[wvns] Muslim Women Glad Hirsi Ali Quit Netherlands
Muslim Women Glad Hirsi Ali Quit Netherlands
By Alexandra Hudson
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070425/wl_nm/muslimwomen_europe_dutch_dc_2
AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - For three years Somali-born Ayaan Hirsi Ali
galvanized Dutch society with a frank account of her traumatic past
and her conviction that Islam is a violent, misogynous religion. That
conviction led to death threats, the murder of her associate,
filmmaker Theo van Gogh and, her critics say, the alienation of
precisely those she aimed to engage as relations between Muslims and
non-Muslims deteriorated as never before.
Now almost a year since the former Dutch parliamentarian hit headlines
worldwide for admitting she lied to gain asylum in the Netherlands,
many of the Dutch-Muslim women Hirsi Ali sought to stir and inspire
state bluntly they are relieved she is gone.
The 37-year-old now works for a U.S. think-tank, while her
international profile as an ex-Muslim critic of Islam soars.
"I am glad that Ayaan Hirsi Ali is gone, because now the tone has
softened, it has become less extreme and tensions have eased," said
Nermin Altintas, who runs an education centre for migrant women. Hirsi
Ali is held responsible by many in the Muslim community for
"Islamising" the Netherlands' migrants, polarizing communities and
diverting attention from those trying to boost integration in what
they see as a more constructive approach.
"Let her call one woman forward and show how she really helped her,"
said Famile Arslan, a 35-year-old family lawyer. "We worked for 10,
15, 20 years to help emancipate Muslim women... and she stole the
respect we should have had as grass- roots movements working for change."
But Hirsi Ali's former spokeswoman, Ingrid Pouw, who worked with her
during her time in the Dutch parliament said she received many
messages of support from Muslim women, who said they were too afraid
to go public. "She often had messages from women, sometimes with
violent husbands, saying 'please go on'," Pouw said.
POLARISING FORCE
In the Netherlands, where the majority of the country's 1 million
Muslims are of Moroccan or Turkish background, some of Hirsi Ali's
pronouncements on Islam met astonishment. "Her statements on Islam
were very harsh. I have a completely different experience of Islam...
as I come from a Turkish cultural background," said Altintas.
Hirsi Ali caused uproar by calling Islam "backward," and by branding
the prophet Mohammad a paedophile and a tyrant. However, it was the
film "Submission" she wrote for Dutch television which most provoked.
In the short film, an actress whose naked body is covered with a thin
veil appeals to God about the violence she believes she must endure in
his name, while in other scenes naked women cower with texts from the
Koran inscribed on their bodies.
"If she wanted to campaign against violence against women then she
shouldn't have written the Koran text on the body, because that was
offensive to many of the religious women she claimed she was trying to
help," said Altintas. "Her methods were such that rather than
attracting Muslim women she pushed them away... She polarized things,"
said 19-year-old student Suzan Yucel from Eindhoven.
The film's director Theo van Gogh was gunned down on an Amsterdam
street in 2004 by a Dutch-Moroccan, who stabbed a note to his body
addressed to Hirsi Ali warning she would be next. The Dutch watched in
disbelief as their country, once prized as a liberal, multicultural
model, slid into a mood of mutual hostility and tit-for-tat attacks on
mosques and churches.
CULTURE OR RELIGION?
"I was restricted by male macho culture, and my migrant background...
but you cannot use Islam as an excuse," said Arslan, whose parents
from eastern Turkey were illiterate. "I have a very positive
experience of Islam."
Yucel agreed that Hirsi Ali ascribes problems to Islam which have
other, more complex roots. "Islam is interpreted by people and in
Turkey the interpretation is very different from Somalia... Culture
and religion got mixed up with Hirsi Ali," she said.
Hirsi Ali arrived in the Netherlands from Kenya in 1992, unable to
speak a word of Dutch and having fled an arranged marriage and abusive
family who had her circumcised as a child. She took odd jobs, studied
Dutch, and began work as a translator for asylum seekers before
studying political science and working as a political researcher.
In 2003 she entered parliament for the VVD (Liberals), while at the
same time her graceful looks, soft voice and compelling vulnerability
made her a media star. Last year Hirsi Ali admitted to lying to win
asylum in the Netherlands after it emerged that she had arrived in the
country via Germany, but said her party knew of the deception. The
ensuing row saw the then immigration minister threaten to strip her of
her Dutch citizenship, and a small party left the coalition in
protest, bringing down the government.
WHAT NOW?
After resigning as a Dutch parliamentarian in May 2006, Hirsi Ali
stated: "I am going away, but the questions remain. The questions
about the future of Islam in our country, the suppression of women in
Islamic culture and the integration of the many Muslims in the West."
Yucel, who with other young Muslims runs a website called "We are
staying here" (www.wijblijvenhier.nl), says she and her cohorts are
examining the same issues but, unlike Hirsi Ali, with a view to
diffusing tension and staying.
The former politician has been the subject of lively debates on the
site, with some bloggers saying she deserves respect for exposing
phoney tolerance in the Netherlands, and daring to speak her mind
despite the death threats. But the dominant sentiment is relief that
she has left the Dutch public arena.
While some are hopeful that a new centrist Dutch government with the
country's first Muslim ministers might usher in a more supportive
climate, Yucel points out that anti-immigration politician Geert
Wilders, who broke away from the VVD Liberals to found an independent
party, made big gains. Wilders, also subject to death threats, said
recently Dutch Muslims must throw away half the Koran if they want to
stay.
But Yucel says she is optimistic for the long-term, and proud to be a
Dutch-Muslim who is free to wear a headscarf in places she would not
be able to in Turkey. "The Muslim community here will change... This
is still a new environment and we have to get used to it."
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