Strange are the ways of the West. Till yesterday they were eulogizing Dutch MP Ayaan Hirsi as a heroine for her incessant and ignorant assaults against Islam and the Muslims. Today they have rendered their icon not only stateless but also homeless.
All were taken by surprise at the swift fall of the Dutch MP, originally from Somalia, after it was revealed that she had lied in order to gain asylum in the Netherlands.
Ayaan had actually come to Europe directly from Kenya, not from war-torn Somalia; she had indeed consented to marrying her ex-husband and was not forced; and she had changed her real name, Ayaan Hirsi Magan to Ayaan Hirsi Ali, after Germany rejected her application.
The Dutch minister of immigration, Rita Verdonk, said that since the former Somalian refugee had provided inaccurate information when applying for political asylum in 1992 and seeking Dutch citizenship in 1997 both applications were invalid. She has been given six weeks to respond.
Ayaan has also been deprived of the safe house provided by the Dutch government after she reportedly received death threats. She has resigned her seat in parliament, and is reported to have fond a job in a right-wing think-tank in the United States.
Bon voyage!
Ayaan was the author of a controversial film on violence against Muslim women, “Submission“ that was made by the Dutch film maker Theo van Gogh who was murdered in Amsterdam in 2004 by a Dutch-Moroccan who claimed his victim had insulted Islam.
The 36-year-old Dutch MP appears to be a confused personality. At one time - if one could believe her at all- she was said to be a hijab-clad Islamist who later in Holland became an atheist influenced by the Atheist Manifesto of Dutch philosopher Herman Philipse.
With scant knowledge of Islam, Ayaan mixed up the situation in her war-torn land and tribal traditions with Islamic teachings.
A sly opportunist she understood that her attacks on Islam, following the footsteps of Salman Rushdie and Taslima Nasreen, would win her quick famIn 2005, Ayaan was chosen among the world’s 100 most influential people of Time Magazine and Reader’s Digest voted her ’European of the Year 2006’.
But as the adage goes, you can fool some people all the time, but not all the people all the time.
Her fanatical and hateful attacks against Islam and Muslims were gradually disapproved in the tolerant Dutch society that considered her calls to ban all private religious education as illiberal and inconsistent with Dutch values.
A think-tank based in the Hague, the Scientific Council for Government Policy (WRR), issued a report in April underlining that Islam does not conflict with either human rights or Dutch values.
The WRR, which advises the Dutch government, in its report examined the evolution of thinking about democracy and human rights in several Muslim countries, ranging from Egypt and Iran to Indonesia.
Jan Schoonenboom, a member of the council who supervised the research, told the BBC in a recent interview that he does not agree with Ayaan and others who say Islam is not compatible with democracy, women’s rights or Dutch values.
Such generalizations, he said, are not just wrong but dangerous - creating a divide between them and us.
The Dutch MP’s case could herald a rethinking in Europe about its engagement with Muslims and the Islamic world.
“Despite her naturalization, for most Dutch people Hirsi Ali remained a stranger who was only accepted because she was useful. Ayaan Hirsi Ali is no longer needed as the main authority against Islam,“ commented a German daily, Die Tageszeitung.
The West is perhaps realizing that glorifying Muslim “renegades“ and the likes of Rushide and Hirsi, and using them to ridicule Islam were wrong tactics that contributed terribly in deepening the gulf between the West and the Islamic world. For Muslims, the lesson to learn is that Ayaan and her sorts should be deprived of their main goals in life: fame and glory. Certainly, not by violence but by peaceful means. Ignore them completely!!e, position and wealth in the West.