Nomad

by Ayaan Hirsi Ali

  Child marriage is illegal in Western countries, of course, but other aspects of the Muslim oppression of women can readily be imported into both Europe and the United States. The fact that honor killings can occur in Texas, New York, and Georgia makes the virtual silence of Western feminists on this subject all the more bizarre and deplorable.

  Western women have power. They are now firmly established in the workforce. They have access to contraception, to their own bank accounts, to the vote. They can marry the men they choose, or choose not to marry at all, and if nature allows it, they can have as many or as few children as they want. They can own property, travel wherever they choose, and read any book, newspaper, or magazine they wish. They can have an opinion on the moral choices of others and express that opinion freely, even publish it.

  In the West the notorious glass ceiling within most professions has been cracked, though not altogether removed; we can now surely make time for some more vital issues. If feminism means anything at all, women with power should be addressing their energies to help the girls and women who suffer the pain of genital mutilation, who are at risk of being murdered because of their Western lifestyle and ideas, who must ask for permission just to leave the house, who are treated no better than serfs, branded and mutilated, traded without regard to their wishes. If you are a true feminist, these women should be your first priority.

  We women in rich countries have an obligation to mobilize to assist other women. Only our outrage and our political pressure can lead to change. We need to push the situation of Muslim women to the top of the agenda. It’s not enough to say it’s shocking, it’s appalling, and to condemn only individual acts. We need to challenge and bring down the tribal honor-and-shame culture as codified in the Islamic religion.

  Organizations from within those communities will lobby and litigate to change the subject, then will plead vulnerability and victim-hood. Their advocates among the multiculturalist intellectuals and appeasing politicians will support them. It’s essential that we maintain awareness that what we women advocates are talking about are two distinct value systems between which there is no possible compromise.

  Muslim women are not the only group of women who are oppressed. As I wrote in 2006, in an article for the International Herald Tribune, between 113 and 200 million women around the world are demographically “missing,” and every year between 1.5 and 3 million women and girls lose their lives as the result of violence or neglect because of their sex. Female babies and young girls in many parts of the world, not only Muslim countries, die disproportionately from neglect. The brutal international sex trade in young girls kills uncounted numbers of women. Roughly 600,000 women die giving birth every year, and domestic violence is a major killer of women in every country on the globe. “Gendercide” takes many forms, but for most of these suffering women, the major issue is poverty.

  The subjugation of Muslim women, by contrast, is a matter of principle.

  What can be done? First, we need a worldwide campaign against the values that permit these kinds of crime. Cultures that endorse the denial of women’s rights over their own bodies and fail to protect them from the worst kind of physical abuse must be pressured to reform. They should not be treated as respectable members of the community of nations. Today human rights activists are frustrated in their work; they are denied access to data and are intimidated or ignored. A serious international effort must be made to record and document violence against girls and women, country by country, and to expose the reality of their intolerable suffering.

  But the more pressing business is what feminists can do now to prevent an alien culture of oppression from taking root in the West. In America too Muslim girls may be pulled out of school by their parents, violently punished at home on a routine basis, obsessively watched over and forcibly married and even murdered in the name of honor. Such basic, brutal violations of women’s rights must be confronted head-on and effective measures to protect Muslim girls urgently devised. Ignoring the problem means abandoning the next victims to their fate; even worse, it means abandoning the core values that sustain Western society. This is what Americans can learn from Europe’s experience with Muslim immigration: we simply cannot compromise our own principles by tolerating honor killing, female genital mutilation, and other such practices.

  In Holland and the United Kingdom organizations have been set up to educate the police, schools, and other government agencies about this specific type of domestic violence. However, citizens and officials still find it difficult to talk about these issues without being accused of Islamophobia and racism. In Holland, for instance, I called for a control system on female genital mutilation to be put in place. Such a system was developed, but on a voluntary basis, which is absurd, because a mother who is convinced that she is doing what’s right according to the sacred custom of her heritage will not come forward and say, “I’ve just committed an act that will send me to prison for fifteen years.”

  Well-meaning people sometimes look at me kindly at this point and perform the emotional equivalent of patting my hand. They are rarely impolite enough to actually say so, but they clearly believe that this battle is a hopeless one: there is no way that half the current Muslim population around the world can be freed.

  I choose not to adopt this defeatist approach. I believe the honor-and-shame culture can be discarded. To think otherwise is to define Muslims as incapable of growth and adaptation, and I can’t think of anything more pejorative and racist. To effect real change will undoubtedly require massive shifts in attitude, the dismantling of a whole infrastructure of religious thought and tribal values. But in order to achieve this we desperately need a new feminism that will attract Muslim women. The militant anti-male discourse of some feminist leaders is abhorrent to me and, I think, a perversion of the message of Mary Wollstonecraft. Feminism in the twenty-first century needs to move on, to bridge the gap between Western women and those they’ve left behind. Just as the world’s free thinkers and lovers of liberty once banded together to support the fight against apartheid, we should be banding together to support the rights of women in Islam.

  As I watched the 2008 presidential and vice presidential election campaigns of Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin on TV—both of them contending for two of the most powerful offices in the world—I eagerly waited for the moment when they would talk about what they planned to do for other women, longing for the moment when someone would ask the question, demand a serious debate on the rights of Muslim women. It never happened.

  Now Hillary Clinton is secretary of state; before her, Condoleezza Rice and Madeleine Albright held that office. It appears a silent consensus has emerged in Washington that the Department of State should be headed by women. Some people complain that this is a half measure, to placate us women, because what we really want is the presidency. But I disagree. I believe having a woman as secretary of state represents a huge chance. It means that an American woman will sit down with the leaders of the rest of the world, including the Arab world, the Muslim world, and be treated not merely as an equal but as the representative of the world’s only superpower.

  The liberation of women is like a vast, unfinished house. The west wing is fairly complete. Most of us who reside in this corner enjoy privileges such as the right to vote and run for office. We have access to education, and we may earn our own living if we choose to. We have managed to convince most legislators on this side of the house that domestic violence, sexual harassment, and rape are crimes for which the perpetrator must be punished. We have reproductive rights over our bodies and our sexuality; although a girl’s parents and teachers and community leaders may coach her, they make no attempt to coerce her into or out of a relationship with a man (and recently, even with another woman). Prospective mates may woo and worship but must swallow their pride if a girl rejects them.

  Like all homes, the western side of the house is not always run smoothly. In some cases, the house rules are not enforced. Girls’ complai
nts of domestic violence are ignored or denied or the perpetrator gets off with a warning or a punishment far less severe than the harm he has inflicted. Other women may feel that they do not receive equal compensation for doing the same jobs as their male colleagues; still others find themselves hitting a glass ceiling. Thus some women seek to furnish the house with more rules and to smash all the glass ceilings.

  Go to the east wing, however, and what you find is worse than unfinished. Parts of it have been started, then abandoned, and are now falling into ruin. In other parts, every time a wall is put up someone comes and bulldozes it down. In what would have been beautiful courtyards there are shallow graves of nameless girls who died because they were not seen as worth feeding or treating for a common, curable illness. In the east wing girls are transported as property by their parents, often when young, to gratify the sexual urges of adults. There are girls working the land, fetching water, tending to livestock, cooking and cleaning from dawn to dusk with no pay for their labors, while others are beaten by their closest family members with impunity. Young women die while giving birth because they lack the most basic hygiene and medical care.

  In some corners of the east wing mothers are not always delighted when they learn they are pregnant. A doctor will check whether the unborn child is a girl or a boy; if it is a girl he accepts the wretched mother’s payment and removes it, and if she cannot afford the abortion, the child, once born, is suffocated or left alone to die. This abortion of girls is so systematic in some rooms of the east wing that you will find numerous boys without mates to marry them.

  Closer to the middle of the east wing most women are banished from the public rooms and hallways, and if they can be glimpsed at all they are covered from head to toe in dark and ugly garments. Many never learn to read or write; they are forced into marriage and seem to live pregnant ever after. They have no reproductive rights. If raped, they must shoulder the burden of proof, and in some rooms women and girls as young as thirteen are flogged and stoned to death in public for their disobedience in sexual matters. In the eastern side of the house some people are so terrified of a woman’s sexuality that they cut the genitals of girl children, mutilating and branding them with the mark of ownership.

  These days many people from the east wing find their way to the other side of the house, even if it is only to the cramped servants’ quarters. Here in the west wing the fate of girls in the east wing seems far away. And while the girls in the west wing remain preoccupied with creature comforts like the shade of paint, the size of the chandeliers, and the shape of the hedges in the garden, not to mention that bothersome glass ceiling, men from the east wing claim western rooms for themselves, where they can practice eastern habits.

  I was sitting in my office in New York, high above the great, intense hub of the west wing, fantasizing that the wealthy women of the West would one day band together to make the liberation of the hovels of the east wing their greatest priority. They would surge forward to build a new edifice of freedom, strength, and plenty for the East, knocking down the old hovels and opening the visible and invisible prison doors to allow their sisters to see the light of day.

  That is my dream. But frankly, I do not know if Western feminists have the courage or clarity of vision to help me realize it.

  CHAPTER 16

  Seeking God

  but Finding Allah

  One June evening in 2007 I had dinner in Rome with Father Antoine Bodar, a Dutch priest who had been recommended to me by a mutual friend. I found him to be rather inspiring, a peaceful, intellectual, and yet also very worldly man. The restaurant that he had chosen for us was just behind the Vatican, and as we sipped our wine I found myself genuinely enjoying the evening. Night was drawing in, the Renaissance buildings were lit up and became almost surreally majestic and beautiful, and I was struck by the idea that we were seated in a place of great power: the Hejaz of Christianity.

  And yet, how are the mighty fallen, I thought to myself—or not fallen exactly, but faded. While Islam is rising across Europe, Christianity appears to be in decline in Muslim lands. Churches are falling empty, converted into apartments and offices, even nightclubs, or razed, while mosques are sprouting from the ground. The magnificent cathedrals of France are deserted; some people have even suggested that small disaffected chapels and churches should be modified into mosques in order to give the booming French Muslim communities space for prayer. This would also be a way to distance Islam from the hard-to-monitor garages and basements where young people are radicalized at a rapid rate.

  As we sipped coffee, I tried to imagine having a meal in Mecca with a member of the ‘ulema, or with any imam for that matter, almost anywhere. It seemed another demonstration of fundamental differences: Islam and Christianity are not the same.

  I explained to Father Bodar why I had asked him to meet me. “I’m not a Christian, and I’m not here to ask you to help me convert and become one,” I told him. “But I think the Christian churches should begin dawa exactly as Islam does. You need to compete, because you can be a powerful tool to reverse Islamization. You should start with Muslim neighborhoods in Rome. Europe is sleepwalking into disaster—cultural, ideological, and political disaster—because the authorities of the church have neglected the immigrant ghettos.

  “The churches could go into Muslim communities, provide services just as the radical Muslims do: build new Catholic schools, hospitals, and community centers, just like the ones that were such a civilizing force under colonialism in Africa. Don’t just leave this in the hands of governments—take an active role. The churches have the resources, the authority, and the motivation to convert Muslim immigrants to a more modern way of life and more modern beliefs. Teach hygiene, discipline, a work ethic, and also what you believe in. The West is losing the propaganda war. But you can compete with Islam outside Europe and vigorously assimilate Muslims within it.”

  Father Bodar positively beamed with happiness. He said he had been trying to achieve just this for years and that he had often been mocked for even suggesting it. The Roman Catholic Church has a long history of resisting religious challenges from inside and outside what used to be called Christendom. All kinds of heresies have been combated successfully from the earliest times. The Counter-Reformation saw the Church vigorously reassert itself against the teachings of Martin Luther and the other Protestant reformers. And, of course, the Church had fought against Islam not only in the time of the Crusades but also when, as recently as 1683, Muslim troops of the Ottoman sultan menaced the Holy Roman Emperor’s capital, Vienna.

  But what about the challenge facing Christian civilization today—the challenge of radical Islam that is already inside Europe’s supposed fortress?

  Islam claims to be the fastest-growing religion in the world today. This expansion is achieved partly through the relatively high birth rates of Muslim societies but also through dawa, by which people are persuaded to adopt its values and its outlook. Millions of Muslims now live in the West; clearly it’s not enough to assume that the allure of the material plenty around them will sway these Muslims to relax into a Western value system of tolerance and individual rights. Some of them may, but the evidence is all around us that many will remain sympathetic to a worldview that is steeped in conspiracy theories and blames all Muslim failures on outsiders. Moreover some non-Muslims in the West will be attracted to that worldview and become converts.

  You can (and must) fight violent jihadis with military might. But military means are just one element of war. Although it is important to stand your ground and deploy weaponry, you can’t use military means to affect the larger mind-set that supports the Muslim warriors. Propaganda is a powerful tool of war geared to win over the masses, persuade them to defect, break their morale or their trust in their own ideology.

  Some Westerners have a vision of Muslims as a mass of unbending, irrational, unthinking beings, incapable of calmly examining new ideas on their merit. But a Muslim’s mind is just like anyone else’s
and is capable of absorbing new information. If Muslims can be helped to reexamine the bedrock ideas of Islam, they may then admit that the Prophet Muhammad’s example is fallible, that not everything in the Quran is perfect or true, and that this doctrine can be adjusted so that the mental pain that comes of trying to apply it in the modern world is diminished.

  I have a theory that most Muslims are in search of a redemptive God. They believe that there is a higher power and that this higher power is the provider of morality, giving them a compass to help them distinguish between good and bad. Many Muslims are seeking a God or a concept of God that in my view meets the description of the Christian God. Instead they are finding Allah. They find Allah mainly because many are born in Muslim families where Allah has been the reigning deity for generations; others are converts to Islam or the children of converts.

  My theory is based on two observations. One is the fact that many Muslims—some pundits would say most—are instinctively appalled by the violence committed in the name of their faith. Their reaction to terrorism is always the same: No, it cannot be. The terrorists have hijacked my religion. I think it is wrong to kill and maim people. My religion stands for peace; it tells me to be compassionate. “Unto thee thy faith and unto me my faith,” they quote from the Quran, thus proving to themselves that Islam promotes freedom of religion.

  My second observation is that most Muslims do not know the content of the Quran or the Hadith or any other Islamic scripture. The much-quoted edict promoting freedom of religion is indeed in the Quran, but its authority is nullified by verses that descended upon the Prophet later, when he was better armed and when his following had grown to great numbers.