Hirsigate: New Statesman veegt vloer aan met AHA

[Dr. Marc-Alexander Fluks]

REPLY TO: D66 at nic.surfnet.nl

Bron:   New Statesman
Datum:  24 juli 2006
Auteur: Fareena Alam
URL:    http://www.newstatesman.com/200607240051
Opm:    In dit stuk een tweede getuige, Jytte Klausen <klausen at brandeis.edu>
        die zegt dat AHA *niet* voor een gedwongen huwelijk vluchtte. Zie:
        http://www.brandeis.edu/facguide/one?unetid=110108109111115116115117
Opm:    In de Sydney Morning Herald van morgen,
        http://www.smh.com.au/news/opinion/a-shameful-silence-on-womens-rights/2006/07/23/1153593209660.html
        staat maar liefst dat... 'Women such as Hirsi Ali, who, before her
        life in Holland became intolerable and she retreated to the United
        States,...'            ^^^^^^^^^^^         ^^^^^^^^^
                                    !!                 !!

Enemy of the faith
------------------

Are Muslim women really caged virgins, victims of an inherently
misogynistic theology? In claiming this, Ayaan Hirsi Ali is guilty of
grossly misrepresenting Islam, writes Fareena Alam.

   Book Reviews
   The Caged Virgin
   Ayaan Hirsi Ali Free Press, 208 pp, 12.99 pounds
   ISBN 0743295013

It's obviously what I've been waiting for all my life: a secular crusader
- armed with Enlightenment philosophy, the stamp of the liberal
establishment and the promise of sexual freedom - swooping into my harem
and liberating me from my "ignorant", "uncritical", "dishonest" and
"oppressed" Muslim existence. At least that is what Ayaan Hirsi Ali thinks
I've been waiting for. Her latest book, The Caged Virgin, is a collection
of essays intended to unveil the sexual terrorism she says is inherent in
Islam. In reality, it is a smash-and-grab aggregation of inconsistencies,
platitudes and poor scholarship.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali was born Ayaan Hirsi Magan in Somalia in 1969, but grew up
in Kenya. As a young adult she moved to Germany, and later to the
Netherlands, allegedly to escape a forced marriage. She learned Dutch and
gained a university degree in political science. She soon became a
prominent and controversial politician, a brown face made welcome by her
shrill denunciations of Islam, the Prophet Muhammad and Europe's "backward
Muslims". Last year, Time magazine hailed her as one of the world's "100
most influential people". The Economist described her as a "cultural
ideologue of the new right".

However, the publication of The Caged Virgin couldn't have come at a worse
time for Hirsi Ali, a woman who has built her career on portraying herself
as a victim. In May, a Dutch television documentary alleged that her story
didn't add up. The programme's makers (who travelled to Kenya to speak to
her family and those who knew her as a child) claimed that Hirsi Ali had
lied to enter the Netherlands and had fabricated her traumatic past. The
political friends who had made her the darling of the Dutch right speedily
retreated from her side. As the author and academic Jytte Klausen, who
knows Hirsi Ali, recently claimed: "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."

Now that doubt has been cast on the personal history Hirsi Ali relies on
to give her arguments authority, her new book reads more like a whimper
than a bang. Practically all of her conclusions are based on her own
"tortured" experiences and observations of Islam. Besides the superficial
references to Koranic verses and the occasional Prophetic saying, she
provides little evidence to back up her claims that the Muslim woman is a
caged virgin - sexualised, segregated, denied human rights - and that
Islamic theology is responsible for this. Hirsi Ali is not breaking new
ground. Others, such as the controversial Fatima Mernissi and Leila Ahmed,
have been here before, except their work is meatier, mak-ing reference to
classical texts and engaging in important historical debates. The Caged
Virgin is the cheap tabloid version: accessible, flimsy and forgettable.

The sad thing is that many of the concerns that Hirsi Ali raises - forced
marriage, genital muti lation, sexual violence, lack of education,
economic underachievement and the obsession with static gender roles - are
genuine challenges facing Muslim (and many other) women. She makes some
thoughtful points, yet they are lost among the inaccuracies, exaggerations
and omissions. To demonstrate Islam's obsession with female sexuality, for
example, she quotes the Koranic verse calling on women to behave modestly,
but conveniently omits the first part, which demands the same of men.

The picture Hirsi Ali paints of Gestapo-like Muslim homes is laughable.
She writes that "lies are constantly being told about the most intimate
matters... Children learn from their mothers that it pays to lie.
Mistrust is everywhere and lies rule." Perhaps she wrote this so that she
would have a defence when the facts about her own life were questioned.

Reading Hirsi Ali, you would think that she and a handful of other
enlightened women, such as her good friend Irshad Manji, are the only ones
who have figured all this out. Apparently, most Muslim women are condition
from birth not to think. This misrepresentation does a tragic disservice
to the women Hirsi Ali seeks to liberate. It is strange how many times she
writes "we Muslims" in her book. From someone who claims not to be a
"Muslim", such appeals to sisterly solidarity are disingenuous. It is a
not-so-clever attempt to lend authenticity to her argument: clearly, if a
Muslim criticises her own religion, then that religion must be bad. But
Muslims are not homogeneous - they do not all think, act and believe in
the same way. Islam manifests itself through a vast array of experiences.
As a British Muslim, for instance, I am as western as I am anything else.

Hirsi Ali has fallen into the trap of identity politics. Being a Muslim is
a religious moniker; Muslims are not a tribe or a race. You don't have to
be Muslim to criticise Islam or its followers, but at least be honest
about it.

Long before Hirsi Ali arrived in Europe, Muslim women were fighting
against ignorance, religious prejudice and cultural misunderstanding. They
are still pushing the boundaries, playing an increasingly important public
role and advocating real long-term change - slowly but surely. For groups
such as London's An-Nisa Society, which pioneered programmes in sexual
health, domestic violence and mental health two decades ago, Islam is a
potent and powerful ally. Many Muslim women want to maintain a strong,
spiritual connection with their faith, a choice Hirsi Ali seeks to deny
them. These brave women sadly do not have the luxuries of monetary
resources, bodyguards, spin-doctors and PR agencies that she takes for
granted.

Hirsi Ali recently said that her audience consists mainly of Muslims.
Nonsense. Her hatred of Islam and her patronising attitude towards Muslim
women who disagree with her make her ideas palatable only to the "white
liberals" whose prejudices she reinforces. In fact, anyone who works with
Muslim communities, respecting their faith but seeking positive change, is
accused of forging a "satanic pact... [making] their living by representing
Muslim interests, extending aid to them, and co-operating with them in
their development".

For Hirsi Ali, the answer is clear: Islam is at fault and needs to be
discarded. But her experiences are not mine, nor those of the many Muslim
women I work with every day. We are to believe, it seems, that the
obsession with female virginity is at the heart of every Muslim malaise.
Such pseudo-sociological nonsense wouldn't pass muster in an A-level exam.

Hirsi Ali also suffers from historical amnesia. She is so caught up in her
undergraduate political science training that she can't see beyond Kant,
Spinoza and Voltaire. "Reading works by western thinkers," she says, "is
regarded as dis respectful to the Prophet and Allah's message." Who says
this? Nor does she add that the catalyst for the Enlightenment lay in the
knowledge-transfer from Muslim civilisation to Europe through Andalusia.
The notions of female personhood, independence of wealth and right to
education are as old as Islam itself. The biographies of scholars and
saints during the classical age include thousands of female ulema
(religious scholars), with many leading universities being established by
wealthy women of means.

The Prophet Muhammad's first love was a woman 15 years older than himself.
Khadija was not only a widow (a non-virgin, I'll have you know), she was
an honest and trusted businesswoman who proposed marriage to the young Muh
ammad. They lived together for 27 years, until she died.

Fast-forward to today, where I am surrounded by loving Muslim families
that defy Hirsi Ali's statements. Even Yusuf al-Qaradawi, the Qatar-based
cleric whom she condemns, is married to a sprightly senior al-Jazeera
journalist. I recently met her at a conference in Istanbul. She defied
every stereotype, sitting at the head table with her husband and other
leading scholars.

Muslims, frankly, pay too much attention to Hirsi Ali. She isn't
interested in a genuine engagement with Muslim women. She is content to be
an outsider posing as a co-religionist. This may win her favour elsewhere,
but not in the communities she seeks to reform.

Incidentally, she has just had her Gloria Gay nor moment. The Dutch
political establishment now wants her forgiveness and has put pressure on
the immigration minister to reverse her decision to take away Hirsi Ali's
citizenship. But Hirsi Ali has found new chums at the American Enterprise
Institute, the neo-con high temple in Washington, DC. The trouble is that
it is Hirsi Ali herself who is caged - by her lack of scholarship and her
myopic sense of identity and history. These credentials may carry weight
with the neo-cons she will now advise. They ought not to with the rest of
us.

--------
(c) 2006 New Statesman

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