{"id":132,"date":"2006-05-28T13:03:05","date_gmt":"2006-05-28T13:03:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/alephnaught.wordpress.com\/2006\/05\/28\/somali-in-the-hague-faces-a-more-personal-attack\/"},"modified":"2006-05-28T13:03:05","modified_gmt":"2006-05-28T13:03:05","slug":"somali-in-the-hague-faces-a-more-personal-attack","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.alephnaught.com\/Blog\/2006\/05\/28\/somali-in-the-hague-faces-a-more-personal-attack\/","title":{"rendered":"Somali in The Hague Faces a More Personal Attack"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
Somali in The Hague Faces a More Personal
\nAttack<\/b><\/font>
By Marlise
\nSimons<\/font>
May 24,
\n2006<\/font>
Quoted from The New York
\nTimes<\/font><\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

Somali in The Hague Faces a More Personal
\nAttack<\/font>
By Marlise
\nSimons<\/font>
May 24,
\n2006<\/font>
Quoted from The New York
\nTimes<\/font><\/p>\n

THE HAGUE, May 23 ? Ayaan
\nHirsi Ali is among the most famous and successful immigrants in the Netherlands,
\nalong with several soccer stars. A Muslim atheist, as she calls herself, Ms.
\nHirsi Ali, who was born in Somalia, rose to win a seat in Parliament and gained
\na reputation for probing the uneasy coexistence of Islam and the West. She
\nreviled her religion, bringing on death
\nthreats.<\/font><\/p>\n

Rita Verdonk, a former prison
\nwarden, is the Dutch minister of immigration and hopes to become the first woman
\nto serve as prime minister. She had been rising in the polls because of her
\ntough stance on illegal immigrants.<\/font><\/p>\n

The
\ntwo politicians, once friends, even allies, are now caught in a conflict so
\npersonal that Ms. Hirsi Ali has disclosed family letters in her own
\ndefense.<\/font><\/p>\n

The quarrel began when a Dutch
\ntelevision team delved into the false story that Ms. Hirsi Ali gave when she
\narrived as a political refugee, listing a wrong name and birth date to hide from
\na man whom her family had chosen as a husband. Although the details had often
\nbeen acknowledged by Ms. Hirsi Ali, Ms. Verdonk said she was forced to strip Ms.
\nHirsi Ali of her Dutch nationality.<\/font><\/p>\n

But
\nthen her many foes began to use the television report as a fresh opportunity to
\ncast doubt on her broader credibility about her history and
\nbeliefs.<\/font><\/p>\n

Stung by the attacks, Ms.
\nHirsi Ali has made available to The New York Times several letters that support
\naccounts of her life that are now being
\nquestioned.<\/font><\/p>\n

She has been a lightning
\nrod in a country that is moving to the right as it struggles with how to deal
\nwith immigrants, most of them Muslim. After two high-profile political
\nassassinations, one by a Muslim radical, the Dutch are deeply divided over
\nwhether to be cautious or blunt toward Muslims, who are not quick to adapt to
\nDutch mores.<\/font><\/p>\n

But Ms. Verdonk is also
\nbeing vilified. Newspapers, even those critical of Ms. Hirsi Ali, have lacerated
\nthe minister for her handling of the case, and after a 10-hour grilling from an
\noutraged Parliament and public reprimands from cabinet colleagues, something
\nrarely seen here, the prime minister, Jan Peter Balkenende, ordered that Ms.
\nHirsi Ali’s citizenship be
\nrestored.<\/font><\/p>\n

Dutch diplomats, embarrassed
\nby scathing news coverage abroad, have insisted that Ms. Hirsi Ali is not being
\nsilenced or expelled, and say she decided to take up a fellowship in Washington
\neven before the latest dispute broke
\nout.<\/font><\/p>\n

But the public is divided. Opinion
\npolls say half the people questioned agreed with the immigration minister’s
\nmove, while Internet chat rooms for immigrants have bristled with insults,
\nbidding good riddance to the Muslim
\n“traitor.”<\/font><\/p>\n

As she resigned from
\nParliament, Ms. Hirsi Ali politely expressed her sadness but said the difficult
\nquestions about “the future of Islam in our country” would not go
\naway.<\/font><\/p>\n

It is true that in this country
\nof 16 million people, more than a million of whom are first- or
\nsecond-generation Muslim immigrants, distrust runs deep, and it has been
\naggravated since the terrorist attacks in New York, Madrid and
\nLondon.<\/font><\/p>\n

Hikmat Mahawat Khan, leader of
\nthe Contact Group, an umbrella organization for Dutch Muslim associations, said
\nsome Muslims who had been critical should be concerned. “Instead of blaming Ms.
\nHirsi Ali, they will now have to deal with difficult subjects themselves,” he
\nsaid.<\/font><\/p>\n

A persistent question across
\nEurope is whether newcomers should be made to adapt to local
\ncustoms.<\/font><\/p>\n

Ms. Hirsi Ali urged the Dutch
\nto stand firm, and not to appease immigrants. She said Dutch Muslims needed to
\nfree themselves from the control of clerics who preached subjugation of women
\nand ostracized homosexuals. The 40 or more Islamic schools isolate children and
\ncould breed dangerous militants, she argued, so they should be
\nclosed.<\/font><\/p>\n

All this disturbed the Dutch
\nculture of consensus.<\/font><\/p>\n

When Ms. Hirsi
\nAli joined Parliament in 2003, she was lionized by the news media, which were
\nfascinated by her articulate debates in perfect Dutch, her daring approach to
\nIslam, her arranged marriage in Africa, her exotic
\nbeauty.<\/font><\/p>\n

But as one commentator wrote,
\nshe suffered from overexposure. As she gained international fame and was courted
\nby foreign media and institutions, Dutch newspapers began to criticize her as a
\ncelebrity for whom the country was too
\nsmall.<\/font><\/p>\n

“For a long time Ayaan was
\ntreated like a saint; now there is a lot of anger and the press has been
\nattacking her in the last year,” said Geert Mak, a writer and social
\ncommentator. He said he often disagreed with her, but abhorred the way she was
\nbeing treated. “She belongs to our society, she was formed here,” he said, “and
\nafter the death threats she had to live here like a
\nrefugee.”<\/font><\/p>\n

Ms. Hirsi Ali brought to the
\nlimelight issues that had been
\ninvisible.<\/font><\/p>\n

Muslim wives and daughters
\nare now a majority in shelters for abused women, she said. She urged officials
\nto stop immigrant men from taking their wives back to their home countries and
\nleaving them there without their Dutch documents, so the men could bring younger
\nand more obedient brides back to the Netherlands. She said the Dutch should
\nraise immigrant children with Dutch
\nvalues.<\/font><\/p>\n

“We are looking for balance
\nbetween the many groups,” said Piet de Rooy, a modern historian. “This is the
\nintense discussion of our time. We have a consensus that you give each other
\nspace, even if this is not
\nagreeable.”<\/font><\/p>\n

Moreover, harsh
\nconfrontations over religion are anathema in a country born from almost a
\ncentury of religious war between Catholics and Protestants. But Ms. Hirsi Ali,
\nbelieving the Dutch ignored what she saw as the dangers of Islam, felt that a
\nconfrontation of ideas was needed before common ground could be found between
\nIslamic beliefs and Dutch ways.<\/font><\/p>\n

“She
\nirritates me deeply with her one-sided view of Islam,” said Jan Beerenhout, a
\nformer Amsterdam municipal official and a convert to Islam. “But I feel
\nambiguous. She was offensive to the Muslims from rural areas who practice an
\narchaic form of the religion. But if she had not spoken out, many wrongs would
\nhave remained taboo.”<\/font><\/p>\n

In recent days,
\nbloggers and commentators have challenged Ms. Hirsi Ali’s motives for fleeing to
\nthe Netherlands. She maintained that she wanted to escape a forced marriage with
\na Somali cousin, and while waiting to meet him in Germany, she secretly left for
\nthe Netherlands.<\/font><\/p>\n

Defending her account,
\nshe offered a letter she received from Kenya, from her sister Haweya, in August
\n1992, after her arrival in a Dutch refugee camp. “Your husband in Germany is
\nlooking for you,” the letter reads, “and the whole search is being coordinated
\nby father here.”<\/font><\/p>\n

Referring to members
\nof their clan, Haweya wrote: “Practically all the Osman Mahamud in that area are
\nlooking for you everywhere. Be
\nwarned.”<\/font><\/p>\n

Her detractors have also said
\nshe lied about her relationship with her father, Hirsi Magan Isse, a former
\npolitician who had to flee Somalia. They say she had nothing to fear and had a
\ngood relationship with him.<\/font><\/p>\n

Ms. Hirsi
\nAli, underlining the duress facing her, agreed to release the last letter she
\nsaid she received from her father ? his
\ncurse.<\/font><\/p>\n

In January 1993, after writing
\nto beg forgiveness for her disobedience in refusing the husband chosen, she said
\nshe needed his blessing.<\/font><\/p>\n

“Dear
\nDeceitful Fox,” her father replied. “You do not need me and I do not need you. I
\njust invoked Allah to disgrace you, as you have disgraced me.
\nAmen!<\/font><\/p>\n

“This is the last message you
\nwill receive from me, as your letter was the last message I will accept from
\nyou. Go to hell! And the devil be with
\nyou.<\/font><\/p>\n

“May Allah punish you for your
\ndeception,” his letter ended.<\/font><\/p>\n

“Amen!
\nYours, The Fool.”<\/font><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\nTranslate<\/span><\/a>\"\"\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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