Day By Day

Tuesday, May 16, 2006

Ayaan Hirsi Ali is Coming to America


One of the more remarkable women of our times, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, is coming to America..., as a refugee. Born in Sudan, she fled to Europe, eventually settling in Holland, where she took citizenship, entered politics, and is today a member of the Dutch Parliament. First she allied with the Left, but when they refused to act against Islamic atrocities, she switched allegiances and is now on the Right. She has been one of the most vocal and articulate advocates for women's rights within Islam and one of that culture's most strident critics.

Because of her outspokeness she lives under constant threat of death. A few years ago she collaborated with Dutch film-maker, Theo van Gogh, in making the film "Submission" which was denounced by Islamic clerics as heretical. Van Gogh was later stabbed to death on the street and a note attached to his body specifically targed Ayaan for the same fate. Since then she has been under constant police guard.

A recent documentary revealed that there were irregularities in her application for citizenship, and she has been under political attack ever since and there are proposals to have her stripped of her citizenship and deported back to Somalia, where she would almost certainly be murdered. Der Spiegel yesterday reported [here] that she will be leaving Holland and taking up residence at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington.

She is a courageous and brilliant woman and, in the words of one commentator, she "is arguably the greatest champion of western values on the international scene right now; in refusing to tolerate Islamist intolerance, she’s … doing a job Europeans won’t do." [here]

Others have pointed out that she's the best argument in favor of illegal immigration we have seen yet.

Read more about her here.

You can view "Submission" the film she and van Gogh produced here.

I posted earlier about her here. [check out the pics, she's positively gorgeous -- I can imagine the reaction of some of the stodgy old coots at AEI]

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