Ayaan Hirsi Ali wanted to shape her own future
Posted on 01/26/2006 2:41:57 AM PST by RWR8189
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Ayaan Hirsi Ali wanted to shape her own future |
For the Somali-born Dutch MP Ayaan Hirsi Ali, it was a long journey that started with an arranged marriage.
She sought refuge in the Netherlands on her way to her new husband's home in Canada.
"I wanted a chance at a life where I could shape my own future," she says.
"I knew the risks - being disowned or being shunned by my father and the rest of my family. I took those risks and I don't regret it."
Hirsi Ali describes the anti-US attacks of 11 September 2001 as pivotal to her questioning of Islam.
She remembers the moment when she realised that Mohammed Atta, the leader of the hijackers, had studied the Koran, like her, in the mid-1980s.
She says: "I grabbed the Koran and I started to read what Bin Laden had written and... I put (his) citations next to what is written in the Koran and I realised that, yes, a lot of it is part of my religion and what do I think of that?"
Defending principles
She wrote the play Submission to "challenge the conviction that what is written in the Holy Koran is absolute".
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 I have come to the conclusion that Islam can and should be reformed if Muslims want to live at peace  Ayaan Hirsi Ali
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"I still do feel guilt," she says.
"Guilt is irrational, but for Theo it was the freedom of expression. He said 'If I cannot make films in Holland then I am a slave... and I would rather be dead'. And I am just as principled as he is."
Hirsi Ali now lives under 24-hour armed guard. A note pinned to Van Gogh's body by the murderer threatened the MP directly.
It read: "You have your principles and I have mine, I am prepared to die for mine, are you prepared to die for yours?"
She says "it's like the sword of Damocles that hangs above my head. I do realise that".
"I live like someone who has been told 'you have some kind of terminal disease - we just don't know when it's going to strike'."
Call for reform
But Hirsi Ali has no intention of being silenced. Submission 2 is in production and Submission 3 is planned.
 Theo Van Gogh was a well-known critic of fundamentalist Islam
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"I have come to the conclusion that Islam can and should be reformed if Muslims want to live at peace... that's why I need the freedom of expression... for other Muslims to think that through."
Does she think she will survive?
"Yes," she says. "And if I don't, well, I've lived my life as I want to live it. So be it."
You can hear Fergal Keane talk to Ayaan Hirsi Ali on Radio 4's Taking a Stand on Tuesday 24 January at 2130GMT or for the following week at the Listen again page.
Brave woman.
But they don't want to live in peace. They want to go stark raving mad and take over the world even if they have to ruin it in the process.
wow.
As has been stated here on FR many times, there are no Moderate Muslims, just mslims that don't know their religion very well.
The terrorists are the TRUE face of Islam, and it is time the world woke up to that reality.
Islam can not be reformed. It can only be cast off, like communism, Naziism, etc.
I wonder how long it will be before some EU tribunal charges her with a "hate speech" crime?
The definition of Moderate muslim: radical muslims out of ammo.
The delicate BBC tells us about "a note pinned", sounds like what Kindergarten teachers used to do to send a note home with the child. The note letter was attached with a knife stabbed into Van Gogh. Hiding the brutality of the killers serves what purpose?
No, the act was the murderer's alone. I don't like this reporter's suggestion, and she has no reason to feel guilty.
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