http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5382547

Watch her film that prompted the murder of her fellow filmaker, Theo van Gogh (yes, he was related to that van Gogh):
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=846339861805446088&q=submission+Van+Gogh

In spite of death threats, she's not backing down and is releasing a sequel, which will highlight Islam's treatment of gay men.

But at the same time she seems to give a free ride to the imperialists of Europe and America. Read the Preface to her book, on the NPR website that Charlotte linked to.

When she talks about the 9/11 attacks, there's never a consideration of whether the USA is anything other than an innocent victim of religious fanatics. When she talks about Iraq today she condemns Muslims for not opposing the violence of the Muslim "insurgents" but doesn't criticize the imperialist invaders who created the crisis of violence in that country. When she talks about the "Mohammed cartoon" crisis there is no reference to the context of legitimate grievances of Muslims in Europe and elsewhere.

Hirsi Ali began in a left-wing party and made the decision to switch parties.

She is visiting the US from Europe, where she freely speaks about the oppression of many Muslim women, and religious fanatics want her to be their innocent victim. It seems strange that you would expect her to denounce the countries she's taken refuge in and compare her to a priveleged, white Canadian MP who doesn't require 24/7 bodyguard protection from death threaths.

Ms Hirsi Ali said she will quit after the country's immigration minister said her citizenship might be invalid.

A fierce critic of conservative Islam, Ms Ali rose to prominence in 2004 after a film-maker colleague, Theo van Gogh, was murdered by a Muslim extremist.

Ms Ali has admitted using a false name and date of birth when she arrived in 1992 to stop her family finding her after she fled an arranged marriage with a cousin in Canada.

It has been known for some time that Ms Ali lied about her name and her date of birth on her asylum application; but now it is thought she also lied about the reasons she was seeking asylum.

Ms Ali said she is taking up a job in the United States.

On one level, I'm glad Ms. Ali is out of Dutch politics and, apparently, leaving the Netherlands, since it seems clear that she's done that country far more harm than good.

On another, I can actually understand a person creating a false identity to escape a system under which they faced mortal danger just for the crime of living while female.

Ms. Ali could have been a great force for justice for women in and out of the Muslim world, but she threw in with the forces of reaction and war and ended up calling for an anti-Islamic jihad, a war which would kill far more innocent people(and especially innocent female people)than the system she so passionately denounced.

The fact that she stood for a right-wing party that has taken a hardline position on amnesty seekers, doesn't elicit much sympathy for her position either.

With a fundie, what you see is what you get. But with this poster-girl of the anti-Islam crowd, you see a layer called the "honourable" member of the Dutsch Parilament and another called the dishonest, cheat, scammer Ayaan Hirsi Ali.

[ 17 May 2006: Message edited by: sidra ]

[ 19 May 2006: Message edited by: Ken Burch ]

quote:

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Her well-ordered world came crashing down recently when a TV documentary suggested her entire claim to stardom was a fraud; not only had there been no forced marriage and no family vendetta but that she enjoyed good relations with her family and husband, both before and after settling in Holland.

Professor Jytte Klausen of Brandeis University, author of The Islamic Challenge: Politics and Religion in Western Europe, who knows Hirsi Ali and has followed her case closely, said in a telephone interview Thursday:

"She wasn't forced into a marriage. She had an amicable relationship with her husband, as well as with the rest of her family. It was not true that she had to hide from her family for years."

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