http://www.voanews.com/english/2007-01-30-voa56.cfm?rss=human
watch Ayaan Hirsi Ali report / Real broadband - download: http://www.voanews.com/mediaassets/english/2007_01/Video/rm/AyaanHirsiAliInterview_tv_26jan07_bb.rm 'Enlightenment Fundamentalist' Ayaan Hirsi Ali, on Reforming Islam By Carolyn Weaver New York, NY 30 January 2007 As a little girl in Somalia, Ayaan Hirsi Ali was subjected by a grandmother to the traditional practice of female genital mutilation. The daughter of a dissident Somali politician, she spent much of her childhood in Ethiopia, Saudi Arabia and Kenya. When her family forced her into an unwanted marriage in 1992, Ayaan Hirsi Ali ran away to the Netherlands, where she claimed asylum. She spoke out against Muslim radicalism following the 9/11 terror attacks, and was elected to the Dutch parliament. It was the beginning of a life as an activist and author that has resulted in death threats and fatwahs sworn against her by fundamentalist Muslim clerics. In 2004, the broadcast in Holland of the short film, Submission, criticizing the treatment of women in traditional Islam, led to the murder of Dutch director Theo Van Gogh. The Islamic radical who killed Van Gogh left a note pinned to his body with a knife that named the writer of the film, Somali-born Ayaan Hirsi Ali, as his next intended victim. Ali was then a member of the Dutch parliament and a critic of fundamentalist Islam, whose books include The Caged Virgin: An Emancipation Proclamation for Women and Islam. After repeated death threats, Hirsi Ali resigned from the Dutch parliament last year, and moved to the United States. She spoke to VOA recently, explaining how the 9/11 terror attacks led her to become what she calls a Muslim atheist. Ayaan Hirsi Ali: “My response was, this is done in my faith, and my faith is Islam. And I thought I don’t agree with it, and I got into a conflict of conscience. Do I agree with what is done in the name of the Koran, because that is what bin Laden and Mohammed Atta quoted? Do I agree with my God, or do I disagree? And if I disagree, I know I’m earning Hell. So I had to work that out first. Reporter: But many Muslims responded to 9/11 by saying, ‘They did it in the name of the Koran, but they were wrong, this is not Islam.’ Well, they were wrong, and the act of killing people indiscriminately is wrong, we agree on all that. But the quotations from the Koran are in there. And my approach is that it doesn’t change anything if you close your eyes to the facts. And we can only prevent other young people from subscribing to the wrong quotations from the Koran, if we accept that those urges towards violence and domination are in the Koran, and try to reform that, and change that. That’s my approach. However, rather than reform it, you found that you were no longer a believer at all? I decided -- and it’s a private decision, I am not propagating atheism – but I decided that I do not believe in the existence of a hell and a heaven and a hereafter. Because, honestly, I realized that was the biggest fear I had to face when I got into this conflict of conscience. In order to be in a good place in the hereafter, to go to heaven, I did not dare challenge God. And what I did was, I decided to challenge what is written in the Koran, by saying, I do not wish to be part of a killing spree. I do not wish to be a part of domination. I want to live and I want others to live, and I love life and I love life on earth. So that is something I relinquished for myself, but I do not propagate that every Muslim become an atheist. You’ve been very critical though of Islam, and even of the Prophet. Yes, the Prophet Mohammed says he is an example to us throughout, not only in the seventh and eighth centuries, but in the 21st century. Humanity has moved on. We can use the Prophet Mohammed as an example in all the things that I think are morally sound, such as hospitality, such as being kind to the poor and the elderly. But I do not want to follow the Prophet Mohammed as an example when he says, kill the unbelievers, ambush them and take their property. Disobedient wives should be beaten. When he divides the world into believers and unbelievers, I do not want to follow the Prophet Mohammed in that sort of morality. So you wouldn’t take everything that he says literally, but rather metaphorically… You can take it metaphorically. You can also say, I’m going to see some of his conduct, such as marrying a nine-year-old child, in the context of the morality of the 7th century in that part of the world. We’ve moved on now. We can say, we’re not going to judge the Prophet Mohammed’s morality in hindsight, but we’re not going to follow that morality. And if you look at all the Arab countries, the Muslim countries, where little girls are married off to older men, they all justify it as ‘that’s the way the Prophet did it, and I am following in the example of the Prophet.’ And yet many good people who are Muslims somehow are able to reconcile that, maybe by simply not thinking about the literal fact of a marriage to a nine-year-old. And it would be very painful to them to hear you criticize the person whom they revere more than anything. I understand that. But let’s empathize with a nine-year-old child living in Saudi Arabia, or in Jordan, or in Sudan, who is being raped night-in, night-out, by someone who is 20 or 30 years older than she is, and that man justifies his act in the name of the Prophet. I do not want to insult or offend fellow Muslims. I just want to say, if we want to change inhuman practices practiced in the name of our faith, then the only way to go about it is to say, we will look at those who are suffering. And it is the young woman who is being raped, it is the Jewish minorities who are being oppressed, or the Christian minorities. We want to stand up for our own rights here, in countries where Christians and non-Muslims are a majority. And we are succeeding in that. But when you look at Muslim countries, Arab Muslim countries, look at the way they treat minorities. And that’s all done in the name of our faith. I’m just asking for equal moral standards. Let’s judge ourselves as we judge others How did you come to write the screenplay for Submission, which led to the death of your director. Theo Van Gogh. I was challenged that the Koran says only wonderful things about women. And I was brought up with the Koran, so I know exactly what the Koran says, and I could find those particular verses in which, for example, God tells husbands, ‘When you fear misconduct, warn your wives, leave them alone in bed, and beat them.’ And there were Imams in Spain and in France and in Holland and in England who were preaching from the mosques and who were saying beat disobedient wives. And so I took verses like those and had them written on women’s bodies, actresses, who then depicted the image of a woman who was beaten, one who was raped. And that was to show, this is what it looks like. To you it’s a holy verse, but when it’s carried out, this is what it looks like. And the man who killed Theo Van Gogh, killed him because he thought the verse was so holy, these were such holy verses, and so great and so elevated – and they were written on a surface so low: women. And that was such an insult to God and to the Koran, that the man who directed and who made this should be killed. When we talk about a clash of civilizations – it’s not a clash of civilizations. It’s this clash. It’s a clash of values. And it’s this sort of mindset, that says a holy text is far more important than a human life – that I fight.” At a press conference last February, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, then still a member of the Dutch parliament, spoke out to defend the publication of the Danish cartoons that depicted the prophet Mohammed. "I am here to defend the right to offend,” she said. “Shame on those papers and TV channels who lacked the courage to show their readers the caricatures from the cartoon affair. These intellectuals live off free speech, but they accept censorship.” She went on to attack the European politicians, including the prime minister of her own government, who did not resist what she said were the demands of tyrannical regimes that the cartoons be suppressed. It was a characteristic statement from a woman who calls herself an “Enlightenment fundamentalist,” whose greatest devotion is to free thought and free speech, and for whom death threats seem only a spur to speak out again. She sat down for an interview with VOA on a recent trip to New York: Reporter: Do you think a progressive Islam is the formative stages now? Ayaan Hirsi Ali: “Islam, like any other faith, will go through a process of evolution. Right now I think it is in the middle of that evolution. There’s a lot of havoc and a lot of change and violence going on within the house of Islam. The problem is that, unlike [in] Christianity, there is no authority and no hierarchy that will say now we have evolved to the next stage. So, I don’t know how we are going to solve the problem of organization. But what makes me optimistic is, for example, since 9/11, the number of books that have been published on Islam, either by Muslims or non-Muslims, exceeds in number published on Islam ever since the year 900. With that kind of intellectual agitation, I am optimistic that Islam will evolve into something more humane. If every Muslim who feels as you do spoke out, wouldn't it be instant civil war? I mean, there's no way that every government in the world could provide protection to every moderate progressive Muslim who spoke out. You are to a degree right. Social change, when it's sudden and revolutionary, comes with a lot of violence. But the change can also be gradual. And I am speaking, operating, in a context where there is the rule of law, and where people do not necessarily have to face immediate violence. I know if I were saying what I say in Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Pakistan, Somalia -- that's a completely different reality. I understand that. But I'm saying we have to start somewhere. And in this global world where we live with the Internet and information technology, and what we say now reaches millions of people, I still think there are many fellow Muslims who live here, who think like me, who can and should speak out, who will not face as much danger as their brothers and sisters in the countries where there is no freedom of expression. You've said you wish that Bush and Blair, rather than talking about spreading democracy, would think in terms of spreading freedom of expression and Enlightenment values, rationality. Can you explain what you mean by that? I think that democracy is a product of a recognition that the human individual is free, and I mean free not only physically unchained, but also mentally unchained. And if you protect the freedom of expression, then I can come to you and convince you, persuade you, without using violence, what I think is important. And then we can form a movement, form a party, and the other group can form an opposition, and that way, democracy comes about. It seems that you came to your change of mind and heart really because of what is happening to women, and how you see women's situation under Islam -- and also sexual mores. I know you are also a supporter of gay rights. Yes, I am a supporter of individual rights, and that includes gay rights. It's not only Muslim women. I know about the treatment of women in China, where they have a one-child policy, and that de facto has led to getting rid of little girls. I know that in India women who belong to a lower caste are treated terribly, and that's justified in the name of their own culture and their own faith. I've seen and listened to Africans who are not Muslims who practice genital mutilation, for example. So it's not only Islam. But what you see is that, except for Western culture, that all these other cultures seem to celebrate the mistreatment and the abuse of women, and justify it in the name of their culture, or take it for granted. And that needs to change. Do you feel hopeful that radical Islam can be stemmed or do you see it as kind of inexorable, and that we will be living with terror, and that you will spend the rest of your life under a fatwah? I am spending the rest of my life under a fatwah. Unfortunately, I will not see the fruits of my labor and activism. I think it's going to be something for the next generation. But look at people like Martin Luther King. It's the generation after him that's enjoying the fruits of his struggle. And I today enjoy, in a different way, the fruits of other people in the past who had struggled for the rights of women, for racial equality, and for the rights of individuals in general. And I think we just need to pass that on. You think that Islam should get rid of the idea of Hell. Why is that so important? Because I think the most important barrier, when it comes to a conflict of conscience between the believing Muslim and the Scriptures, is always hell. It's the threat of hell. I've spoken to thousands of Muslims who are compassionate people who do not want to kill. They do not want to become the enemies of unbelievers, or see unbelievers as enemies, non-Muslims as enemies. But there is always the barrier, the threat of hell. If you disobey God, then you go to Hell. So what do you choose, the convenience of having an unbeliever as your friend today on Earth, or suffering eternal hell? So I think we have to address the dogma of hell, the dogma of the hereafter. Do you regret at all that you've turned your life into something that you really can't control entirely? Do you wish that you could lead a private life again, and not be in danger? I wish that, but I also knew when I got involved in this that -- it's like the woman who decided to sit down in the bus [Rosa Parks, during he Civil Rights movement in the 1960s United States]. You have to live with the consequences of remaining seated. And I have to remain -- I have to live with the consequences of standing up." Last year, Ayaan Hirsi Ali left the Dutch parliament, and moved to the United States, where she is a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. Still under 24-hour police protection, she is now working on the second part of Submission, which will focus on Islam and the issue of homosexual rights. Her autobiography, Infidel: The Story of My Enlightenment, is published in the United States by the Free Press. +++ -------------------------- Want to discuss this topic? 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