Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Dutch MP
Posted on 11/27/2004 5:58:22 PM PST by Land_of_Lincoln_John
She inspires both admiration and rage, and has become one of the most familiar faces on the backbench of Holland’s parliament.
Now, women’s rights advocate Ayaan Hirsi Ali has gone into hiding after a death threat against her was pinned to the body of murdered filmmaker Theo van Gogh.
Hirsi Ali’s path from Somalia to parliament has been marked by a willingness to say and do things others never dared. But she has also incurred the wrath of many Muslims insulted by her message.
She describes herself as a “lapsed” Muslim, and says Islamic culture needs to become more modern.
“Mohammed says that a woman must stay inside, wear a veil, not do certain kinds of work, not have the same inheritance rights as her husband, and should be stoned if she commits adultery,” she said in a 2003 interview with newspaper Trouw.
“I want to show that there’s also another reality than the ’truth’ which is being spread over the world with the help of Saudi money.”
Hirsi Ali has remained in hiding since the November 2 attack, but said in an open letter published on Friday that the murder was “an attack on enlightenment” that had made her “more combative and stronger”.
“You can never kill thinkers, writers and artists, or threaten or intimidate them, even if this golden rule is not self-evident for everyone,” she wrote in a letter that was read aloud at a VVD party gathering.
She said she would continue striving for her ideals until her death, drawing a standing ovation from party members.
The daughter of a Somalian politician, Hirsi Ali, 35, was a UN translator before fleeing an arranged marriage and seeking asylum in the Netherlands in 1992.
She learned Dutch while working odd jobs, eventually becoming a translator for courts and women’s shelters. She studied political science at Leiden University, then got a job as a researcher for the Labour Party, which then headed the Dutch coalition government.
Finding Labour’s policies too soft on forcing Dutch Muslims to integrate and adopt Dutch norms, she switched to the Liberal VVD party with great fanfare, and became a media star.
She also began receiving death threats from Islamic fundamentalists, and has been under police protection since her election to parliament in 2002.
She says she wasn’t surprised by negative reactions to her crusade.
“If I go ahead – and I’m going ahead – I have to reckon with a backlash,” she told women’s magazine Opzij in 2002.
”Every group that goes through a process of change has to get through that frenzy of anger. My strategy is to keep prickling until the storm has passed.”
Many feared for her safety after the airing of Van Gogh’s film “Submission”, which told the fictional story of a Muslim woman who was sexually abused, for which she wrote the script.
The November 22 issue of Newsweek, which contained images from the film, was banned in Pakistan because it was deemed offensive to Islam.
A five-page letter left on Van Gogh’s corpse vowed her downfall.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Dutch MP
Hold the presses...she's cuuuuuuuuuuuute.
"Islam isn't in America to be equal to any other faith, but to become dominant. The Qur'an should be the highest authority in America, and Islam the only accepted religion on earth" -- Omar Ahmed, Chairman of the Board of CAIR (Council of American Islamic Relations), San Ramon Valley Herald, July 1998
There are apparently 3 types of muslim in the world. There are extremist terrorist muslims. There are muslims who are terrified of the terrorists, and there are the muslims who are simply fed up and are willing to take their chances.
He will do a great job.
Also takes cares of that nagging problem of how to get rid of Hillary...
Someone is going to have to save the women of Islam from Bill
ARRRRGGGGHEEE, why did this phrase gain dominance?. Only Mona Charen I believe used the precise phrase "impaled" re: the letter of hatred. Why pinned? It is so wrong. I see how this false phrase is repeated, and repeated and repeated and every time I see it used it makes me realize the West is not really up for the fight that we face. The gosh darn murderer didn't gosh darn PIN the note on the murdered man, Van Gogh. He IMPALED it on Van Gogh's murdered body with all the hate the murderer's heart could muster. See tagline for details.
“Mohammed says that a woman must stay inside, wear a veil, not do certain kinds of work, not have the same inheritance rights as her husband, and should be stoned if she commits adultery,” she said in a 2003 interview with newspaper Trouw.
Some of the apologists for Islam should listen more carefully to Ayaan Ali and other ex-Muslims like Ali Sina and Ibn Warraq.
Also takes care of that problem of only being allowed one woman at a time....
Four would be about right for him. As long as one of them wasn't Hillary.
man...that is just gross.
I regret mentioning that Hillary thing...I was gonna get a bite to eat but now...I just don't feel so good.
me neither
LOL
Gee, weenie, could have been worse. I'm glad you're not smoking a cigar!
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAWWWWHHHHHhhhhhhhhh....I be back in a little while...
He has his part to play in the war on Islam.
Yeeeeeehaaaawww, God is great.
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