Working as a translator for Somali immigrants, she saw first hand the inconsistencies between liberal, Western society and tribal, Muslim cultures. From to , Ayaan served as an elected member of the Dutch parliament.
While in parliament, she focused on furthering the integration of non-Western immigrants into Dutch society, and on defending the rights of Muslim women. In Ayaan gained international attention following the murder of Theo van Gogh. Van Gogh had directed her short film Submission , a film about the oppression of women under Islam.
The assassin, a radical Muslim, left a death threat for her pinned to Van Gogh's chest. In , Ayaan had to resign from parliament when the then Dutch Minister for Immigration decided to revoke her citizenship, arguing that Ayaan had mislead the authorities at the time of her asylum application. However, the Dutch courts confirmed that Ayaan was indeed a legitimate Dutch citizen, leading to the fall of the government.
Disillusioned with the Netherlands, she subsequently moved to the United States. Today, the Foundation is the leading organization working to end honor violence that shames, hurts, or kills thousands of women and girls in the U.
Kennedy Street, Cambridge, MA Quarterly Journal: International Security. Rav: As a student of psychology and criminology—as well as someone who has experienced racism—I think it is true that talking about the disproportionate crime rates among migrant men can reinforce stereotypes about Muslim refugees and immigrants more broadly.
Yet in the book you argue that avoiding this discussion will have the side-effect of fueling far-right propaganda. How do you balance these concerns? Ayaan: Without looking problems straight in the eye, I do not believe you can find effective public policy solutions.
At first, I was told that this type of crime was not prevalent in the Netherlands. But how, I asked, could people be so certain of this without investigating it first?
Ultimately, a regional pilot study was set up that found that honor violence was in fact far more widespread than had previously been assumed. Afterward, Dutch officials became aware of what honor violence entails, and now there are more resources to help potential victims before serious violence occurs.
Indeed, several politicians and senior civil servants insisted that talking about such cultural issues as honor violence would stigmatize all Muslim men. Who would have been the victims of this inaction?
It took not only advocacy but the gruesome deaths of several women before a majority of MPs decided to act. When it comes to sexual violence in the context of the migrant crisis, the same is true. It will do no good to look away and pretend that this is not an issue.
My book aims to shine a light on the rise of sexual violence against women, a rise driven by immigrant men from Muslim-majority countries. My goal is not to cause offense but to implement public-policy measures allowing women to remain in the public square as full persons.
What kind of cultural self-siloing is occurring in these areas and what are the causes? Ayaan: When it comes to parallel societies, there are several interacting factors at work. Now add a type of multiculturalism that was, in many European countries, deeply reluctant to impose liberal values on communities.
Here you have to think of serious human rights violations such as female genital mutilation FGM , forced marriages, honor violence, and the perpetuation of religious fundamentalism, to name but a few. All of these factors interact with one another. Rav: One of many culturally taboo problems you explore in the book is the rise of grooming gangs in the United Kingdom and elsewhere. How has political correctness prevented an honest discussion of this problem?
Ayaan: This was a tragedy where early, responsive action by authorities could have prevented additional victims. One investigative report found that officials who were involved in preventing and investigating child sexual exploitation were deeply concerned about being condemned as racists for pursuing these reports and cases. As of , the scandal has affected numerous towns and regions within the U. There were some, including on the British political Left, who did take this scandal seriously and, to their great credit, said so publicly, but they faced serious condemnation for doing so, at least until the full scale of the problem became apparent.
The fear of racism must not prevent us from candidly discussing sensitive issues such as FGM, forced marriages, honor violence, or grooming gangs. I sometimes ask myself whether people truly believe there will be less racism rather than more if these sensitive issues are swept under the rug. It is wrong to hold people from a non-Western background to lower standards. The problems we face are not about race, but about depending on the context tribal, religious, and cultural practices, beliefs, and attitudes that are frequently deeply ingrained.
Have racial issues in our identity-driven discourse taken precedence over gender-related problems? Ayaan: You touch on a long-standing problem, which is the tension between multiculturalism and liberalism. The book also contains responses from those who disagree with her. The late Brian Barry also wrote a good book about this tension, titled Culture and Equality. In the context of mass migration, this issue has become more and more important.
What is your approach to little girls who face FGM within a minority community? What is your policy approach to young women who are taken overseas for a forced marriage, if the parents within the community demand this? These questions frequently put relativists in a difficult position, and they prefer to duck them. Some gay couples in Belgium say walking hand in hand is a safety risk due to harassment by young immigrants.
According to one survey you cite in the book, over half of British Muslims believe gay sex should be illegal. Is there a real problem here from immigrants who adhere to traditionalist Islamic values, or is this a minor issue? Ayaan: The Berlin-based sociologist Ruud Koopmans has done research showing empirically that what you describe is indeed a valid concern. Are people, in the main, well-disposed toward pluralism, or do they seek to control others? The attacks on gays in European cities, like the attacks on Jews, reflect a society that is becoming more closed, not more open.
In general, Islamists are not well-disposed toward the open society and will lash out against it in various ways. Gays within migrant communities face terrible pressures as well. This goes back to the parallel societies challenge discussed above.
Rav: You propose a few policy solutions to aid the cultural assimilation of Muslim migrants, such as repealing the current asylum system, providing sex education to all children, and improving criminal-justice institutions to crack down on sexual violence.
Which of these do you think has the most potential for improving cultural harmony in Europe? Ayaan: First, so-called parallel societies should be countered in every way possible.
As a matter of public policy, elected officials must ensure that human rights usually enshrined in national constitutions in liberal democracies are extended to all, including vulnerable members of minority communities, with regard to practices such as FGM, forced marriages, and honor violence. This commitment has to come from the top, but it also has to be implemented on the ground: in many countries, there is a disconnect here.
My foundation, the AHA Foundation, has worked to implement best practices on these issues. Certain practices, whether they are based on religion or tribal cultural values, are not compatible with universal human rights.
To the extent these practices exist, they should not be swept under the rug. This alone would do a lot of good. We have had much awareness that these problems exist, but much less willingness to actively counter them.
Second, the asylum system such as it exists in Europe today is, in my view, fundamentally unworkable in the modern era. In terms of crafting a deliberate immigration policy, rather than a legalistic one, Europe has not made much of an effort to make the admission of a possible immigrant conditional on how likely an immigrant is likely to assimilate in society.
Instead, I am thinking about cultural and social integration: will a potential migrant, refugee or asylum seeker be able to become a part of European society, and embrace norms of the open society, equality between men and women, religious freedom, and a commitment to pluralism?
We have to think about these questions in earnest. Rav: To close, I want to ask you a more personal question about your depth of experience in engaging in debates surrounding Islam and cultural division.
Given the predominance of identity politics in our public discourse, has your image as a nonwhite, former Muslim refugee from Somalia aided you in evading accusations of Islamophobia, xenophobia, and racism? Ayaan: If anything, I think my identity makes some people more angry rather than less.
There are many others. These terms—Islamophobia, xenophobia, racism—are used as weapons of character assassination to make a public discussion on certain subjects impossible. Ayaan: We now have three groups of feminists in the West. Published: 2 Apr Published: 30 May Published: 16 May Published: 27 Apr The 'culture of shut up' is sometimes just rude people who disagree.
It's easy to champion free speech when you're the one speaking, but the Mozilla and Brandeis controversies show how tricky it can get. Published: 14 Apr Richard Dawkins: 'I don't think I am strident or aggressive'. Published: 15 Sep Ayaan Hirsi Ali: 'Indirectly, I was being set up for murder'. Published: 10 Apr Published: 13 Mar I am not against Islam, but Islamic extremism. Letters: What Islam most needs to do is to find ways for its vast majority — more than a billion people all over the world — to express their condemnation of a murderous minority.
Published: 3 Sep Ayaan Hirsi Ali: 'Why are Muslims so hypersensitive? Published: AM.
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