Fed Up with Holland, Hirsi Ali Plans to Move to America
AP
Ayaan Hirsi Ali has had enough of the Netherlands. She's off to
America. Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the Dutch parliamentarian who became the
target of radical Islamists for writing an Islam-critical screenplay,
is planning to resign from her elected office and leave the
Netherlands for the United States.
According to information obtained by SPIEGEL ONLINE, Hirsi Ali will
make a public statement announcing her resignation on Tuesday. The
move allegedly comes as a result of disillusionment caused by recent
reports taking a critical look at her original entry into Holland in
1992. A television report aired last Thursday claimed that Hirsi Ali
only received political asylum in the Netherlands because of false
statements she made in her application.
According to a report in the Monday issue of the Dutch newspaper De
Volkskrant, Hirsi Ali has accepted a post at the American Enterprise
Institute, a conservative Washington-based think tank. Since late
2004, she has been forced to keep a low profile in Holland after
Islamist extremists murdered filmmaker Theo van Gogh for making
"Submission," which included images of naked women with Koran verses
painted on their bodies. The script for the film came from Hirsi Ali
-- and she was explicitly threatened in the note found stabbed into
van Gogh's chest.
When Hirsi Ali applied for asylum, she claimed she was fleeing civil
war-torn Somalia. But she had already long held refugee status in
Kenya -- and she faced no danger in Germany, the country through which
she travelled on her way to the Netherlands. Additionally, the TV
report claimed, she applied for asylum using a fake name. Her actual
birth name, the program claimed, was Ayaan Hirsi Magan.
The revelations aired by the television station aren't new. Four years
ago, Hirsi Ali admitted that she had falsified her asylum application
in order to escape a forced marriage. "Yes, I did lie to get asylum in
Holland," Hirsi Ali told the Associated Press over the weekend. "This
has been public knowledge since at least September 2002." Political
opponents said Hirsi Ali should be kicked out of parliament and her
citizenship status revoked.
Hirsi Ali became a naturalized Dutch citizen in 1997 and has served as
a member of the Dutch parliament in The Hague as a representative of
the Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD) since 2002.
It's been a tough couple of weeks for Hirsi Ali, who was wrapping up a
book tour in the United States as the information resurfaced. A few
weeks ago, a court ruled that she could be evicted from her apartment
in the Dutch capital. Neighbors had complained that they felt harassed
by the police who guard her apartment and the court gave Hirsi Ali
until August to clear out.
Ali has been honored a number of times for her outspoken criticism of
the treatment of women in Islam. The best-selling author of "The Caged
Virgin: An Emancipation Proclamation for Women and Islam," was raised
in a strict Muslim family and was subjected to genital mutilation in
her youth. She was raised in Saudi Arabia, Ethiopia and Kenya. When
she was 23, her family ordered her to marry a Canadian cousin, but she
escaped in Europe and established a new life here.
Holland's controversial immigration minister, Rita Verdonk, said that
if she had been minister at the time of Hirsi Ali's application, she
would have expelled her from the country. But now, she argues, too
much time has passed. She said her ministry would investigate the case
but that Hirsi Ali would have little to worry about.
Nevertheless, as the headline in De Volkskrant declared: "Holland has
grown too small for Hirsi Ali." Instead she's going to try her luck in
America.
--
"There are no absolute certainties in this universe. A man must try to
whip order into a yelping pack of probabilities, and uniform success is
impossible." -- Jack Vance
"Civilizaton is the interval between Ice Ages." -- Will Durant.
"War is God's way of teaching Americans geography" -- Ambrose Bierce
"Long term commitment in relationships is only necessary because it takes
so damn long to raise children. Marriage may well be some kind of trick
to keep the males around beyond sexual satiation." -- Captain Compassion
"Progress is the increasing control of the environment by life.
--Will Durant
Joseph R. Darancette
daranc@NOSPAMverizon.net
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