http://news.independent.co.uk/people/profiles/article3199090.ece
Ayaan Hirsi Ali: My life under a fatwa
Born and raised by fundamentalist Muslims, Ayaan Hirsi Ali fled her native
Somalia for a new life in the Netherlands. Her talents bought fame as a
feminist, writer and MP; her criticisms of Islam made her a target for
violent extremists. Johann Hari meets a woman who dared to stand up for her
beliefs - and paid the price
Published: 27 November 2007
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40,640,'yes','yes','no','no');> Ayaan Hirsi Ali: My life under a fatwa Ayaan
Hirsi Ali: At 15, she walked out of their desert to the city of Aden
Ayaan Hirsi Ali was stabbed into the world's consciousness three years ago.
One wet afternoon in November 2004, her friend Theo van Gogh - a film-maker,
and descendant of Vincent - left his house and was about to cycle off
through Amsterdam. But a young Dutch-born Muslim called Mohammed Bouyeri was
waiting for him - with a handgun and two sharpened butcher's knives.
Wordlessly, he shot Van Gogh twice in the chest. Van Gogh howled: "Can't we
talk about this?" Bouyeri ignored his pleas and fired four more times. Then
he pulled out a knife and slit Van Gogh's throat with such strength that his
head was almost severed from his body. He used the other knife to stab a
five-page letter on to Van Gogh's haemorrhaging corpse.
Ayaan explains: "The letter was addressed to me." It said that Van Gogh had
been "executed" for making a film with her that exposed the widespread abuse
of Muslim women. Now, she would be "executed" too - for being an apostate.
She says that, even now, "every time I close my eyes, I see the murder, and
I hear Theo pleading for his life. 'Can't we talk about this?' he asked his
killer. It was so Dutch, so sweet and innocent." At the trial, Bouyeri spat
at Van Gogh's mother: "I don't feel your pain. I don't have any sympathy for
you. I can't feel for you because I think you're a non-believer."
This is the story of how a 25-year-old bogus asylum-seeker from Africa came
to Europe in search of freedom - only to be nearly murdered here by a
Dutchman, on the streets of Amsterdam, for speaking out against religion.
The story opens in the blood-strewn streets of Somalia, and it closes amid
the shiny white marble of Washington, DC - yet it also ends where it began:
with Ayaan's life in danger. This is the story of the refugee who rocked
Islam.
****
Her light, slight figure walks into the room so quietly that I would not
have noticed her. But then the bodyguards follow: big, with their eyes
darting into every corner in search of the long-awaited assassin, and you
realise - yes, she is here. The internet is littered with pledges to torture
and slay Ayaan Hirsi Ali. Yet, just a few weeks before we meet in London,
the Dutch government has stripped away her security detail. She is paying
for her own bodyguards now - and she could soon run out of cash.
So how did this soft-voiced woman come to be so hated - and to be abandoned
by the country that gave her sanctuary?
The life of her mother hangs over Ayaan as a morality tale, a warning of
what she might have been. "I was determined to never let what happened to my
mother happen to me," she says, looking away. "I think that has made me the
way I am."
By the time her mother gave birth to Ayaan in a hospital on the outskirts of
Mogadishu in 1967, she was a broken woman. Like all Somalian women, she had
been pressured all her life to suppress her personality, to sublimate
everything to men and to God - to become what Ayaan calls "a devoted,
well-trained work-animal".
In her youth, her mother had moments when she fought back, briefly and
bravely. She insisted on leaving her family. They were desert nomads, in
effect living in the Iron Age, with no writing, few metal objects, and a
belief that Allah's angels and demons were constantly tinkering with
reality. At 15, she walked out of their desert to the city of Aden.
But when her father called her back to be married to a man she had never
met, she submitted. There was another flickering moment of freedom:
exceptionally for that time and place, she later insisted on a divorce, and
got one.
But this was all gone when Ayaan was born. The woman striving for
independence had soon remarried, and crashed into the sheer weight of
cultural expectation. She had been persuaded that "God is just and
all-knowing and will reward you in the hereafter for being subservient". Her
personality became deformed by it.
"She remained completely dependent," Ayaan says. "She nursed grievances; she
was resentful; she was often violent, and she was always depressed." She
would take it out on Ayaan, tying her arms behind her back and lashing her
with wire for the slightest misdemeanour.
When Ayaan first menstruated, her mother screamed at her: "Filthy
prostitute! May you be barren! May you get cancer!" Ayaan tried to commit
suicide not long after. But now she says she knows that "all the abuse
wasn't really directed at me, but at the world, which had taken her rightful
life away."
When her second husband left her, Ayaan's mother was too infantilised to
react. "It never occurred to her to go out and create a new life for
herself, even though she can't have been older than 35 or 40 when my father
left," Ayaan has written.
She remembers waking up every night as a small girl to hear her mother
wailing. Once, she went into her mother's bedroom and placed a hand on her
cheek; her mother screamed and beat her. After that, Ayaan would simply
crouch at the door, listening to the wails, wishing she knew what to do.
Somali culture began to demand that Ayaan too become a submissive woman who
scrubbed away her own personality and sexuality. When she was five years
old, she was made "pure" by having her genitals hacked out with a knife. It
was a simple process; her grandmother and two of her friends pinned her
down, pulled her legs apart, and knifed away her clitoris and labia. She
remembers the sound even now - "like a butcher, snipping the fat off a piece
of meat". The bleeding wound was sewn up, leaving a thick tissue of scars to
form as her fleshy chastity belt. She could not walk for two weeks.
Ayaan soon realised that, in a culture so patriarchal that it could not
tolerate the existence of an unmaimed vagina, "I could never become an
adult. I would always be a minor, my decisions made for me. But I wanted to
become an individual, with a life of my own."
By reading novels, she heard whispers of a world where this was possible.
For her, even poring over Enid Blyton and Barbara Cartland seemed
transgressive, because they depicted a world where boys and girls played
together on the basis of equality, and where women chose their husbands
rather than having them forced on them by their fathers. Imagine a world so
patriarchal that Barbara Cartland seems like a gender revolutionary.
Yet, on the road to this self-determining life, Ayaan turned first to its
polar opposite: the very Islamic fundamentalism that now wants to kill her.
Ayaan was taught from infancy to revere the Prophet Mohamed and the Koran,
and she believed it all. She desperately wanted to please Mohamed, and his
path seemed to her the only one.
So, once her family had moved to Kenya, a country where few people wore the
headscarf, she chose to don one. She has written: "It had a thrill to it, a
sensuous feeling. It made me feel powerful: underneath this screen lay a
previously unsuspected, but potentially lethal, femininity. It sent out a
message of superiority: I was the one true Muslim."
She began to go to a prayer group where the texts of Sayyid Qutb and Hassan
al-Banna - the intellectual inspirations for al-Qa'ida - were pored over.
When the Ayatollah Khomeini declared that Salman Rushdie should be murdered
for what a maniac says in one of his novels, Ayaan wanted him dead. "I
supported it," she says now, "and the logic of my position is that I would
have become a martyr myself, or supported the people [who did become
martyrs]."
What would that girl, who took to the streets to call for Rushdie's death,
say if she could see you now? Would she think you should be killed too? For
the first time in our interview, Ayaan pauses. A long pause. "What would
that girl of 1989 think of this girl?" she repeats. "I think... well...
people change." Another pause. "She would at least approve of it. That's why
I try to explain - there is a reason why so many Muslims are silent when, in
the name of Islam, violence is committed. It's because we believe that jihad
is the sixth obligation. Those, then, who are brave enough to commit acts of
jihad must deserve our commendation."
Then, one day, as she slid into jihadism, her absent father reappeared and
announced that he had found her a good husband. Ayaan thought the potential
life-partner stupid and ugly - but she had no choice. He was from the right
clan, he had the right fundamentalist beliefs, and he wanted her. She knew
what was expected: "A Muslim girl does not make her own decisions or seek
control."
****
But she could not - would not - do it. She ran. She ran all the way to the
Netherlands, on a plane, to claim asylum. She was terrified when she landed
in the heartland of The Infidel. She expected to find depravity on every
corner. But she was amazed. Here was a peaceful land that seemed like
Paradise.
"In the Netherlands, I saw people we called infidels living an amazing life
- men and women mixing, gay people being free, you could say whatever you
wanted," she says. "Then I went back to the asylum-seekers' centre and
almost everyone was from a Muslim country begging for the charity of these
infidels. And I thought, 'If we're so superior, why are we begging from
them?'"
She experimented in stepping out on to the streets without her hijab,
expecting she would be harassed and raped by the sex-crazed infidel. Nobody
looked twice. She began to test other democratic freedoms. She drank
alcohol, she found a boyfriend - and she headed for the library to discover
the principles that had created this place. She began to pore over the works
of Enlightenment philosophy.
"Sometimes, it seemed as if every page I read challenged me as a Muslim.
Drinking wine and wearing trousers was nothing compared to reading the
history of ideas," she says. "The Enlightenment cut European culture from
its roots in old fixed ideas of magic, kingship, social hierarchy and the
domination of priests, and regrafted it on to a great strong trunk that
supported the equality of each individual and his right to free opinions and
self-rule." She found that all this was a profound challenge to the severe
Islam she had been pickled in since childhood.
She began to study for a political science degree and was slowly rethinking
her faith when, one bright morning in September 2001, the island of
Manhattan became swathed in smoke. The chief hijacker, Mohammed Atta, was
exactly the same age as Ayaan. She feels like she knows him, and that if her
life had taken a different turn - if she had stayed in Kenya, with the
jihadis - "perhaps I could have done it." And she says something very
revealing: "I realised I could either go mad, join the Bin Ladenists, or
step out of the religion."
This fanatical form of Islam was, she realised, around her in the
Netherlands. On the night of September 11, a small group of Muslim men took
to the streets to celebrate the massacre. The country's domestic violence
shelters were disproportionately crammed with Muslim women fleeing male
terror. Forced marriages and "honour killings" continued at a startling rate
in Dutch cities. But she found that many otherwise good people were
reluctant to speak out against this abuse of women and gay people within
immigrant communities.
The Netherlands had a policy called "emancipation within your own circle",
and Ayaan saw this as a betrayal. Multiculturalism, she believed, was
"elevating cultures full of bigotry and hatred towards women to the stature
of respectable alternative ways of life. I wanted Muslim women to be aware
of just how bad, and unacceptable, their suffering was. I wanted to help
them develop the vocabulary of resistance."
She took the great English feminist Mary Wollstonecraft as her lodestar, and
began to campaign for the state to log the rate of "honour" killings,
because nobody was even bothering to count. This led to the centre-right
Liberal Party asking her to run to be a member of parliament.
She accepted, and got one of the highest personal votes in the country. This
in turn led her into the path of Theo van Gogh - and to his slaughter. After
that, Ayaan was placed under full-time surveillance by security guards and
was barely permitted to leave her house.
****
At this point, two Ayaans were born, with clashing and contradictory views
on Islam. Sitting here now, I can feel their presence; I can hear them
alternate in her mind. I call the first "revolutionary Ayaan", and this
Ayaan says about September 11: "This was not just Islam, this was the core
of Islam. Mohammed Atta believed he was giving his life for Allah. This is
beyond Osama bin Laden, it is based in the basic roots of Islam."
Without pausing, she continues: "You have to ask - is it a fact that the
Prophet Mohamed conquered lands using the sword? Is it a fact that Muslims
are commanded to commit jihad? Yes it is."
She has no time for what she sees as the ignorant, woolly Islam-is-peace
message of Western liberals, insisting: "I see no difference between Islam
and Islamism. Islam is defined as submission to the will of Allah, as it is
described in the Koran. Islamism is just Islam in its most pure form. Sayyid
Qutb didn't invent anything, he just quoted the sayings of Mohamed."
Revolutionary Ayaan believes that the religion cannot be reformed or
changed, only defeated. The millions upon millions of Muslims who are not
violent - "the wonderful, decent, law-abiding people" - simply do not really
follow Islam. They ignore it, or they live uncomfortably with the explosive
"cognitive dissonance" of simultaneously supporting human decency and the
demands of Islam.
She lists the awkward truths about the Prophet Mohamed. "All Muslims believe
in following his example, but many of the things he did are crimes. When he
was in his fifties, he had sex with a nine-year-old girl. By our standards,
he was a pervert. He ordered the killing of Jews and homosexuals and
apostates, and the beating of women." That is why she concludes that "the
war on terror is a war on Islam", and "Islam is the new fascism".
But then there is "reformist Ayaan". This Ayaan says the opposite: that
internal reform within Islam is both possible and necessary. She insists:
"It's wrong to treat Muslims as if they will never find their John Stuart
Mill. Christianity and Judaism show that people can be very dogmatic and
then open up. There is a minority [within Islam] like [the reformists]
Irshad Manji and Tawfiq Hamid who want to remain in the faith and reform it.
"Can you be a Muslim and respect the separation of church and state? I hope
a large enough number of Muslims will agree you can, and they will find a
way to keep the spiritual elements that comfort them and live in a secular
society."
Ayaan's life story is strewn with Muslims who rejected Bin Ladenist
fanaticism. Her father, for example, was revolted by the Wahabbism he
witnessed in Saudi Arabia, and told her: "This is not Islam - this is Saudis
perverting Islam." She hesitates when I ask her about this fracture line in
her thinking; I can almost touch the cognitive dissonance.
Then "reformist Ayaan" says: "Well, my father was trying to combine the
commandments in the Koran with his conscience. He has reached a level of
civilisation because he's living in the 21st century, but he was also trying
to follow a religion founded in the seventh century. So on the one hand he
thinks you should accept that the content of the Koran is the true word of
God, and on the other hand he is a decent person. He tried to move on by
saying that we should only convert non-Muslims by example, not by violence,
and [by saying] that only the Prophet Mohamed can call for a jihad." But
then "revolutionary Ayaan" adds: "That's not what the Koran says. It says
you can never change the faith."
Is there is a danger that the language of "revolutionary Ayaan" is
undercutting the very people "reformist Ayaan" wants to encourage? Does she
worry that by calling all Islam "fascism" she might encourage the hard
right, who want to deny women like her the chance even to come to Europe as
refugees?
"I do," she says. "But the group of Europeans, white Europeans, who want to
stop immigration altogether, and who reject Muslims, today in 2007, is not
that large. But they could become larger if European governments continue
the policy of accommodating and appeasing fascist demands made by radical
Muslims. They need to oppose fascist demands by Muslims, and the fascist
demands by far-right white groups. I think that if there is equal treatment
on both sides, the traditional populations of Europe will say that it's fair
play."
As we discuss this, I realise there is something odd about this
conversation. It is all so disconcertingly normal. Ayaan is speaking in a
level voice, at a level volume. If you didn't speak English and you saw us
talking, you could assume that we were discussing bus timetables, or the
weather. It's not that she seems passionless - not at all - but that her
personality seems to be coiled up within her, and I am only seeing the
carefully considered tip of it. When she describes the people who want to
hack her body to pieces, it is in paragraphs that feel prepacked. Perhaps it
is all she can bear to show.
And so we continue. She looks at me politely and says that Europe needs to
be more confident about standing up to Islamic fundamentalism. "When we come
here as immigrants, we know it will be different to where we come from. It's
a choice to come, and we can always choose to leave. If we do not want to
adopt European values, we should expect to be criticised."
For example, she says, the veil she used to wear is "a political statement,
it's not just a religious statement. It says: I'm different from you and I
reject what you stand for." She stresses that she doesn't want to ban it,
just to see it challenged. "I'm opposed to banning of political expression,
but I'm very much a proponent of competing political expression.
"The message of liberals is so much better, so much stronger, that you don't
have to resort to banning. You can wear whatever it is that you want, you
can give out whatever message that you want to give out - but you have to
understand that if that message is rejected, then you can't call people
Islamophobic and expect to be taken seriously. If you choose to wear a veil,
people might ridicule and oppose you. That's their right, too."
****
She speaks with such eloquent intensity because she is arguing against
another, younger version of herself. The Ayaan of 2007 is attacking the
Ayaan of 1987 - who is damning her right back. If there is a clash of
civilisations, it is happening within her. It's hard to remember, as we sit
here, that there are tens of thousands of people who want to prematurely
bring this fizzing debate inside Ayaan's head to an end - with a bullet.
She fell in love with Holland because of its tradition of unabashed free
speech, but it seems the country's politicians have judged that she took
free speech too far for them. Last year, the Dutch government began to
reinvestigate the lies in her original asylum claim. Ever since she entered
public life she had been totally candid about this: she exaggerated the
degree of state persecution she faced because being abused by your family
isn't enough to be granted refugee status. Now the government was twitchy
about the rows she was stirring up - so they suddenly decided to strip her
of her seat in parliament. Amid efforts to revoke her Dutch citizenship as
well, she fled to Washington and a job with a conservative think-tank.
Her alignment with the American right doesn't seem like an easy fit. She is
a militant defender of atheism, feminism and gay rights - all forces they
have demonised for decades. She is an illegal immigrant, their ultimate hate
figure. But, as our interview goes on, I realise she has depressingly begun
to adopt some of their ideas. She wants to abolish the minimum wage. She no
longer calls for the closing of all faith schools, but simply Muslim ones,
because "they are the only ones that do not respect the division between
secular and divine law".
She has even begun to touch on the American hard right's preposterous
predictions that Muslims are "outbreeding" the continent's traditional
populations and will impose sharia law "within decades". When I challenge
her on this, she says that "experts" say it is true.
Then, this month, the Dutch government went further and stripped away her
security protection, saying she should pay for it herself. The US government
will not pick up the tab - the only mechanism they have for protecting
private citizens full-time is the Witness Protection Program, which isn't
appropriate.
"Only 11 members out of the 150 MPs voted to keep my security detail," she
says. "So it's an overwhelming decision, and when I saw that I did feel
betrayed. It's not only a betrayal of me, it's a betrayal of the idea of
free expression.
"I think they believe that supposedly provoking Muslims will only make them
more angry and hostile. The four large cities in Holland have now got very
large Muslim populations, and that number is increasing - the estimate is
that they're about 40 per cent. With that kind of electoral power [they
think] it's best not to provoke them." Even if that means sacrificing basic
Dutch values? "Yes."
She is revolted by the people who claim that it is she, Ayaan, who has "sold
out" Muslims. "Tell me, is freedom only for white people?" she has written.
"Is it self-love to adhere to my ancestors' traditions and mutilate my
daughters? To agree to be humiliated and powerless? When I came to a new
culture, where I saw for the first time that human relations could be
different, would it have been self-love to see that as a foreign cult, which
Muslims are forbidden to practise?"
So here she is, with the last sliver of protection she can afford standing
between her and the people determined to murder her, still speaking, still
fighting. Her family have said that they will never speak to her again. She
knows she can never return to the country where she was born. Is she
frightened? She answers quickly, as if reciting a reassuring script. "I know
that is what these terrorists want me to be," she says. "So I try not to be
scared." Then she pauses, and looks down. "But sometimes. Yes."
She looks up again. "But I am lucky. There are so many crossroads where my
life could have become so much worse. If I had stayed in Kenya with the
[jihadist] prayer group, if I had entered into the marriage my father
wanted... I could have lived like my mother." She nods with confidence. "How
many girls born in Digfeer Hospital in Mogadishu in November 1969 are even
alive today? And how many have a real voice?"
Ayaan Hirsi Ali was in London to address the Centre for Social Cohesion
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