Dutch Liberals to rein in "anti-Islamic" MP

Ayaan Hirsi Ali (Trouw)

Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the courageous ex-Muslim Dutch MP whom I profile in Onward Muslim Soldiers, has run afoul of the dhimmis in her own party. "The Dutch Liberal VVD party has moved to stop its outspoken MP Ayaan Hirsi Ali from waging a solo campaign against Islamic schools in the Netherlands. The Somali-born politician had to hide out in the US temporarily in 2002 when her life was threatened due to her criticisms of Islam." This is from Expatica, with thanks to nicolei.

"VVD leader and Finance Minister Gerrit Zalm has indicated that he wants to see a halt to the creation of additional Islamic schools in the Netherlands, but Hirsi Ali has been accused of pushing the issue publicly without clearance from the party.

"Hirsi Ali was brought up as a Muslim in Somalia, but has attacked Islam for repressing women. In an interview with Trouw in January this year, Hirsi Ali described Islam as 'backward' and the Prophet Mohammed as a 'perverse tyrant'.

"'Mohammed is, judged by Western standards, a perverse man. A tyrant. If you don't do what he says, things won't go well for you. That makes me think of megalomaniac dictators in the Middle East, Osama Bin Laden, Ayatollah Khomeini and [former Iraqi dictator] Saddam Hussein.' She also said by modern standards the Prophet Mohammed had been perverse to marry a 12-year-old girl.

"More recently, Hirsi Ali has added her voice to growing criticism of Islamic schools in the Netherlands. The schools have been accused of fostering intolerance and preaching anti-Western doctrines.

"But a report by the government's schools inspectorate found, in contrast, that Islamic schools often contribute to integration into Dutch society. . . . Banning Islamic schools is a particularly thorny in a country where the freedom of religion is enshrined in the constitution. The VVD's main partner in the centre-right government coalition is the Christian Democrat CDA party.

"The CDA is worried trying to block Islamic schools could lead to a restriction on all religious education, including Christian schools.

"In 2002, populist politician Pim Fortuyn made it politically acceptable to question the country's multicultural policies and he was the first to say publicly that Islam was backward."

I don't approve of calling Islam "backward" myself. That implies a progressivist view of human development that I don't buy. The problem with Islam, as Fortuyn knew and Hirsi Ali knows, is not that it is backward or forward or sideways. It is that it contains elements that are exploited by radicals to wage war against secular societies, commit violence against innocents, and systematically mistreat non-Muslims and others. This is why Hirsi Ali is struggling against these schools. This is what moderate Muslims must decisively repudiate. (Thanks to nicolei.)

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2 Comments

allan | December 15, 2003 7:38 AM

How can you not buy a progressivist view of human development? Not that many years ago, it was perfectly acceptable to go to war for rape and plunder. Slavery was almost universal. In the few hundred years of our own (American) history, we have come pretty close to achieving equality between the races and between men and women.

I've considered Naziism to be a retrograde step toward a pagan past, that was fortunately rejected. "Islamism" (the full fledged kind, with imposition of Sharia) is another retrograde concept that will ultimately be rejected as humankind continues on its slow, halting progress toward godliness.

hisham | February 2, 2004 7:51 PM

You know the funny thing is that most, in fact the majority of secularists muslim and non-muslim attack Islam without any prior knowledge or fundamental conceptual research into specific tenets of Islam.

If Communism was such a threat to Western ideals/way of life how and why did it become a minor idea as opposed to the major one it was.

It is this concept of freeeedom which stems from Capitalism, if Capitalism as an ideology was so successful in projecting images of McDonald's and Mickey Mouse to sufferers of Soviet Gulags how come 34 MILLION people in the US are living on the poverty line or 11,435 pensioners in France can die in from over exposure to the heatwave that hit france last year; because the system in france was and is inept at taking care of the vunerable in society; So much for JJ Rousseau's legacy of equality, liberty and fraternity which obviously manifests on an individual level for individuals with capital.

So for anyone to attck Islam would be conceived as de riguer by everybody else intellectual or not intellectual, so called muslims on the hand need to read and understand more. Getting preconceived notions of what YOU think Islam is based on films such as 'Lawrence of Arabia' or 'True Lies' or conclusions based on emotions just plain blind following after watching fox news is erroneous to the point of laughable.

But then again what is laughable about the countless numbers of muslim women who get raped, or muslim men who get tortured or muslim children who get 'accidently' shot or blown up in the name of freedom and liberty who just want to do what God has told them to do because lets face it we as mankind, life and the universe are limited that is why we need God to tell us what to do because he knows us better than we know ourselves.

Think about it why was Mohammed (pbuh) a prophet/messenger of god, the systems, concepts
and doctrine, ie the ideology that is Islam was passed unto him so that said ideaology could be spread. Example - A noted British author has observed: "No great religious leader has been so maligned as Prophet Mohammed. Attacked in the past as a heretic, an impostor, or a sensualist, it is still possible to find him referred to as "the false prophet." A modern German writer accuses Prophet Mohammed of sensuality, surrounding himself with young women. This man was not married until he was twenty-five years of age, then he and his wife lived in happiness and fidelity for twenty-four years, until her death when he was fourty-nine. Only between the age of fifty and his death at sixty-two did Prophet Mohammed take other wives, only one of whom was a virgin, and most of them were taken for dynastic and political reasons. Certainly the Prophet's record was better than the head of the Church of England, Henry VIII." Geoffrey Parrinder, Mysticism in the World's Religions (New York: Oxford University Press, 1976, pg. 121) What does Hirsi Ali actually think of Aishah(ra) herself if Aishah(ra) is the mother of all the believers why was she accorded such respect, she was already engaged to another man before she was engaged to the prophet(pbuh) for two years before marriage, but I dont see/hear anyone attcking Jober Ibn Al-Moteam Ibn Oday because he was engaged to her!

As for Hirsi Ali calling the prophet(saw) a tyrant ruler, who ruled according to the systems spiritual and political of Islam, he ruled by such systems because they were perfect. It is man muslim/nonmuslim on the other hand through incorrect interpretation of the texts (Qu'ran) and the physical actions and words of the prophet(saw) that are not only wrong but they provide Islam with the unwanted tag of being erroneously accorded of being a religion of suppression etc.

But, it is still the fastest growing religion n the world today while the masses are fast becomiing disillsioned with christianity and judaism.

In conclusion if man is not eternal and is open to make mistakes and errors then ergo so are the systems they develop, as opposed to the systems created and given to mankind by god.

Beggars the question, who is more powerful- Man or God?

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