Jihad Watch Director Robert Spencer with Ayaan Hirsi Ali
Ayaan Hirsi Ali, who has spoken up repeatedly and heroically, at immense personal risk and loss, against the Islamic jihad ideology — and particularly its inhumanity to women — is being hounded by dhimmis in the Netherlands.
Bruce Bawer, author of the essential While Europe Slept, writes this in an email about drive her out of her house — now they are apparently trying to drive her out of her country.
Some further details come from this story in Expatica, “Liberals don’t care Hirsi Ali lied to get asylum in 1992,” which dates from before Verdonk’s turnabout:
Interviews with her brother, aunt and ex-husband raised doubts about Hirsi Ali’s contention she fled to Europe to escape possible retribution from her family for not going through with an arranged marriage. Her relatives contradicted her claim that she was not present during the wedding to the Canadian-Somali man.
Hirsi Ali said she was forced to marry a stranger but her ex-husband said they had been in love and spent the week together after the wedding. He then went back to Canada to prepare for her arrival. Supplied with a plane ticket, Hirsi Ali later arrived in Germany and took a train to Amsterdam rather than continue the planned journey to Canada.
She has for years admitted she made up parts of her story to get asylum in the Netherlands but she insisted to Zembla her relatives and ex-husband were lying in regard to some of the details.
The programme-makers said it was decided to look into her past because of differing accounts she has given over the years about her past.
Hirsi Ali said she came clean about the lies she told to get asylum when she joined the Liberal Party (VVD) in 2002. Yet prominent VVDer (and now EU Commissioner) Nelie Kroes described Hirsi Ali as a person who had lived through five civil wars in Somalia. This was not true as Hirsi Ali lived in Kenya for over 10 years before coming to the Netherlands.
A spokesperson for the VVD said the party had been aware that Hirsi Ali lied about her name and date of birth when seeking asylum. This was not seen as a barrier to her joining the party or becoming one of its MPs.
All right. Her husband says they were in love. If they were in love, can I go sightseeing at the World Trade Center tomorrow? Her real name is not Ayaan Hirsi Ali. All right. Armed with that information, can I have lunch with Theo Van Gogh in Amsterdam next week? She really was present at her wedding. Great. I guess then that the Qur’an teaches that women should have equality of rights with men?
The point I am making is that the value of Hirsi Ali’s contribution to the Netherlands and the West is not negated by the circumstances of her gaining asylum. If it were anyone other than she, the headline “Asylum seeker lies to get asylum” would be circular-filed, not made into front-page news. Of course people shouldn’t lie; but to consider deporting her now, when she is a Dutch Parliamentarian living under death threats because she has dared to tell the truth about Islam, jihad, and Sharia, because of what she said in 1992, is patent political maneuvering, not sober immigration policy.
Of course I have disagreements with her on some matters. But on the central issues that will determine whether Judeo-Christian civilization survives in this century, and whether the human rights and dignity of every human person will be preserved, I am proud and honored to stand with her.
Ayaan, come to America. For all its faults, it may be civilization’s last redoubt.
A final note: Ayaan Hirsi Ali was in America not too long ago. Here from LGF is a miscellany of links to various videos and other material concerning talks she gave.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali Interview, February 2006
Ayaan Hirsi Ali: “I Wonder What You Are Doing Here?”