Author: Laurie Goodstein
Publication: The New York Times
Date: February 4, 2007
URL: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/04/weekinreview/04goodstein.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
As a 22-year-old Somali Muslim, Ayaan Hirsi
Ali disappeared en route from Nairobi, Kenya, to an arranged marriage in Canada,
and fled to the Netherlands. A decade later, she won a seat in the Dutch Parliament,
where she became known as an advocate for women and a critic of Islam. She
collaborated with Theo van Gogh on a movie that depicted abused women with
passages from the Koran written on their skin. In 2004, Mr. van Gogh was shot
dead in Amsterdam by a Dutch Muslim born to Moroccan immigrants, who then
staked a letter threatening Ms. Hirsi Ali onto Mr. van Gogh's chest, sending
her into hiding for a while. Three months ago she landed in Washington as
a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. Her autobiography, "Infidel,"
will be published in English on Tuesday. Recently she spoke to Laurie Goodstein,
a reporter for The New York Times.
Q. What do you think it was about you that
made you grab the reins of your own life?
A. In my upbringing I had watched my mother
and I had watched other women go through the whole process. And I didn't want
to be that. I didn't want to be a victim of the circumstances, and other people's
decisions. And education contributed to my leaving this man and my clan, in
the sense that it gave me the self-confidence to think I can leave.
When I came to the Netherlands I spoke English.
And before me was this woman who had lived in our house [in Nairobi] when
she was a refugee. She had four children and spoke only Somali and moved to
the Netherlands, and it was like, if she can survive, I can do much better.
My first experience in the Netherlands was very pleasant, extremely pleasant.
I mean, I got my residence permit, refugee status, within four weeks of arrival.
People treated me extremely well.
Q. Would a Somali arriving in the Netherlands
now, similar description to you - speaks English, educated woman on her own
- have the same experience?
A. The whole asylum process has changed. I
was received at a center - it looks like a holiday resort, with a golf course,
swimming pools, and tennis courts and people who are assigned to make the
lives of the refugees coming in as pleasant as possible. Today in Holland
you will be received at a center where you will be put in a small room that
looks like a prison and you will sit in that room with hundreds of others,
in each other's sweat and tears, and you will be kept, you will be made to
wait for hours before you can even be heard. And within 48 hours you get an
answer, and the answer is, 9 out of 10 times, it's negative.
Asked if she found the situation and attitude
of Muslims here different from those in Europe, Ms. Hirsi Ali said she hadn't
yet had enough contact with Muslims in the United States to form an opinion,
but she recounted her experience in Canada last year.
A. I took part in a debate and there were
many Muslims, and I thought there was a huge difference between the Canadian
Muslims and, for example, the Dutch Muslims. The Canadian Muslims were just
as angry with me as their counterparts in Holland, but they refrained from
shouting, from insulting and from disrupting the session. And that's what
some of the Muslims in Holland would do, and did.
Q. You think the North Americans are doing
something right with assimilation?
A. The Canadian Muslims I am talking of, and
it is just one experience, spoke perfect English. Our Dutch Muslims hardly
speak any, or take the trouble to speak Dutch. The second generation that
does seems to have learned only insults and terrible words to throw at other
people.
Q. As a teenager you wore the hijab and a
robe that went down to your ankles. You wrote in your book that it actually
helped you feel empowered and individual and superior. So why did you stop
covering and start denouncing it?
A. I was just one of the few who went about
the streets like that, and it was of my own choice. I wasn't forced to do
it. I try to explain in the book that what might seem as if these radical
Muslims who come and indoctrinate young people, as if they force you into
something. That's not the case. It's an ideology that is consistent with our
faith. You know, we are brought up as Muslims. And we are passive Muslims.
And in my case Sister Aziza [a teacher trained
in Saudi Arabia] comes around and she makes us active. So it's all very congruent
at that stage. And then we were shown pictures of dead people. Bloodied, killed,
large numbers of corpses in Iran. And she says this is what the Jews are doing
to Muslims; this is what the Americans are doing to Muslims. So there was
the sense first of all as a teenager discovering an aim for your life, developing
a sense of morality between right and wrong, belonging to a group that is
superior, and all non-Muslims were inferior.
Q. Have you seen any ideology coming from
within Islam that gives young Muslims a sense of purpose without the overlay
of militancy?
A. They have no alternative message. There
is no active missionary work among the youth telling them, do not become jihadis.
They do not use media means as much as the jihadis. They simply - they're
reactive and they don't seem to be able to compete with the jihadis. And every
time there is a debate between a real jihadi and, say, what we have decided
to call moderate Muslims, the jihadis win. Because they come with the Koran
and quotes from the Koran. The come with quotes from the Hadith and the Sunnah,
and the traditions of the prophet. And every assertion they make, whether
it is that women should be veiled, or Jews should be killed, or Americans
are our enemies, or any of that, they win. Because what they have to say is
so consistent with what is written in the Koran and the Hadith. And what the
moderates fail to do is to say, listen, that's all in there, but that wasn't
meant for this context. And we have moved on. We can change the Koran, we
can change the Hadith. That's what's missing.
Q. When Muslims here talk about rights, the
big issue is discrimination, particularly in this post-9/11 era where Muslims
have had trouble even traveling through airports.
A. Like all other Muslims who go through this,
and all other individuals who go through this, it's a terrible experience.
But it is an experience that I understand. I as a Muslim, or as a human individual,
would like to minimize the risk of being blown up on a plane. ...
However, I would say singling out people that
you think are Muslims simply because they might is not something in an open
society that you can defend.
