Last Tuesday at nightfall, as the servants of
democracy fled SW1, a young Somali woman stood spotlit on a stage in
Westminster. Behind her was the illuminated logo for the Centre for
Social Cohesion: a white hand reaching down across England to help a
brown one up; in front, an audience of some of Britain’s biggest brains
— politicians, editors, academics. She drew her shawl a little closer
round her shoulders, looked up and said: ‘We are not at war with
“terror”, that would make no sense.’
‘Hear, hear,’ said a voice at the back. ‘Terror is just a tactic used
by Islam,’ she continued. ‘We are actually at war, not just with
Islamism, but with Islam itself.’
Out in the dark began a great wobbling of heads. Neocons nodded,
Muslims shook their heads; others, uncertain, waggled theirs anxiously
from side to side: at war with all Islam, even here in the UK? What
does that mean?
It would be easier in some ways to ignore Ayaan Hirsi Ali, to label her
as bonkers — but it would also be irresponsible. She’s not just another
hawkish hack, anxious to occupy the top tough-guy media slot — she has
the authority of experience, the authenticity of suffering. In the
spring of 2004 she wrote a film called Submission (an artsy 11-minute
protest against Islamic cruelty to women) which was shown on Dutch TV.
In November 2004 the film’s director, Theo van Gogh, was assassinated
and the killer left a long letter to Hirsi Ali knifed into his corpse
which said, in short: you’re next. But Hirsi Ali couldn’t be silenced.
She has since written an autobiography (Infidel) about growing up a
Muslim (in Somalia, then Saudi Arabia and Ethiopia), describing her
circumcision, the beatings she received, her arranged marriage, her
flight to Holland. She risks her life daily, speaking out against what
she calls the ‘fairytale’ that Islam is in essence a religion of peace.
The other reason to take her seriously is that Hirsi Ali’s ideas about
Islam (that it is unamenable to reform, and intrinsically opposed to
Western values) are attracting attention worldwide. In Holland where,
until 2006, she was an MP for the People’s Party for Freedom and
Independence (VVD), the famous ‘pillarisation’ approach to immigration
— where each new culture becomes a pillar upon which the state rests —
has given way to a ‘new realism’, much more in tune with Hirsi Ali’s
way of thinking, and in part because of her. In Britain and in America,
Ayaan Hirsi Ali has become a sort of popstar for neocons, and she now
lives in Washington, and works as a fellow of the American Enterprise
Institute.
But is she right? And what does ‘war with Islam’ mean? I went to find
out; to meet Ayaan Hirsi Ali in the House of Lords on a bitter and
blustery afternoon last week, bustling past the police, down the
corridors of partial power, to the visitors’ room where she was
waiting. We haven’t got much time, so can we dive straight into Islam?
I ask. ‘Yes, absolutely, go ahead,’ she smiles. Up close she is
disconcertingly beautiful, and fragile-looking. OK then, right. Well,
you say that Islam is a violent religion, because the Prophet advocated
violence. But isn’t that open to interpretation? I ask. Karen
Armstrong, (a non-Muslim biographer of Mohammed) has said the Prophet
was a loving man who’d have been horrified at 9/11.
‘Karen Armstrong is ridiculous,’ says Hirsi Ali in her quick, light
voice — Africa still audible in the clipped consonants. ‘The Prophet
would have not have disapproved of 9/11, because it was carried out in
his example. When he came to Medina, the Prophet had a revelation, of
jihad. After that, it became an obligation for Muslims to convert
others, and to establish an Islamic state, by the sword if necessary.’
But there is such a thing as moderate Islam, I say. Muslims aren’t all
terrorists. There are some like Ed Husain (author of The Islamist) who
argue that there are many peaceful traditions of Koranic scholarship to
choose from. Isn’t it a mistake to dismiss this gentler, acceptable
branch of Islam?
‘I find the word “moderate” very misleading.’ There’s a touch of steel
in Hirsi Ali’s voice. ‘I don’t believe there is such a thing as
“moderate Islam”. I think it’s better to talk about degrees of belief
and degrees of practice. The Koran is quite clear that it should
control every area of life. If a Muslim chooses to obey only some of
the Prophet’s commandments, he is only a partial Muslim. If he is a
good Muslim, he will wish to establish Sharia law.’
But I don’t call myself a ‘partial Christian’ just because I don’t take
the whole Bible literally, I say. Why can’t a Muslim pick and choose
his scriptures too? Before Hirsi Ali can answer, the door to the
waiting room flies open and a House of Lords doorman stands
theatrically on the threshold. ‘You must stop this interview
immediately!’ he says. Why? Is there a breach of security? A terrorist
threat? ‘I have not received authorisation for it,’ he says. But we’re
here with a peer, I say. I’m sure he has cleared it. ‘Please proceed to
the waiting area in silence.’ So off we trudge to the foyer to sit by a
fake fire — ‘it’s much nicer here, anyway,’ says Hirsi Ali kindly — and
to continue our discussion about the superiority of the free,
enlightened West in urgent whispers behind my rucksack.
‘Christianity is different from Islam,’ says Hirsi Ali, ‘because it
allows you to question it. It probably wasn’t different in the past,
but it is now. Christians — at least Christians in a liberal democracy
— have accepted, after Thomas Hobbes, that they must obey the secular
rule of law; that there must be a separation of church and state. In
Islamic doctrine such a separation has not occurred yet. This is what
makes it dangerous! Islam — all Islam, not just Islamism — has not
acknowledged that it must obey secular law. Islam is hostile to
reason.’
Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s eyes are now aglow. She is a terrific believer in
reason. For her, Western civilisation is built on the bedrock not of
Judaeo-Christian values, but of logic. After seeking asylum in Holland,
she spent five years at Leiden university studying political science,
absorbing the Enlightenment philosophers — Spinoza, Hobbes, Voltaire —
and she mentions them fondly, as if they’re family. But there’s a
steely side to her atheism, which says with Voltaire: Ecraser l’infâme!
During a recent debate with Ed Husain, as Husain was explaining his
moderate Islam, she began to laugh at him, saying: ‘When you die you
rot, Ed! There is no afterlife, Ed!’ And it makes me wonder whether,
for Hirsi Ali, Islam’s crime is as much against reason as humanity;
whether she sees the point of spirituality at all.
Are you so sure you understand what is at the heart of Islam? I ask
her. Isn’t there a peaceful prayerfulness — apart from the politics —
that an atheist might not understand? ‘I was a Muslim once, remember,
and it was when I was most devout that I was most full of hate,’ she
says.
OK then, you talk about your conscience, and how your conscience was
pricked by 9/11. But if there’s no God, what do you mean by a
conscience? And why should we obey it?
‘My conscience is informed by reason,’ says Hirsi Ali, surprised I
should ask. ‘It’s like Kant’s categorical imperative: behave to others
as you would wish they behaved to you.’
I say, so let’s assume Islam is hostile and not open to reason, that it
needs to be wiped out. The next question then is how? We can’t just ban
it. Isn’t it destructive to curtail freedom so much in the interests of
protecting it? Don’t you risk loving freedom to death?
Hirsi Ali looks at me with pity. ‘You, here in the UK, are in danger.
Of course you can’t ban Islam outright, but you need to stop the spread
of ideology, stop native Westerners converting to Islam. You definitely
need to ban the veil in schools, and to close down Muslim schools
because that’s where kids are indoctrinated.’
But, what about freedom of belief and free speech? I ask (with a
nervous look at the doorman). And if you close down Muslim schools,
don’t you, by the same logic, have to close all faith schools?
‘Islam is different from other faiths because it is not just a faith,
it is a political ideology. Children learn that Allah is the lawgiver,
and that is a political statement. You wouldn’t allow the BNP to run a
school, would you?’
But if we crack down like this, won’t it make Muslims angry? I say,
thinking about terrorists and my safety. ‘Well perhaps anger is no bad
thing,’ says Hirsi Ali, thinking about ordinary Muslims, and their
enlightenment. ‘Perhaps it’ll make Muslims more aware, help them
question their beliefs. If we keep on asking questions, maybe Muslim
women will realise, as I did, that they don’t have to be second-class
citizens.’
Ayaan Hirsi Ali is on her favourite topic now (the subjection of
women), leaning forward, gesticulating. And as she talks I realise
(belatedly) what makes her different from her neocon pals. Whereas they
seem motivated by fear of Muslims, she is out to protect Muslims from
submission to unreason. When she speaks of a ‘war against Islam’, she’s
thinking not of armies of insurgents, but of an ideological virus, in
the same way a doctor might talk of the battle against typhoid. ‘Yes, I
am at war with Islam,’ she says, as she gets up to leave, ‘but I am not
at war with Muslims.’ It’s a crucial difference.
It’s teatime now and the House of Lords hallway is suddenly full of
peers’ wives chattering, shaking their brollies. Sorry about all these
women in headscarves, I say unnecessarily, as I shake her hand goodbye.
‘Don’t worry,’ says Ayaan Hirsi Ali, ‘It’s not the hijab, the
headscarves are just to protect them against the rain!’ And she walks
off, laughing.
Leeland Eisenberg, of Somersworth, N.H., was immediately arrested after exiting the office and told to kneel and then lie on the ground before police placed handcuffs on him. Moments earlier, a young man believed to be the third and final hostage was released.Police said Eisenberg took hostages at the office on 28 North Main St. Friday afternoon.
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