Posted on 07/30/2007 8:11:51 AM PDT by pacelvi
Coming to America
By Ayaan Hirsi Ali Posted: Thursday, July 26, 2007
SPEECHES AEI World Forum (Beaver Creek, Colorado) Publication Date: July 23, 2007
Resident Fellow Ayaan Hirsi Ali The movie Coming to America tells the story of Prince Akim from a beautiful, peaceful, exotic monarchy called Zamunda in Africa. The king of Zamunda holds a fabulous ceremony for his crown prince Akim (wonderfully played by Eddie Murphy) attended by all the king's men and all the king's horses. After a display of rigid protocol, preceded by a generous sprinkling of petals followed by a wild but well-choreographed dance, Akim is introduced to his bride-to-be. The future queen has the figure of Jennifer Lopez and is clad in a long, golden evening gown. She has black curly hair that falls down to her waist, and the sunniest of smiles--quite a handy asset if one's main job is to bare one's teeth in pleasure at all times, even if one feels no pleasure.
But Akim has been corrupted by modernity and, contrary to the tradition of Zamunda, he wants to fall in love. He wants a bride who talks back, has her own mind, and loves him not for his position but just for himself. He violates protocol by taking the bride-to-be aside. Akim then asks her about her ideas, her outlook on life, and her hobbies. To every question prince Akim gets a well-rehearsed mantra: "whatever you want, your highness." A frustrated Akim then asks her to bark like a dog--and she proceeds to do as the prince demands. As Akim storms off in exasperation we are left wondering when the poor woman will be pardoned.
Prince Akim, having just rejected the bride-to-be in Zamunda, must find a new one. He decides to look for one in America--in Queens to be precise. Akim finds his princess, the daughter of a "McDowell's" tycoon.
***
Life in Somalia was no Zamunda, with cool breezes and a benign king, where animals and humans interacted in peaceful non-verbal understanding.
Life in Somalia was no Zamunda, with cool breezes and a benign king, where animals and humans interacted in peaceful non-verbal understanding. In 1969, twenty-three days before my birth, Somalia's infant democracy was toppled by a member of the army. Mohamed Siad Barre did what Idi Amin of Uganda, Mobutu Sese Seko of Zaire, and Mengistu Haile Mariam of Ethiopia were doing at the time. They killed, jailed, or chased away any man or woman who might be a threat to their power. My father, Hirsi Magan, was one of those who were jailed. My first memories of him are of me, my brother Mahad, my late sister Haweya, my grandmother, and my mother sitting, just after sunset, under a large tree we call the talal tree, cupping our hands and praying for him to be released. Our prayers were obviously heard, for after a while (I had no sense of time then: a while could extend between a month to a year) he was able to escape with the help of a close clan member who happened to be the director of the prison where my father was held. This clan member was ultimately betrayed and executed.
Diseases were common in my Africa. I got malaria, measles, a terrible form of pox which covers your body in boils, and hepatitis (also called yellow fever) where one's eyes are almost closed off with pus. My grandmother was attached to her traditions. She shunned all pleas to have us treated by modern doctors as ignoble, and instead force-fed us homemade herbal concoctions. Or she would have the local imam write verses of the Quran on a wooden board, rinse them off into a bowl, recite some verses, and spit into the bowl. I then had to drink that. Children's diseases like measles came and went, but my yellow fever resisted grandmother's potions. So Grandma took the next step that the tradition of her forefathers dictated. She took me to the local blacksmith. Grandma and two of my aunts bared my chest and pinned me to the ground. Meanwhile the blacksmith heated long iron rods with endings in the shape of nails. All the while I watched him and screamed with the terror of what was about to happen. When he pressed the iron rods into my chest I fainted from the pain.
After a few days I finally got medical treatment at the hospital in which I was born. When I recovered weeks later, Grandma had forgotten the modern intervention and was bursting with pride that the blacksmith had cured me. I have retained three little scars on my chest from that "treatment." By the time Grandma embarked on the next superstition of genital cleansing (applied to all three children, including my brother Mahad), I had been through quite some childhood discomfort.
Meanwhile my mother was forced to spend most of her time and creativity in feeding us properly. She had to smuggle food into the house, thus dodging Barre's rules of rationing. She went about looking for help within the clan structure to get passports, airline tickets, and money. And at the same time being a mother to us, a daughter to her difficult mother, and a wife to her ever-absent husband. Every decision Ma made to sort our lives out was offset with another of Grandma's traditions. For instance it was against Grandma's tradition to eat eggs and fish, so she threw them away (despite all the effort and risk that Ma had invested to get us those eggs and that fish). According to Grandma's gods, carrying certain foods after sunset from one particular direction to another would result in tainting the food by evil spirits. Of course, food-smuggling could only take place after sunset.
Russia's communist model imposed on Somalia by Mohamed Siad Barre disrupted nomadic life and provided no better alternative. Our household was the tragicomic face of that disruption. I was taught that communism (we pronounced it as Shu-i) was bad. My father--Abdeh--wanted a democracy like America's. Capitalism did not exist in my vocabulary. We wanted to be like that far away place called America, not knowing what it looked like. America was good and Russia was bad. Russia armed our dictator Afwayne and put ghastly thoughts into his head such as making us queue for food in the heat.
Saudi Arabia presented its own challenges. There was no food problem and the houses in which we lived (except in Mecca) were large and airy. Saudi Arabia had its own peculiar cruelties, but these weren't deemed bad by Ma--even though she suffered from them the most. When my father did not come to pick us up at the airport in Jeddah after our long journey to join him, Ma was denied entry into the country. Eventually when we were allowed in, she had to face daily humiliation as no one would attend to her when running errands. She was doubly discriminated against: she was a woman and black.
Saudi Arabia is where I first met my father. He gave us love, discipline without physical punishment, and encouraged our curiosity. But most often he was away. His absence upset Ma. She had a bad temper and would shout at him and throw things around. This resulted in longer absences, and Ma just remained upset most of the time.
After the Friday prayers, Ma and our visitors would speak to us about physical punishments. In Somalia people were being hanged, jailed, and tortured. We were taught that that was bad. Unjust, ungodly, cruel. In Saudi Arabia the stoning of women, the amputating of the hands of thieves, and the beheadings of those who had committed shirk (a great sin against God) were described as the requirement of sharia, or the law. In this twisted reasoning the system was excused and the victims were portrayed as bad and deserving of punishment.
In 1979, we were deported from Saudi Arabia and came to Ethiopia. The whole family was relieved--everyone that is, except Ma. My memories of Ethiopia are more pleasant but also filled with tragedy. I found the openness and kindness of the people unforgettable. In Ethiopia we did not have to be separated from the men. There were no veiled women around. We played and went to school and learned to speak Amharic. More unpleasant are the memories of poverty. The sheer number of beggars on the streets and hordes of men, women, and children with parts of their limbs missing because of leprosy.
I also can remember distinguishing the early contours of what later in my life would become clear: that my father's dream of a liberal, sun-filled Somalia was not going to happen. What was supposed to become the grand opposition to Siad Barre fell apart due to infighting, clanism, and corruption. Young men lured into Addis Ababa by the SSDF to rescue our young nation from Afweyne's death grip were sent to the border of Somalia and Ethiopia. They were poorly trained and badly armed, but full of the fighting spirit that the Darod and Isaq clans were famous for. Some of those who played with us and taught us poems would never return; others came back with no legs or arms. There were no wheel chairs, so they just lay on mattress and woven mats, chewing qat and reflecting on youth lost.
Kenya was much better than Somalia, Saudi Arabia, and Ethiopia--but still no Zamunda. It is there that I learned to speak English. In Nairobi I evolved from a child to a teenager to a young adult. My father left us after a few more fights with Ma. Haweya and Mahad, both brilliant, dropped out of school when they hit 15. In Kenya I read to escape the collapse of our family. I enjoyed reading. We didn't have many books at our disposal. At first there were the Lady Bird books. Fairy tales: Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs; Little Red Riding Hood; The Three Little Pigs (now probably banned in the UK); Goldilocks and the Three Bears; The Ugly Duckling, etc. Then came the Enid Blytons: The Famous Five and The Secret Seven. After that my English was good enough to read Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys; and later the girly romances from Mills & Boon and the Harlequins and Danielle Steele alongside several Barbara Cartlands. There were also the thrillers of Frederick Forsyth, Jeffrey Archer, and Robert Ludlum and the dirty books of Harold Robbins and Jackie Collins. Real literature was just for school. You read Shakespeare, Jane Austin, and George Orwell in class. These books were covered and were handled with respect. After reading them you returned them to the teacher's desk and put a cross next to your name indicating that you had returned the book. Through these books, my imagination was introduced to Britain, America, and Russia--with Russia always being the sucker.
In Kenya I also had my first flirtation with radical Islam. It is in Nairobi that I met Sister Aziza with her message of a pure Islam. This wasn't my grandma's Islam with her amulets, her conversations with her forefathers, and her initiation rites. The true Islam of Sister Aziza resembled the one in Saudi Arabia. Suddenly terms like "jihad," "Jews," and "martyrdom" were back. And it was not only Sister Aziza; there were many other Kenyan Muslims and Somalis getting scholarships to Medina to study the true and pure Islam. The rationalizing of cruelties was back. Though life in Nairobi was relatively easier than in Somalia, Saudi Arabia, and Ethiopia, Kenya was no Zamunda. Daniel Arap Moi was a corrupt president, a dictator like Siad Barre who murdered his opponents and whose reign was defined by the divide-and-rule principle common to African tyrants. He set tribes against each other and managed to remain in power. All this was condemned. The promise of Sharia was not.
Civil war in Somalia made me mature faster than I otherwise would have. I was 22 when Osman Musse, a distant cousin seeking a bride, approached my father. My father, who had returned from Ethiopia, agreed. What motivated him? In the clan system women are worth even less in wartime. Somalia had just collapsed and the clans had reverted back to the old cycle of blood feuds. Our clan had lost power and land. In such a context, Osman Musse's proposal was manna from heaven. Marriage to a man outside of the clan or a non-Somali was unthinkable. My father was burdened--in his perspective--with five unwed daughters. So unlike Prince Akim's father, mine did not have the power to send me to America to find a husband. I had no way out but to bark like Akim's bride-to-be. Not to a prince but to a half-wit who was convinced I was going to provide him with six sons.
I found the real Zamunda not in Africa but in Europe, in a small and stubborn nation called the Netherlands, won from the sea. The streets were clean, the buses arrived on time. They had every gadget imaginable. Everything was free and accessible. It is there that I found my freedom. It is in Holland that I discovered the strength to say no to my father and my clan. I got help from the Dutch police, from the social workers, and from ordinary citizens. The Dutch government gave me permanent residence within three weeks of my arrival. I had nothing to lose and everything to gain. So I learned the language. I did odd jobs and went to college. I did what everybody talks about these days: assimilate. And I enjoyed most of that process.
Then came 9/11! Muslims everywhere cheered. Not all cheered, but those who did made history. I took part in debates; I wrote op-ed articles. I argued that there was a link between the attacks and the failed assimilation of Muslims in Holland and in Europe. The suicide killers of New York and Washington were motivated by belief and not poverty. Education in civilization was the answer and the emancipation of women for the Dutch Muslims. For that I was threatened. My generous and naïve Dutch friends had no idea what to do. So they sent me to America. When I returned to Holland and to the parliament, I refused to adjust my message to the polls of the day and thus caused my party and the coalition some headache. The jihadi elements in society continued their threats. Meanwhile, Theo van Gogh, the nation's greatest provocateur, and I made a small film with verses from the Koran on women's bodies.
Theo was killed on the second of November 2004. I was sent to America, for the second time, to find security. In 2005 I returned to Holland, despite wanting to stay in America. Had I stayed in America, the timing and the message it would have sent was terrible; I would be rewarding Bouyeri if I did not go back, so I did.
In September of last year I returned to America for good. Three unrelated incidents led to my arrival here:
I had accomplished in parliament what I wanted to and did not want to run for office again. I felt that my message was stronger and more effective in America. After a number of applications for a job with different think tanks I decided on AEI--one of the few wise decisions that I made in my life. A judge in the appeals court of the Netherlands had honored a court case my neighbors had made against me in which they argued that I was a threat indirectly to them and their property. Rita Verdonk, the previous minister of integration and immigration, revoked my citizenship, citing a documentary about my having told lies during my asylum application. If you look beyond the hilarity in the movie Coming to America, what you will see is a picture of America that is off-putting. Queens (where Akim hopes to find his queen) is a nasty and violent place. All of the McDowells, except the girl Akim falls for, are greedy, superficial, and unwelcoming. New York appears to be a cold and monstrous place compared to the luminous Zamunda. The Waldorf Astoria (perhaps meant to portray the grandeur of America) looks staid and badly in need of a revamp.
My experience could not have been more different. All the Americans I have met have been very hospitable, cordial, helpful, and full of good advice. Chris DeMuth called me just after I resigned from parliament and offered me a permanent fellowship at AEI. Since I have come to America last year, my colleagues and their spouses have only shown me kindness, generosity, and friendship--all the way to yesterday's whitewater rafting and last night's line dancing.
There is no Zamunda in Africa. Perhaps Queens is a nasty and monstrous place, but, ladies and gentlemen, there is no place like America.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali is a resident fellow at AEI.
This summer my husband and I worked at the Smithsonian Folklife Festival in Washington, DC. in the section dedicated to “Roots of Virginia.” Through a translator, the delegation from Sentegal told us that America was nothing like they had been told. They were very surprised and happy that they had been welcomed warmly and treated well.
Her book “Infidel” was a very good read.
Thanks for the suggested book.
I’ll look it up in the library.
She is one of the bravest voices out there and definitely one of my heroes. She lives in constant threat of her life and her words are completely devoid of any PC.
I highly recommend both her books and am glad that she is with AEI now.
Very interesting, thanks for posting.
Wish there were many more speaking out as this to tell the real truth and threat of Islam.
Crown Prince Akim from Zamunda makes for a better movie lead than General ****-Me-Quick from Liberia... I think.
Thanks for the ping!
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