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Subject: 	[Marxism] A relationship made in hell
Date: 	Mon, 08 Feb 2010 07:45:07 -0500
From: 	Louis Proyect <lnp3 at panix.com>
Reply-To: 	Activists and scholars in Marxist tradition
<marxism at lists.econ.utah.edu>
To: 	aorta <aorta at home.nl>


http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/news/its-tricky--to-find-men-when-youre-living-under-a-fatwa-1892263.html
February 8, 2010
'It's tricky to find men when you're living under a fatwa'
By Cahal Milmo and Luke Blackall

Right-wing circles are transfixed by the relationship between Ayaan
Hirsi Ali and the neoconservative historian Niall Ferguson

The Time Magazine gala held in New York's Lincoln Centre last May was
always going to be a high-octane affair. Billed as a celebration of The
100 Most Influential People in the World, it was a chance for the
globe's intellectual and political glitterati to rub shoulders while
making small talk about geo-politics and contemporary literature.

But amid the mingling of eminent grey matter - guests included Barack
Obama's speechwriter and Oprah Winfrey - there was also a crackling of
mutual physical attraction between two glamorous invitees with a shared
taste for conservative politics and speaking their minds.

Yesterday, the affair sparked that night between the British historian
and television presenter Niall Ferguson and Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the
Somali-born feminist whose criticism of Islam provoked a fatwa which has
left her living under police protection since 2004, was revealed - along
with the news that the millionaire academic is to divorce his wife of 16
years.

Friends of the 45-year-old Harvard professor, whose books, media
activities and work in high finance have made him one of the world's
most bankable intellectuals with an estimated income of £5m a year,
confirmed that he has left the former Fleet Street editor Susan Douglas
and their three children for Ms Hirsi Ali.

A close friend of the former editor of the Sunday Express said that the
split was due to Professor Ferguson "conducting a private life in a
manner more akin to that of a Premiership footballer than a professor".

The transatlantic split will have ramifications in Britain, where
together the celebrity academic and Ms Douglas, who is seven years older
than her husband, had formed one of the power couples in London's
rejuvenated right-wing salons.

Ms Douglas is a close friend of David Cameron and a prominent name on
the Conservatives' "A-list" of aspiring parliamentary candidates.
Professor Ferguson, who flirted extensively with America's neocons
before recently describing himself as a "liberal fundamentalist", is an
unofficial adviser to Mr Cameron and has a seat on the board of the
Thatcherite Centre for Policy Studies, one of the Tories' think-tanks of
choice.

The relationship between the academic and Ms Hirsi Ali, 40, a lawyer and
a Dutch MP until she resigned over allegations that she had lied to
obtain citizenship in the Netherlands, had been an open secret in the
couple's high-powered social circuit in America. They were seen kissing
last month at a literary festival in India.

The result is one of the more intriguing pairings in right-wing politics
on either side of the Atlantic. Ms Hirsi Ali, who works as a fellow of
the conservative American Enterprise Institute in Washington,
established herself as a convinced and strident critic of Islam in the
wake of 9/11 attacks and has compared the religion to Nazism for its
attitude towards women. She has regularly accused the West of appeasing
radical Muslims. Her opposition was undimmed by the aftermath of her
decision to write the script for Submission, a controversial film that
criticised Islam made by the Dutch director Theo van Gogh, who was shot
dead in an Amsterdam street in 2004 before having his throat slit. His
murderer left a death threat against Ms Hirsi Ali pinned to his chest.

The lawyer, who suffered female circumcision as a child and campaigns
vigorously against the continuing practice, has lived under police
protection ever since, first in the Netherlands and now in America,
where she lives on the east coast under constant armed guard.

The mutual friend who introduced the couple at the Time magazine party,
where Professor Ferguson was photographed with his arm around Ms Hirsi
Ali, who was dressed in a striking cocktail dress, confirmed that the
threat from extremists cast a shadow over the outspoken feminist's life.
Belinda Luscombe, art editor of Time, told The Mail on Sunday: "In all
the years I have known Ayaan, she's never had a boyfriend. She's
gorgeous, but with a fatwa, it's tricky to find guys."

The split between Professor Ferguson, who is the biographer of Henry
Kissinger, and Ms Douglas, who supported her husband with her
high-flying media career while he was establishing his academic
reputation, is likely to produce one of the more spectacular divorce
proceedings of the year. The couple, who have two teenage sons and a
daughter, own three homes in Britain and America and are understood to
be consulting lawyers.

Professor Ferguson, who received a £500,000 advance for his latest book,
Empire and Colossus, is an authority on economic and financial history,
and has delivered talks to hedge funds for $100,000 (£63,000) an hour.
Ms Douglas, who is thought to be a strong contender for the safe Tory
seat of Stratford-upon-Avon at the general election, could claim she is
entitled to half of her husband's fortune.

A confidante of Ms Douglas said: "It just seems sad that despite all the
lessons of history, Niall has set himself off in pursuit of some liberal
idea of individual freedom and appears hellbent on breaking up his
family. God knows how Ayaan thinks her feminist views square with her
current conduct with Niall."

The 13-year marriage had survived previous traumas, including a riding
accident in 2006 which left Ms Douglas with life-threatening injuries.
Professor Ferguson returned to their Oxfordshire home from a book tour
to help look after his wife, to whom he dedicated his book Ascent of
Money, with the words: "In the time that this book was written, my wife
Susan fought her way back from a severe accident and other reverses. To
her and to our children, I owe the biggest debt."

Ayaan Hirsi Ali: Life under a fatwa

*Already an outspoken critic of Islam and on the run from her family
(who wanted an arranged marriage for her), Ayaan Hirsi Ali was no
stranger to threats to her safety in 2004. But it was the murder that
year of the Dutch film-maker Theo van Gogh which highlighted how the
Somali-born Dutch MP was under a fatwa.

Van Gogh, 47, had turned Hirsi Ali's ideas into the short film
Submission about the mistreatment of women in Islam. He was shot in the
street and a death threat to Hirsi Ali was stuck in his body with a knife.

She immediately went into hiding, with the Dutch government moving her
between different safe houses before taking her to America. She returned
to the Netherlands and to her parliamentary work in 2005, and was given
a secure house. But her neighbours complained that her presence was a
security threat to them, and in 2006 she resigned and moved back to the
US. The Dutch government said that it would no longer pay the £2.5m a
year cost of her round-the-clock security if she stayed abroad.

With her safety in the US in doubt, a group of friends and sympathisers
set up the Ayaan Hirsi Ali Security Trust to raise money to pay for her
protection, which is thought to include an armoured car and two bodyguards.

Hirsi Ali, who now works for the right-wing think-tank the American
Enterprise Unit, then helped to set up the Foundation for Freedom of
Expression, a charitable trust, which raises funds to pay for security
for her and other Islamic dissidents.

Luke Blackall

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