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Imprisonment for One Provides Freedom for All

Ayaan Hirsi Ali: A Modern-Day Hero

Alexander, Sarah

Dance 166

This paper is about Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a personal hero and one of the most influential

people of our time. She is a woman who has escaped a country in chaos, gained an education

in a Western country, and became a member of the Dutch Parliament and an advocate for the

rights of women around the world. Her work has been so impactful, she has had to flee and

seek protection from the death threats she receives. She has brought attention to the

oppression of women in Islamic cultures in spite of, perhaps because of, very real threats of

death. She is a phenomenal woman who should be respected by all for her wonderful work,

her strength, and her ability to change the world.

Hirsi Magan Isse, her father, is really where Hirsi Ali’s story begins because he paved

the path for his daughter to be a politically active woman instead of being oppressed in

Somalia for the rest of her life. Ironically, it was her father’s imprisonment that led to her

freedom and the freedom of many Islamic women. Her father was a prominent figure in the

Somali Salvation Democratic Front, a major player in the Somalian revolution and was

imprisoned for his involvement when she was very young. Her father was fighting against the

Siad Barre government and against harmful traditional values such as female genital

mutilation (female circumcision), a procedure her traditional grandmother forced on her when

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she was five years old. Her father escaped from prison and brought her and the rest of the

family to various Middle Eastern countries, eventually ending up in Kenya.

In Kenya, Hirsi Ali attended the Muslim Girls’ Secondary School. At the secondary

school, a charismatic teacher inspired her to adopt the stricter Saudi Arabian interpretation of

Islam. In following the more traditional Saudi Arabian interpretation of Islam, Hirsi Ali wore

a hijab along with her school uniform; this was uncommon for Muslim women at the time.

Her views became so radical that she sided with the Muslim Brotherhood and agreed with the

fatwa calling for the assassination of Salman Rushdie over his 1988 novel, “The Satanic

Verses”. The radial Islamic views she adopted lasted for many years, but now she is an

activist against Islam and for atheism; this transition was a long process that began with her

moving to the Netherlands.

In 1992, Hirsi Ali moved to the Netherlands and was granted political asylum due o

the Somalian conflict. Before attending university, she worked many jobs including one

where she served as a translator at a refugee center. It was her experience at this refugee

center that was pivotal in her transition from devout follower of Islam to an activist against

Islam. Another key in her transition to becoming one of the most influential women of this

century was her exposure to different literature. Hirsi Ali had a thirst for knowledge and read

books that exposure her to many new ideas, the work of Sigmund Freud being quite

significant. The work of Freud introduced Hirsi Ali, for the first time, to a system of morality

not based on religion. She went on to earn her MSc in political science from Leiden

University while making direct contributions to important causes. Hirsi Ali worked with

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Somali women in hostels and centers for abused woman we well as for the IND (Dutch

Immigration Service). Seeing how inefficiently the IND handled cases of people, especially

women, seeking asylum fueled her fire to speak up against oppression. Throughout her

experiences and reading about different ideas, Hirsi Ali questioned her faith very little, but

that all changed with the attack in the United States on the eleventh of September in 2001.

Hirsi Ali said that watching the videos of Osama bin Laden use the Qur’an and the

Hadith to justify the attacks, made her question her faith. In disgust over the acts on the

eleventh of September and disbelief over the words bin Laden was quoting, Hirsi Ali checked

the Qur’an herself. Upon finding the quotes in the Qur’an, Hirsi Ali began her transition to

non-believer, regarding the book as “just another book”. In 2002, she became an atheist,

published author, frequent presence on television news, and critic of Islamic culture. Being a

public critic of Islam, she began to receive death threats from terrorist organizations and

switched to the People’s Party For Freedom and Democracy (VVD), partially to receive

government-funded protection. It was Hirsi Ali’s decision to switch to the VVD that would

quickly skyrocket her to the forefront of world news.

In 2003, she ran for a position in Dutch parliament. She ran for the chair on the

platform that the abuse of Muslim women and girls was being overlooked in the Netherlands,

enabling their oppression. It was her position of empowering Muslim women and girls that

earned Hirsi Ali her parliamentary seat. Shortly after being elected to parliament, Hirsi Ali

produced one of her most controversial ad shocking works, “Submission”, a short film

produced by her with Theo van Gogh.

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“Submission” is a short film that portrays Muslim women suffering abuse due to

Islamic culture and norms. The goal of the film was to bring attention to the issue and to

criticize the oppression of women inherent in Islamic culture. The outrage over the film

brought much needed attention to the cause, but also cost Theo van Gogh his life. Mohammed

Bouyeri, an alleged member of the Muslim terrorist organization, the Hofstad Group,

assassinated Theo. Attached to the mutilated van Gogh was a death threat to Hirsi Ali,

prompting significantly increased security for her. In 2004, after Mohammed Bouyeri had

been sentenced to life in prison, a terrorist threat sent Hirsi Ali into hiding. The rap song,

“Hirsi Ali Dis” was produced as a threat against her life and served as a trigger to more death

threats and Hirsi Ali hiding in the United States.

While in hiding, Hirsi Ali continued her work speaking out against Islamic culture,

urging U.S. intervention in preventing Iran from developing nuclear weapons, and engaging

in debates on the morality of Islam. During her time in hiding in the U.S., Mahmoud

Ahmadinejad proposed a conference to investigate evidence of the Nazi holocaust. Hirsi Ali

encouraged such a conference because, as she has stated in many interviews and conventions

(such as the American Atheist convention), she had never heard of the holocaust before

coming to Europe, and neither have millions of people in the Middle East. Denying the

holocaust, something the majority of the Western world accepts as a fact of history, and

successfully convincing millions of people in the Middle East that it never happened shows

the effectiveness in oppression. Denying access to information is a form of control that has

been utilized since the beginning of oppression. We know what we are taught and what we are

exposed to we accept as fact unless given evidence to the contrary. Activist work such as that

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done by Hirsi Ali is crucial in bringing the Middle East to the modern age. In addition to the

changes she is helping create in the Middle East, Hirsi has been able to make a significant

impact in the United States.

In 2007, Hirsi Ali founded the AHA Foundation, a nonprofit organization for the

defense of women’s rights based in New York, New York. Originally, the AHA was formed

to support Muslim dissidents, particularly those who had suffered for their beliefs. In 2008,

the AHA Foundation broadened its’ objectives to fight crimes against women. Specifically,

the AHA helps fight for women and girls in forced marriages, who have been subject to

female genital mutilation, and women and girls under the threat of honor killings. In order to

help fight these crimes against women, the AHA focuses on education, legislative support,

and community outreach. While the AHA is based in New York, it reaches out to help women

and girls across the world.

Women in the Middle East and in the Western world are still oppressed by serious and

life-threatening issues. Forced marriages, marriages that occur when an individual is forced in

some way to marry without informed consent, occur throughout the world, even in the United

States. While exact numbers are hard to acquire, thousands of forced marriages occur in the

United States and the AHA has helped women in the United States and around the world to be

able to take legal action so they are protected against a forced marriage. Honor violence is a

type of violence committed against women to help protect the honor f the woman or her

family. This violence occurs because the victim has violated a cultural (usually religious)

norm and the perpetrator is trying to prevent shame from the victim and dishonor from falling

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on the family. Honor violence is not something with which law-enforcement in the United

States is familiar and it is not separated from domestic violence in general. The AHA is trying

to raise awareness and to start programs in metropolitan areas to screen criminal cases for

motives that may qualify the crime as a crime of honor violence. In the Netherlands, an

increased number of honor-related crimes have been reported; it is unclear if the increase in

reports is due to the increased awareness and accessibility for reporting or if the rates are

actually up. The AHA was involved in the Dutch established a task force devoted to honor-

related violence to help with prevention and with prosecution. The AHA has also made strides

in making female genital mutilation a punishable crime in the United States, he United

Kingdom, the Netherlands, and Norway. In the United States, it is illegal to perform female

genital mutilation (as of 2012), but does not currently punish family members who take young

girls out of country to have it done.

Hirsi Ali is one of my personal heroes. She has brought attention to issues related to

religion and women’s rights. She has become a champion for the oppressed women and girls,

helping them become empowered and legally protected so that they can choose how to live

their life. Hirsi Ali has not only helped women and girls in the Islamic community, but in

communities around the world. She sets a wonderful example of a powerful, brave, and

passionate woman who shows that you can make a difference, regardless of your background,

as long as you care enough to try. Even in the face of death threats and a constant fear for her

life, Ayaan Hirsi Ali has not only survived, but has thrived and absolutely changed the world.