The Strange Journey of Ayaan Hirsi Ali: From Devout Muslim to Outspoken "Feminist" Critic of Islam

By Joshua Holland, AlterNet. Posted November 12, 2007.

The former "liberal" who becomes an outspoken right-winger has become an American political archetype. Ronald Reagan and David Horowiz are two prime examples of the breed.

They use the rhetorical tool of claiming to be just as caring and compassionate as their previous political incarnation, but the left's irrationality and hatred of (you pick it) the West, America, Christianity, capitalism, etc. caused them to wake up one morning and see the light. And having transformed from lefty caterpillar into a right-leaning butterfly, they present themselves as qualified to comment on liberalism's moral and intellectual failures.

Recently, a related version of this turncoat persona -- former Dutch Member of Parliament Ayaan Hirsi Ali -- has emerged: a "reformed" Muslim woman who favors crushing Islam under the boot of Western militarism. Once very devout in her Muslim beliefs, Ali has gained a great deal of media attention -- including horrific tales of her abuse at the hands of Muslim men -- and has transformed into an outspoken critic who bases her calls for the destruction of Islam on feminist and human rights principles.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali is a proud Somali woman raised in a devout Muslim family. She is poised to become the most recognizable face of naked Islamophobia in America. Expect to see her as a ubiquitous guest on cable news channels and frequent contributor of op-eds reinforcing the worst stereotypes about the Muslim world. She'll validate already disturbingly common narratives about the perfidy of Islam, and she'll tout the vast superiority of Western thinking in stark terms that would be shocking coming from a more traditional (read: white, Christian) right-wing commentator.

It's a criticism of Islam, coming from the left, which has the potential to unite the Islamophobic right with an increasingly vocal secular movement. It also provides cover for extremist views, bringing hateful rhetoric that's typically been confined to the margins into the mainstream and broadening the already frighteningly large constituency that exists in the U.S. for a series of "preventive" wars in the Middle East, Central Asia and elsewhere.

She has been called an "enlightenment fundamentalist" in Europe and is a hated apostate in much of the Muslim world. She lives under a flurry of death threats and needs round-the-clock security.

Because she's an intelligent and articulate woman who has suffered horrific abuses in a Muslim family, her generalizations about the entire Islalmic world are imbued with an unwarranted authority. There's a real danger that people like Hirsi Ali -- the tiny percentage of the Muslim world who believe that Islam really is "the problem" will skew the debate about U.S. relations with the Muslim world.

Thank God for the Enlightenment

Hirsi Ali has become a darling of those who believe in the benevolence of Western hegemony; The Economist described her as a "cultural ideologue of the new right." But she's more than that; Hirsi Ali occupies a unique space in the political landscape. Her outspoken advocacy on feminist ethical issues -- roundly condemning "honor killings" and female circumcision -- has also made her a poster-girl for the aggressive brand of atheism typified by figures like Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris and Christopher Hitchens, all three of whom have held her life-story up as an example of the harms caused by religion in general, and Islam in particular. For them, she's a living testament to the idea that rational liberal interventionists in the post-Enlightenment West have a moral duty to wage a new crusade against the Muslim world. Harris and Salman Rushdie penned an op-ed in the Los Angeles Times calling Hirsi Ali a "unique and indispensable witness to both the strength and weakness of the West: to the splendor of open society and to the boundless energy of its antagonists."

Neely Tucker wrote in the Washington Post that "Neoconservative, middle-aged white men … tend to swoon when she walks into the room." Hirsi Ali is indeed charming and articulate, possessed of a rare intelligence and gifted with exceptional language and political skills. But she's also an extremist, by any measure. She goes beyond others who embrace the idea of a "Clash of Civilizations" -- people like Tony Blankley and Michael Ledeen -- in her insistence that all of Islam is extreme. "There is no moderate Islam," she told Reason. There can only be peace between East and West, she said, "if Islam is defeated." When asked if she meant radical Islam, she replied: "No. Islam, period. Once it's defeated, it can mutate into something peaceful. It's very difficult to even talk about peace now. They're not interested in peace."

She calls the religion, with 1.3 billion adherents worldwide, a "death cult."

That's a popular claim in the post-9/11 era, and Ayaan Hirsi Ali is no doubt set for life. Her long journey has taken her from Africa to Europe and now, finally, to the right-wing American Enterprise Institute (she's currently working out of Holland because the Dutch government refused to pay for her body-guards in DC). As long as the concept of a broken and dysfunctional Muslim world is used to justify Western militarism in the Middle East and Central Asia, Hirsi Ali will have a cushy sinecure somewhere within the right-wing media establishment, ready to be rolled out as exhibit A in the case against whatever country is that day's enemy-du-jour and, perhaps more importantly, against anyone who views the Muslim world as anything other than a uniform bunch of blood-thirsty maniacs.

See more stories tagged with: feminism, racism, women, islam, ayaan hirsi ali

Joshua Holland is an AlterNet staff writer.

Liked this story? Get top stories in your inbox each week from Rights and Liberties! Sign up now »