magazine (guernicamag.com)
• Interview with Ayaan Hirsi Ali "New York Magazine" February 12 2007
• Voices on Antisemitism Interview with Ayaan Hirsi Ali from the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum
• Interview with Der Spiegel May 14, 2005
• Interview with Der Spiegel February 6, 2006
• Interview on the Brian Lehrer Show May 05, 2006 WNYC
• Interview with Glenn Beck
• Video Interview with Norway's NRK television Feb, 2006
• Interview with Danish DR1 Television November 16, 2005 (Danish intro, interview in English)
• Interview with The Guardian May 17, 2005
• Interview with NPR May 5, 2005
• Interview with NPR May 4, 2006 (text includes preface from English translation of The Caged Virgin)
• Interview with CBS News March 13, 2005
• Interview with the BBC - 23 December 2003
• Interview with the BBC - 24 January 2006
• interview with Dutch TV, 29 August 2004 (in Dutch).

• Video interview with Hirsi Ali (Channel 4, Great Britain) and several links to other Hirsi Ali related articles

Articles

Profiles

• [17], Financial Times, 5 August 2005.
• Profile: Ayaan Hirsi Ali, BBC News, May 16, 2006.
• Profile: Ayaan Hirsi Ali, The Blanket, 12 March 2006.
• Interview with The Observer 4 February 2007

By Hirsi Ali

• Ayaan Hirsi Ali, "Infidel" (autobiography) 2007 [18]
• Ayaan Hirsi Ali, "Islam and Europe's Identity Deficit", Brown Journal of World Affairs, [2005] 12:1 51-64.
• Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Tweede-Kamerfractie / Persverklaring Ayaan Hirsi Ali (in English), Trouw, 16 May 2006.
• Ayaan Hirsi Ali, "Let's Talk About How To Close The Identity Gap", International Herald Tribune, 23 August 2005 (excerpted from Brown Journal of World Affairs, August 2006).
• Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Reflections Upon Leaving Europe - How To Reconcile Immigration And Pluralism, Global Viewpoint/New Perspectives Quarterly, 10 October 2006.
• Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Confronting Holocaust Denial, International Herald Tribune, 15 December 2006.

Criticisms

• Fareena Alam,"Enemy of the Faith", New Statesman, 19 July 2006
• Khaled Diab, "Out but not down", Al-Ahram Weekly, 25 May 2006
• Dr. Hesham A. Hassaballa,"Ayaan Hirsi Ali: A One-Note Islam Critic", The American Muslim, 2 March 2007
• Laila Lalami," The Missionary Position", The Nation, 1 June 2006
• Salafi Manhaj, "The Travesty of 'Ayaan Hirsi 'Ali', on page 17 of this article", 20 August 2006
• Rebecca Seal,"A good case, a bad argument", The Observer, 25 June 2006
• Haroon Siddiqui,"Why the jig is up for Hirsi Ali in Holland", The Toronto Star, 21 May 2006
• Khaled Shawkat, "Dutch MP Creates Seismic Waves by Insulting Prophet Muhammad", Islam Online, 27 January 2006.

Others

• "Ayaan Hirsi Ali betreurt zelfcensuur Europa" (Ayaan Hirsi Ali deplores European self-censorship), De Standaard, January 24, 2006 (in Dutch).
• Brendan Bernhard (May 3, 2006). "An Enlightenment Fundamentalist". New York Sun Newspaper. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help); Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
• "Dutch Activist Discusses Islam" (Ayaan Hirsi Ali at Harvard), The Harvard Crimson, May 10, 2006.
• Book review of Infidel 14 February 2007 New York Times
• Christopher Hitchens "She's No Fundamentalist" Slate 5 March 2007

nominated