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Subject: "Muslim woman speaks out." This topic is locked.
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ya Setshego
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Mon Nov-11-02 09:05 AM

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"Muslim woman speaks out."


  

          

NY Times
November 9, 2002

Behind the Veil: A Muslim Woman Speaks Out
By MARLISE SIMONS


AMSTERDAM — Ayaan Hirsi Ali had done well in the 10 years since she arrived in
the Netherlands as a young refugee from Somalia and, until a few months ago,
she lived a quiet life in her adopted land. Never did she intend to create a
national commotion.

She studied Dutch, took on cleaning jobs, went to university and worked as a
political scientist. She made a name for herself pressing for the emancipation
of Muslim women and documenting how thousands, living even here, were subjected
to beatings, incest and emotional and sexual abuse.

To the surprise of many, she became a leading voice condemning the government's
support for multiculturalism, programs costing millions of dollars a year that
she considers misplaced because they help keep Muslim women isolated from Dutch
society.

Then Ms. Hirsi Ali, 32, began receiving hate mail, anonymous messages calling
her a traitor to Islam and a slut. On several Web sites, other Muslims said she
deserved to be knifed and shot. Explicit death threats by telephone soon
followed. The police told her to change homes and the mayor of Amsterdam sent
bodyguards. She tried living in hiding. Finally, last month, she became a
refugee again, fleeing the Netherlands.

"I had to speak up," she said, in a telephone interview from her hiding place,
"because most spokesmen for Muslims are men and they deny or belittle the
enormous problems of Muslim women locked up in their Dutch homes."

Her ordeal has caused an outcry in the Netherlands, a country already uneasy
with its recent waves of immigrants and asylum seekers, now representing almost
10 percent of the population. Many Dutch see the threats as an intolerable
assault on the country's democratic principles. The threats have also
intensified a fierce debate — one that can be heard these days across Europe —
about what moral values and rules of behavior immigrants should be expected to
share.

Though absent, Ms. Hirsi Ali seems very present here. Her portrait has appeared
on magazine covers and television and there have been indignant newspaper
editorials and questions in Parliament. Some have called her the Dutch Salman
Rushdie. In paid advertisements, more than 100 Dutch writers have offered her
support.

"I've made people so angry because I'm talking from the inside, from direct
knowledge," she said. "It's seen as treason. I'm considered an apostate and
that's worse than an atheist."

The theme of injustice toward women in Islamic countries has become common in
the West, but it has gained fresh currency through Ms. Hirsi Ali's European
perspective, her study of Dutch immigrants and her own life. Born in Mogadishu,
she grew up a typical Muslim girl in Somalia. When she was 5, she underwent the
"cruel ritual," as she called it, of genital cutting. When her father, a Somali
opposition politician, had to flee the country's political troubles, the family
went to Saudi Arabia, where, she said, she was kept veiled and, much of the
time, indoors.

At 22, her father forced her to marry a distant cousin, a man she had never
seen. But a friend helped her to escape and she finally obtained political
asylum in the Netherlands.

She was shocked when, as a university student, she held a job as an interpreter
for Dutch immigration and social workers and discovered hidden "suffering on a
terrible scale" among Muslim women even in the Netherlands. She entered safe
houses for women and girls, most of them Turkish and Moroccan immigrants, who
had run away from domestic violence or forced marriages. Many had secret
abortions.

"Sexual abuse in the family causes the most pain because the trust is violated
on all levels," she said. "The father or the uncle say nothing, nor do the
mother and the sisters. It happens regularly — the incest, the beatings, the
abortions. Girls commit suicide. But no one says anything. And social workers
are sworn to professional secrecy."

More than 100 women a year have surgery to "restore" their virginity, she
estimates in her published work. While only 10 percent of the population is
non-Dutch, this group accounts for more than 60 percent of abortions, "because
the Muslim girls are kept ignorant," she said. Three out of five Moroccan-Dutch
girls — Moroccans are among the largest immigrant groups — are forced to marry
young men from villages back home, to keep them under control, she said.

A year or so ago, Ms. Hirsi Ali's case might not have attracted so much
attention. But the mood in the Netherlands, as in much of Europe, changed after
Sept. 11, 2001. In the month that followed, there was an unheard of backlash
against the nearly one million Muslims living in the Netherlands, with more
than 70 attacks against mosques. Sept. 11 also gave politicians licence to vent
brewing animosities.

Among them was Pim Fortuyn, a maverick gay politician who was killed in May,
apparently by an animal rights activist. He said out loud what had long been
considered racist and politically incorrect — for example, that conservative
Muslim clerics were undermining certain Dutch values like acceptance of
homosexuality and the equality of men and women.

What Mr. Fortuyn did on the right, Ms. Hirsi Ali has done on the left. Many in
the Labor Party, where she worked on immigration issues, were shocked when she
told reporters that Mr. Fortuyn was right in calling Islam "backward."

"At the very least Islam is facing backward and it has failed to provide a
moral framework for our time," she said in one conversation. "If the West wants
to help modernize Islam, it should invest in women because they educate the
children."

To do this, she argues for drastic changes in Dutch immigration policy. The
government, she says, should impose Dutch law on men who beat their wives and
daughters, even if the Muslim clergy say it is permissible. It should also end
teaching the immigrants in their own language and stop paying for the more than
700 Islamic clubs, most of which, she said, "are run by deeply conservative men
and they perpetuate the segregation of women."

Her views, and the death threats, have divided Muslims, who account for most
immigrants here. Almost 20 Muslim associations have condemned the threats, but
at the same time faulted her for criticizing Islam. Hafid Bouazza, a
Dutch-Moroccan author who in the past has received letters saying he will burn
in hell for his writing, said the threats were shocking. "No criticism of Islam
is accepted from women," he said. "Muslim women are particularly vulnerable."

Others were bitter. Ali Eddaudi, a Moroccan writer and cleric living here,
dismissed "all the fuss" over a Muslim woman who "panders to the Dutch."

Ms. Hirsi Ali agrees that the criticism is so intense in part because she is a
woman. "I am a Muslim woman saying these things, and it has provoked a lot of
hatred," she said.

One thing is certain: the death threats against Ms. Hirsi Ali have given more
prominence to her ideas, which have now become the subject of intense debate
among Dutch policy makers. The Dutch Liberal Party has invited her to become a
candidate in the parliamentary elections next January.

She says she has accepted and hopes to return to the Netherlands, though she
fears for her safety. "Either I stop my work, or I learn to live with the
feeling that I'm not safe," she said. "I'm not stopping."

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/09/international/middleeast/09FPRO.html?ex=1037509200&en=7af510aaffba939a&ei=5040&partner=MOREOVER

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Oooo baby I like it raw. Oooo baby I like it RAAAW!(c)ODB- Shimmy Shimmy Ya

  

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Muslim woman speaks out. [View all] , ya Setshego, Mon Nov-11-02 09:05 AM
 
Subject Author Message Date ID
political opportunist
Nov 11th 2002
1
convient way...
Nov 11th 2002
2
RE: convient way...
Nov 11th 2002
3
pathetic
Nov 11th 2002
4
RE: convient way...
Nov 11th 2002
5
      RE: convient way...
Nov 11th 2002
6
      RE: convient way...
Nov 11th 2002
7
      RE: convient way...
Nov 12th 2002
25
           thanks for proving my point n/m
Nov 12th 2002
26
      RE: convient way...
Nov 12th 2002
33
      Very Beautifully Put!!
Nov 13th 2002
50
      thank u for that
Nov 14th 2002
70
           RE: thank u for that
Nov 14th 2002
78
                point taken.
Nov 15th 2002
97
      a rare moment
Nov 14th 2002
68
           YEAH!
Nov 14th 2002
69
                oh come on
Nov 14th 2002
71
                     the last thing i'll say
Nov 14th 2002
74
      RE: convient way...
Nov 11th 2002
8
      RE: convient way...
Nov 11th 2002
9
           RE: convient way...
Nov 11th 2002
13
      Idiot...
Nov 11th 2002
15
           RE: Idiot...
Nov 11th 2002
18
           fucking CRAZY
Nov 12th 2002
19
                uh-uh
Nov 12th 2002
29
                ..............!
Nov 13th 2002
35
                Alright, calm down
Nov 12th 2002
31
                Pimp-slapping hoes is a horrible act...
Nov 12th 2002
34
so are you
Nov 11th 2002
17
There's a fine line between Islam and culture....
Nov 11th 2002
10
Exactly!
Nov 11th 2002
12
RE: Exactly!
Nov 12th 2002
32
at times, this is how i feel
Nov 14th 2002
72
RE: There's a fine line between Islam and culture....
Nov 11th 2002
14
RE: There's a fine line between Islam and culture....
Nov 11th 2002
16
on one hand
Nov 12th 2002
21
      Sad
Nov 12th 2002
22
           HEY!!
Nov 12th 2002
24
THIS MUSLIM WOMANS GONNA HAVE TO SPEAK UP
Nov 11th 2002
11
RE: THIS MUSLIM WOMANS GONNA HAVE TO SPEAK UP
Nov 12th 2002
28
      how old is this friend of yours
Nov 13th 2002
39
           she's 23
Nov 13th 2002
45
                she to damn old
Nov 13th 2002
47
islam grants secondary status to women
Nov 12th 2002
20
the more you look at it
Nov 12th 2002
23
RE: the more you look at it
Nov 12th 2002
27
how about this sura
Nov 13th 2002
36
      RE: how about this sura
Nov 13th 2002
44
           RE: how about this sura
Nov 13th 2002
46
                RE: how about this sura
Nov 13th 2002
49
                     you mean I only get to...
Nov 14th 2002
53
                          RE: you mean I only get to...
Nov 14th 2002
57
                          RE: you mean I only get to...
Nov 14th 2002
59
                               RE: you mean I only get to...
Nov 14th 2002
63
                                    RE: you mean I only get to...
Nov 14th 2002
66
                          like you have ground to stand on
Nov 14th 2002
73
                               show me scripture
Nov 14th 2002
77
                                    RE: show me scripture
Nov 14th 2002
80
                                    i can admit
Nov 15th 2002
94
                                         RE: i can admit
Nov 15th 2002
103
                                              oh come on now
Nov 16th 2002
109
                                                   RE: oh come on now
Nov 16th 2002
111
Makes you wonder?
Nov 12th 2002
30
      but baptist priest never said this
Nov 13th 2002
37
      Alright, now tell me...
Nov 13th 2002
40
           RE: Alright, now tell me...
Nov 13th 2002
41
                Response
Nov 13th 2002
51
                RE: Response
Nov 14th 2002
54
                     All I have to say is
Nov 14th 2002
67
                          and this is all you should say
Nov 14th 2002
79
                               RE: and this is all you should say
Nov 14th 2002
83
                                    RE: and this is all you should say
Nov 14th 2002
85
                                    RE: and this is all you should say
Nov 15th 2002
86
                                         RE: and this is all you should say
Nov 15th 2002
87
                                              well consider this then
Nov 15th 2002
89
                RE: Alright, now tell me...
Nov 14th 2002
60
                RE: Alright, now tell me...
Nov 14th 2002
65
                     RE: Alright, now tell me...
Nov 14th 2002
76
                          RE: Alright, now tell me...
Nov 14th 2002
81
                               Well let the games begin!!!
Nov 17th 2002
115
                                    how do you want to do it
Nov 17th 2002
117
                                         RE: how do you want to do it
Nov 18th 2002
119
                                              couple more question
Nov 18th 2002
120
                                                   RE: couple more question
Nov 18th 2002
121
                and if u know all that
Nov 14th 2002
75
                     RE: and if u know all that
Nov 14th 2002
82
                          I honestly think your the one that has the problem
Nov 14th 2002
84
                          not really
Nov 15th 2002
88
                          not my point.
Nov 15th 2002
95
                               RE: not my point.
Nov 15th 2002
104
                                    but you ADDED to that verse
Nov 16th 2002
108
                                         RE: but you ADDED to that verse
Nov 16th 2002
112
                                              RE: but you ADDED to that verse
Nov 16th 2002
113
      RE: Makes you wonder?
Nov 13th 2002
38
it's not just a "muslim" issue
Nov 13th 2002
42
ALL YALL TALK TO MUCH!!!
Nov 13th 2002
43
RE: ALL YALL TALK TO MUCH!!!
Nov 13th 2002
48
      You're evil
Nov 14th 2002
52
      ok I'll tone it down.
Nov 14th 2002
55
           RE: A SOMALI WOMEN EH....
Nov 14th 2002
56
                actually I not tryin that hard
Nov 14th 2002
61
                     RE: actually I not tryin that hard
Nov 14th 2002
64
      do i question your understanding
Nov 14th 2002
58
           RE: do i question your understanding
Nov 14th 2002
62
                RE: do i question your understanding
Nov 15th 2002
90
                     RE: dude's like this...
Nov 15th 2002
91
                          it's driven out of insecurity n/m
Nov 15th 2002
92
                          RE: it's driven out of insecurity n/m
Nov 15th 2002
93
                          are ya'll calling me insecure??
Nov 15th 2002
105
                          basically
Nov 15th 2002
96
                          ok rex...i didnt want to do this..
Nov 15th 2002
98
                               but what does the Quran say about
Nov 15th 2002
100
                               why...?
Nov 15th 2002
101
                               continued
Nov 15th 2002
102
                                    ohh eff it u win...
Nov 15th 2002
106
                                    RE: continued
Nov 15th 2002
107
                                         RE: continued
Nov 16th 2002
110
                                              RE: continued
Nov 16th 2002
114
                                                   hand shake
Nov 17th 2002
116
                                                        RE: hand shake
Nov 18th 2002
118
fuck her opponents! respect to a sister of resistance
Nov 15th 2002
99
Good point.
Nov 18th 2002
122

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