Video: Panel Discussion of Islam - Ayaan Hirsi Ali & Bill Maher
(This is a continuation of an article that begins here)
In November 2002, Ayaan Hirsi Ali ran for election to the Dutch parliament, and then worked as an MP.
Because of her statements speaking the truth about the prophet Muhammad in an interview, a discrimination complaint was filed against her. 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". (Actually, I think that she was lucky. Many American are not aware of it, but most European countries do not have the protection of freedom of speech that we have here).
She 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. An Islamic extremist murdered Van Gogh in an Amsterdam street in November 2004. A letter attached to Van Gogh's body with a knife was primarily a death threat to Hirsi Ali.
After that 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."
In addition to all of this, 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, but were only sentenced to community service and a suspended prison sentence.
After the murder of van Gogh, Hirsi Ali went into hiding.
In January 2005, she returned to parliament and was later threatened by Sachemic Faa, an imam who worked in a mosque in The Hague,. He announced on the Internet that Hirsi Ali would be "blown away by the winds of changing times" and that she should anticipate "the curse of Allah.
In 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.
She said: "Before I came to Europe, I'd never heard of the Holocaust. That is the case with millions of people in the Middle East.
In March 2006 she co-signed a letter entitled "MANIFESTO: Together facing the new totalitarianism". Among the signers was British writer Salman Rushdie, whose fatwa Hirsi Ali had supported half her lifetime ago. The letter was published in response to violent and deadly protests in the Islamic world surrounding the Jyllands-Posten Mohammad cartoons controversy.
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 gays.
Hirsi Ali interviewed on Swedish Television
She claims that her personal views are 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, as well as the extreme punishments demanded by Islamic scholars for homosexuality and adultery.She has described Islam as a "backward religion", incompatible with democracy.
In an interview in the 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."
Hirsi Ali criticises the central Islamic prophet on the grounds of both his morality and personality". She said that "Muhammad is, seen by our Western standards, a pervert". She referred particularly to his marriage at the age of 52 to Aisha, who was nine years old, according to the collections of hadith.
She also said: "Measured by our western standards, Muhammad is a perverted man. 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.
Hirsi Ali is also a vigorous 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.
"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".
She went further 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 does not argue for closing Catholic or Jewish schools because their values are compatible with liberal democratic societies.
On Israel:"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 . . . the many women in the army are also very visible (scroll down the page for photos).
"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."
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.
"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."
