AYAAN HIRSI ALI INTERVIEW - Wednesday, 14 May, 2007
GEORGE NEGUS: Ayaan, tell me about your lifestyle because when
you arrived here to talk to us, you had two bodyguards with you. I
mean, it's an incredible lifestyle that you have to lead as a result of
what you stand for, as a result of the campaign that you're waging for
Muslim women, women generally, and your criticism of Islam. Why do you
think it's worth the trouble to force this lifestyle upon yourself?
AYAAN HIRSI ALI, AUTHOR: Firstly, I didn't wake up one day and
think,
"I'm going to have that lifestyle." It happened. And I thought at the
time that - it was just after 11 September 2001, when there was an
appeal both from Western leaders and also from Islamic extremists who
were saying, "You have to, as a Muslim, take a stand." And I took a
stand and I thought, "Universal human rights, perhaps founded in the
West, but still universal, that's what I'm going to choose."
GEORGE NEGUS: Is that why people are confused about whether
your
campaign, your crusade, your holy mission, as you call it, is about
removing the subjugation of women, Muslim women, or is it an attack on
Islam itself?
AYAAN HIRSI ALI: That's a misunderstanding and it's a
deliberate
misunderstanding. People forget that I have been brought up as a
Muslim, I've lived as a Muslim.
GEORGE NEGUS: By the way, can I interrupt you there? Are you
still a
Muslim? Do you regard yourself as a Muslim?
AYAAN HIRSI ALI: A Muslim atheist.
GEORGE NEGUS: A Muslim atheist. Is that a contradiction in
terms?
AYAAN HIRSI ALI: It is a contradiction in terms but it's a
functional
contradiction.
GEORGE NEGUS: Does that mean you're a Muslim culturally but
not
religiously.
AYAAN HIRSI ALI: I no longer believe in God. I don't believe
in angels.
I don't believe in hell and heaven.
GEORGE NEGUS: So why are you, why are you adhering, clinging
to, if you
like, your Muslim background and your Muslim heritage?
AYAAN HIRSI ALI: I was brought up as a Muslim. Because I've
been
brought up a Muslim I can point out precisely why, for example, in the
subjugation of women, what it is that makes Islam as a set of beliefs,
an instrument for subjugating women. I know exactly where the verses
are in the Koran that say if your wife is disobedient, beat her. And I
know that many Muslims will say that should not be taken literally, or
it should be interpreted differently.
GEORGE NEGUS: A lot of Christians don't take the Bible
literally.
AYAAN HIRSI ALI: But the perpetrators do.
GEORGE NEGUS: You talk about "the perpetrators", if I can
interrupt you
there. 1.5 billion Muslims in the world, thereabouts - the perpetrators
of the abuse of women, the perpetrators, the people who have, if you
like, tainted and besmirched Islam as a religion and a culture, what
percentage of that 1.5 billion do you believe are 'perpetrators' as you
call them?
AYAAN HIRSI ALI: No-one has ever researched that. We don't
know. What
we know is that in the Muslim world..
GEORGE NEGUS: 1%?
AYAAN HIRSI ALI: You can't say that. It's impossible to say.
GEORGE NEGUS: Many or a few?
AYAAN HIRSI ALI: I would say many.
GEORGE NEGUS: Many? The majority?
AYAAN HIRSI ALI: Well, if you add together the perpetrators
and those
who keep silent. If you take your daughter, as a Muslim man, and you
say it's your right and you base your views on what you read in the
Koran or what you read in the Hadith, and you kill her, and your
neighbours and the rest of your family don't say anything about that,
then there is one man who killed his daughter but there are many people
surrounding him who are silent.
GEORGE NEGUS: But I guess what your critics would say, have
said, are
saying, is that you're homogenising, you're stereotyping, you're
generalising about the entire Islamic population in the world - a
quarter of the world's population.
AYAAN HIRSI ALI: If I were doing that, it would be unfair but
that's
not what I'm doing. I'm making..
GEORGE NEGUS: But you can see why people would believe that
would be
the effect?
AYAAN HIRSI ALI: I want to make, and I've always tried to make
a
distinction between Islam and Muslims. Islam as a set of beliefs, like
Christianity was a set of beliefs, communism a secular set of beliefs.
If you take this set of beliefs and you see the rules and the laws
about women, about infidels, about the Jews, about homosexuals, you
will be appalled and you will come to the conclusion that Islam as a
set of beliefs is incompatible with liberal democracy and with
liberalism.
GEORGE NEGUS: Let me hypothesise then, let me suggest to you
that the
only way what you're talking about could be achieved, would be by the
annihilation of Islam as a religio-culture?
AYAAN HIRSI ALI: What I'm proposing is that we scrutinise
Islam,
criticise it - both Muslims and non-Muslims - the way we dealt with
Christianity and communism and Nazism and all other challenges to
liberalism.
GEORGE NEGUS: Modernise it? Is that what we're talking about?
AYAAN HIRSI ALI: That in itself will have as an effect the
modernisation of Islam because you're going to question Muslims, 1.3
billion of them, they may be different, they may speak different
languages but there's one similarity - they all believe that we ought
to follow the moral example of the Prophet Mohammad. Now, questioning
the moral example of the Prophet Mohammed I've done in one interview.
I've said if there are men who are taking 9-year-old, 10-year-old,
11-year-olds as their wives
GEORGE NEGUS: Which is what you've said about the Prophet?
AYAAN HIRSI ALI: Yes, as their brides.
GEORGE NEGUS: Despicable behaviour, you describe it as.v
AYAAN HIRSI ALI: I described him, yes. First I said he was a
paedophile, and then my party leader said, "No, no, no, we're not going
to call the Prophet a paedophile, you'll have to find another word." So
I said he's a pervert and he found that fine.
GEORGE NEGUS: That's hair-splitting.
AYAAN HIRSI ALI: Yes, but that's the level that the debate on
Islam has
sunk to, you know, choosing between prophet and a paedophile.
GEORGE NEGUS: What you seem to be saying is that Muslims
should be free
to criticise those aspects of Islam that they don't agree with. And
that's what you're doing.
AYAAN HIRSI ALI: Yes - Muslims and non-Muslims without
fearing, without
having to fear for their lives. The debate is not on freedom of
expression. The debate is every time we discuss Islam, those people who
are critical of what is written in the Koran, critical of the moral
example of the Prophet are threatened, killed, shunned, exiled and so
on.
GEORGE NEGUS: Always?
AYAAN HIRSI ALI: Well, always, yes. Look at me.
GEORGE NEGUS: Yeah, well, it's a strange life that you lead
because of
it. But when you talked about how you described the Prophet, you also
said he was a tyrant, a perverse man, against free speech, a
megalomaniac who reminded you of people like bin Laden, Khomeini and
Saddam.
AYAAN HIRSI ALI: I said, "No wonder they take him as an
example."
GEORGE NEGUS: Now, that could be seen, has been seen by your
critics,
as provocative, as inciting extremists in Islam and possibly having the
opposite effect of what you wanted to have?
AYAAN HIRSI ALI: But they don't say I'm wrong, do they? OK,
what
exactly was his example? If he married a 9-year-old, if he called for
the killing of the infidels, if he massacred the Jews, are we going to?
Today there are Muslims, however small that number is, who say because
the Prophet killed Jews, we are going to do it, because the Prophet
killed the infidels, we are going to do it, because the Prophet
confined women to their homes, we're going to do it.
GEORGE NEGUS: I know it's impossible to talk about your life
and your
experience but I can't not raise the question of your friend Theo van
Gogh who was killed as a result of who was murdered, viciously, as a
result of his association with you and the film that you made together.
You said that had you known he was going to die, you might not have
made that film. Where does that leave you?
AYAAN HIRSI ALI: No, not made the film, but then would have
said OK, if
I'd known he was going to die He insisted he wanted to put his name on
the title role and so it was I wish I knew... I mean, but this is all
in hindsight. Of course, of course you can't prevent. This is all in
hindsight. I regret that Theo van Gogh was killed.
GEORGE NEGUS: So where does that leave you? Because the death
threat
that was attached to his dead body was a death threat for you.
AYAAN HIRSI ALI: When I read the history of Western philosophy
and the
history of Western freedoms, there were individuals who just went about
their work and challenged the dogmas of the church, who challenged the
dogmas of the state, and some of them were threatened, some of them
were killed but that didn't stop them. It only inspired the others to
go on, and it made it very clear to them what it is that they were
fighting for. It's irrelevant whether I die or not. But what is not
irrelevant and what the Muslims who want to kill me cannot take away is
what I've written down and what I've said. They can't stop the debate
anymore.
GEORGE NEGUS: You've been on amazing journey, a remarkable
journey, a
horrible journey in so many ways from your background with your family
in Somalia, and then in the Netherlands and now here, living under
constant threat of death. And you say you're not going to stop because
you believe this is a microcosm of a global problem.
AYAAN HIRSI ALI: Yes.
GEORGE NEGUS: So is this what your life is going to be -
walking into
every room with a bodyguard?
AYAAN HIRSI ALI: With bodyguards. I think my life is Maybe it
will be
this, maybe it will change. But I do identify with the women who share
a background with me. They may not be pleased with me now, they may not
like it that I link Islam to their subjugation. But if we as Muslim
women - I'm no longer a Muslim but I was a Muslim woman - if we don't
stand up to a set of beliefs, tradition, culture that keeps us
subordinate, no-one is going to come get us out of it. All I can do is
set the example. I'm not sure everybody is going to follow me. I'm also
not sure that the results of what I I'll be around to see the results
of what I'm doing.
GEORGE NEGUS: Some people say that you've gone from one
extreme to the
other, that the worst kind of zealot is a convert, that you've become
an Islamophobe.
AYAAN HIRSI ALI: What is extreme about saying women have a
right to
finish school, women have the right to become financially independent?
And women have.. And I think that is probably when I'm described as an
extremist is when I say women should be the owners of their own bodies
and their own sexuality.
GEORGE NEGUS: It is wonderful talking to you. We could go on
I'm sure.
But thank you. And stay safe.
AYAAN HIRSI ALI: Thank you. I will.
GEORGE NEGUS: Thank you very much.