Women Erased - Ayaan Hirsi Ali

Another snipped from my upcoming book.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali is truly heroic. An asylum seeker to the Netherlands, she fled a forced marriage and sought freedom. Taking Holland to her heart, she learned to speak Dutch and found work as a translator, helping immigrant women. She later stood for election and won, continuing her fight for Muslim women’s rights inside the Dutch Parliament. For her outspokenness, and for rebelling against the religion in which she was raised, Holland’s media and political elite turned against her, making her so unsafe that she fled once again to the United States.

Despite her courage, despite all she had done for Muslim immigrant women in Europe, Ayaan Hirsi Ali is shunned and demonised by mainstream feminism. In Women Erased, I will tell her story. It is a letter to the young, to the girls who deserve to know of women like Hirsi Ali. It is for Ayaan Hirsi Ali, who deserves to be known by a new generation of girls.

Here is a small part of her story.

“The life of Ayaan Hirsi Ali would change dramatically again on November 2nd, 2004. On that morning, a descendant of one of Holland’s most famous sons was viciously murdered on the streets of Amsterdam. His name was Theo Van Gogh, the great-grandson of Vincent Van Gogh.

Theo was a filmmaker, and together with Hirsi Ali, he produced a film named Submission. In it, verses from the Koran are superimposed onto a naked woman’s skin, aiming to shine a spotlight on the subjugation of women within the Islamic faith. A Muslim male screamed offence, however, and slaughtered Van Gogh in the street.

He was shot eight times, and his throat cut back to the spine. A large knife was left planted deep in his chest. It held in place a letter, and in the letter was a warning to Ayaan Hirsi Ali.”

“When Mohammed Bouyeri, Van Gogh’s killer, was jailed, the Dutch state took steps to protect Hirsi Ali. Officials moved her to a safe house in the Netherlands, but new neighbours complained that her presence made them a target.

Dutch authorities removed Ayaan from her safe house in 2006, and ironically, from that moment onward, she was considered a public safety threat. Complaints and grievances about the cost of her protection soon followed, with journalists noting it had reached around 3.5 million euros by that time. The media elite began questioning the legitimacy of her asylum claim, with many hinting that she was an outright liar.

The Dutch establishment finally succumbed to the pressure and expelled her from the Netherlands. The country that had given her refuge had coldly turned its back.”

Next week.. Who was Florence Nightingale? What is her legacy, and why has been erased by modern feminism.