Dutch lawmaker continues criticism of Islam

Former refugee tackles both tough cultural issues and threats to her life

THE HAGUE, NETHERLANDS - After he shot Theo van Gogh and slashed his throat, the assassin plunged a second knife into his victim, pinning to the chest a bloodstained message to the woman who was his nemesis: Dutch lawmaker Ayaan Hirsi Ali.

“You mince no words about your hostility against Islam, and for this your masters have rewarded you with a seat in Parliament,” declared the letter left by the assassin, Mohammed Bouyeri. “I’d bet my life that you are sweating with FEAR when you read this … Ayaan Hirshi (sic) Ali, you shall break yourself to pieces on Islam!”

The killing a year ago was choreographed to make Ali feel the wrath of an apocalyptic God. Bouyeri wanted to punish the Somali-born legislator, who had made a film with Van Gogh denouncing abuse of Muslim women.

Although the filmmaker’s killing convulsed Dutch society, the assassin failed to silence Ali. She remains one of the toughest, most threatened leaders in Europe. With a cultured African accent and a soft laugh, she delivers a defiant message.

“If you want to integrate migrants and especially Muslims, then you will have to address cultural issues,” said Ali, 35, who has been the target of two assassination plots. “People are talking, carefully, very carefully, about ‘Yes, there must be something in Islam that’s not compatible with democracy. And yes, some migrants do have some cultural traits that are not compatible with modernity, that are not compatible with a society based on universal human rights principles.’ “

Ali, a former refugee who became a political star, insists that extremism grows not from a fanatic fringe, but from the precepts of a religion that needs profound reform. She argues that her personal experience — circumcision, beatings, forced marriage — showed her that Islam collides with democracy and oppresses women.

Many Western politicians shrink from such hard truths, Ali charges.

“They are afraid that if you say you must reform Islam, those millions of quiet Muslims who are not up to anything will all fall into the arms of the fundamentalists,” she said. “I think it’s the wrong approach. Because let’s go back in time to when Christianity was bloody and barbaric and oppressive. It only changed after the premises upon which that belief rested were challenged by free thinkers.”

Behind this country’s fairy-tale facade of brick cottages, shimmering canals and gliding bicycles, Ali has forced the Dutch to confront questions about culture, tolerance and free speech.

Acting on legislation proposed by Ali, authorities studied abuse of Muslim women in two Dutch cities; they documented 11 “honor killings” committed in just eight months by male relatives who felt the victims had shamed their families. The government is cracking down on extremists and illegal immigrants. And police say they have just foiled a new plot against Ali and the chairman of parliament.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali

I was provoked by some guys shouting at me in a TV debate,” she said in precise, fluent English, almost at a whisper. “So I blurted out, ‘It’s my religion, and my culture, and I can call it backward if I want’. But I was also drawn into saying I was no longer a practising Muslim and that set it all off, because the punishment for leaving the faith is death.
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Nonetheless, some Dutch politicians agree with Muslim leaders who think Ali goes too far. City officials at first did not invite Ali to a memorial service that was held on the anniversary of the murder in Amsterdam, where Van Gogh was ambushed as he rode his bike. She attended only because the slain man’s mother insisted.

Organizers did not ask her to speak at the event, so she published a letter in European newspapers addressed to the maverick filmmaker. It said her friend had resisted a “straitjacket of political correctness” and died fighting “barbarism.”

Ali was born in Somalia, where her father led opposition to that country’s dictatorship. Persecution forced the family into exile in Ethiopia, Saudi Arabia and Kenya.

Ali was devout as a girl, but she became disenchanted with what she saw as a pervasive mentality of submission: of worshippers to God and of women to men.

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