Pursuing Freedom ... Part 5/5

Novel Infidel by author Ayaan Hirsi Ali

AYAAN HIRSI ALI?was born in Somalia, was raised Muslim, and spent her childhood and young adulthood in Africa and Saudi Arabia.

In 1992, Hirsi Ali came to the Netherlands as a refugee, escaping a forced marriage to a distant cousin she had never met.

She learned Dutch and worked as an interpreter in abortion clinics and shelters for battered women.

After earning her college degree in political science, she worked for the Labor Party. She denounced Islam after the September 11 terrorist attacks and now fights for the rights of Muslim women in Europe, the enlightenment of Islam, and security in the West.

I was becoming integrated into student society, and that society was nowhere near as predictable or as sedate as my circle in Ede.

I was fascinated by this vision of a completely different moral system.

Actually, to have the ability to choose the government of Holland—felt like a momentous responsibility.

My heart was on the left.?

It instantly became the talk of Holland. Everybody had an opinion about it

He foresaw social unrest.?

To me, it seemed that the Dutch lived in an absolute paradise and tended to call any small problem a crisis.?

In my final year, I had to focus on completing my thesis. I had chosen to examine the drift toward making law in the courts instead of in Parliament. Politicians in Holland were failing to take responsibility and act decisively; because they were so driven to seek consensus and electoral gains, they were letting judges take charge of issues that they deemed too controversial to touch. I thought I might go on to do a doctorate after I graduated, and perhaps teach.

Abeh embraced me. He looked much older, but he smelled exactly the same. It felt deeply good to be enfolded by him again. At first, we just talked about general things: what I was studying, politics. All my father wanted to talk about was Somalia, the great state Somalia could one day become. And he clearly said he wanted an Islamic government, a rule by Allah's laws. Any system of politics devised by man was bound to go wrong.?

Who would make the law? I told my father, "The rule of clerics is totalitarian. It means people can't choose. Humanity is varied, and we should celebrate that instead of suppressing it." My father just said, "We must all work hard to convert everyone to Islam." He disappointed me with this simple-minded logic and his depressing lack of realism.

He told me that he shouldn't have obliged. me to marry against my will. I should be free to choose the husband I wanted. I think he wanted to think of himself as someone who accorded freedom; there was still a democrat buried inside him, after all.?

When I graduated from Leiden, in September 2000,1 was almost thirty years old. It had taken me an extra year to get my master's degree, but I had made it. I told myself I should be proud. I had solid qualifications, a rocky but intimate relationship, and strong friendships. I was earning my own money. I had made myself a place in Holland with my own hands and legs and brain. I was thrilled to be graduating after so many years. I tried to get a visa for my father to attend the ceremony, but it was turned down. I phoned my mother, to tell her I was getting my Master of Science degree. She made an awkward remark about how odd it was that it should be me, of her three children, who would graduate from the university. She probably meant no harm by it. In her eyes, I was still the dumbest of the three of us.?

I began looking around, with a sense of growing panic, for what I was going to do. One morning in March, Marco looked up from the newspaper and crowed, "This job's perfect for you: your name is written all over it." He showed me the ad. The Wiardi Beckman Institute, the political bureau of Wim Kok's Labor Party, was looking for a junior researcher.?

Ellen and I spent two months fixing up the house. Then I settled back to enjoy life. We had dinner parties. Ellen was going through a period of religious turmoil, looking for her bearings, and she talked about which church she should join. Even Marco and I were getting along very well; we considered getting back together again. It was a summer of cooking for people, independence, a happy time.

"Ayaan, of course these people may have been Muslims, but they are a lunatic fringe. We have extremist Christians, too, who interpret the Bible literally. Most Muslims do not believe these things. To say so is to disparage a faith which is the second largest religion in world, and which is civilized, and peaceful." I walked into the office thinking, "I have to wake these people up." It wasn't just Koole by any means. Holland, this fortunate country where nothing ever happens, was trying to pretend nothing had happened again. The Dutch had forgotten that it was possible for people to stand up and wage war, destroy property, imprison, kill, impose laws of virtue because of the call of God. That kind of religion hadn't been present in Holland for centuries.

This was not just Islam, this was the core of Islam. Mohamed Atta believed that he was giving his life for Allah. Mohamed Atta was exactly my age. I felt as though I knew him, and in fact, I did know many people just like him. The people in the debating center I had attended in Nairobi, for example, would have written that letter if they had had the courage to do what Atta did. If I had remained with them, perhaps I could have done it, or perhaps Ijaabo would have. There were tens of thousands of people, in Africa, the Middle East—even in Holland—who thought this way. Every devout Muslim who aspired to practice genuine Islam—the Muslim Brotherhood Islam, the Islam of the Medina Quran schools—even if they didn't actively support the attacks, they must at least have approved of them. This wasn't just a band of frustrated Egyptian architects in Hamburg. It was much?bigger than that, and it had nothing to do with frustration. It was about belief.

Most articles analyzing Bin Laden and his movement were scrutinizing a symptom, a little like analyzing Lenin and Stalin without looking at the works of Karl Marx. The Prophet Muhammad was the moral guide, not Bin Laden, and it was the Prophet's guidance that should be evaluated. But what if I didn't like the outcome of that analysis? What would I do then?

Surely, no Muslim could continue to ignore the clash between reason and our religion? For centuries we had been behaving as though all knowledge was in the Quran, refusing to question anything, refusing to progress. We had been hiding from the reason for so long because we were incapable of facing up to the need to integrate it into our beliefs. And this was not working; it was leading to hideous pain and monstrous behavior.

We Muslims had been taught to define life on earth as a passage, a test that precedes real life in the Hereafter. In that test, everyone should ideally live in a manner resembling, as closely as possible, the followers of the Prophet. Didn't this inhibit investment in improving daily life? Was innovation therefore forbidden to Muslims? Were human rights, progress, women's rights all foreign to Islam?

We were not just servants of Allah, we were slaves. The little shutter at the back of my mind, where I pushed all my dissonant thoughts, snapped open after the 9/11 attacks, and it refused to close again. I found myself thinking that the Quran is not a holy document. It is a historical record, written by humans. It is one version of events, as perceived by the men who wrote it 150 years after the Prophet Muhammad died. And it is a very tribal and Arab version of events. It spreads a culture that is brutal, bigoted, fixated on controlling women, and harsh in war. The Prophet did teach us a lot of good things. I found it spiritually appealing to believe in a Hereafter. My life was enriched by the Quranic injunctions to be compassionate and show charity to others. There were times when I, like many other Muslims, found it too complicated to deal with the whole issue of war against the unbelievers. Most Muslims never delve into theology, and we rarely read the Quran; we are taught it in Arabic, which most?Muslims can't speak. As a result, most people think that Islam is about peace. It is from these people, honest and kind, that the fallacy has arisen that Islam is peaceful and tolerant.?

But I could no longer avoid seeing the totalitarianism, the pure moral framework that is Islam. It regulates every detail of life and subjugates free will. True Islam, as a rigid belief system and a moral framework, leads to cruelty. The inhuman act of those nineteen hijackers was the logical outcome of this detailed system for regulating human behavior. Their world is divided between "Us" and Them"—if you don't accept Islam you should perish.?

It didn't have to be this way. The West underwent a period of religious warfare and persecution, but then society freed itself from the grip of violent organized religion. I assumed—I still assume—that the same process could occur among the millions of Muslims. We Muslims could shed our attachment to those dogmas that clearly lead to ignorance and oppression. In fact, I thought, we were lucky: there were now so many books that Muslims could read and leapfrog the Enlightenment, just as the Japanese have done. We could hold our dogmas up to the light, scrutinize them, and then infuse traditions that are rigid and inhumane with the values of progress and modernity. We could come to terms with individual expression.?

"You're right, and I'm just as confused as you. I'm being operated on for my heart, but it's my head that's hurting." He told me he had?begun attending talks on Islam in Geneva by the French Islamic philosopher Tarek Ramadan. Ramadan is the grandson of Hasan al Banna, who founded the Muslim Brotherhood. After these talks, Abshir said, "I find I'm even more confused. He talks in circles. He says things like 'The Prophet has declared Islam is peace, therefore it's peace.' "

I said, "Yes, but those verses about peace in the Quran apply only to life among the Muslims. The Prophet also said 'Wage war on the unbelievers.' Who are the unbelievers, and who gives the signal to wage war?"?

"But if I'm questioning the holiness of the Quran, that means I also question the existence of Hell and Heaven."

Everything I wrote about Islam turned out to be much more sensitive than any other topic I could have chosen to write about. I changed a couple of terms: I was learning that in these extremely civilized circles, conflict is dealt with in a very ornate and hypocritical manner.?

I began reading everything I could lay my hands on about immigration and integration. Basically, I saw the problem as similar to those of the miye—the rural, poor lands—being brought to the city. European societies, with their thrilling technology, easy money, and bright lights, were decadent and tempting and unassailable, their codes a cipher. The question was how to adapt.?

They seemed clouded by wishful thinking rather than operating with rigorous analysis. A tiny community of so-called experts on immigration in Europe had been quoting each other for decades, it appeared: they shared an approach that was essentially socioeconomic.?

If Muslim immigrants lagged so far behind even other immigrant groups, then wasn't it possible that one of the reasons could be Islam? Islam influences every aspect of believers' lives. Women are denied their social and economic rights in the name of Islam, and ignorant women bring up ignorant children. Sons brought up watching their mother being beaten will use violence. Why was it racist to ask this question? Why was it antiracist to indulge people's attachment to their old ideas and perpetuate this misery? Is the passive, Insh'Allah attitude so prevalent in Islam—"if Allah wills it"—couldn't this also be said to affect people's energy and their will to change and improve the world? If you believe that Allah predestines all, and life on earth is simply a waiting room for the Hereafter, does that belief have no link to the fatalism that so often reinforces poverty??

All humans are not equal in a Muslim school. Moreover, there can be no freedom of expression or conscience. These schools fail to develop creativity—art, drama, music—and they suppress the critical faculties that can lead children to question their beliefs. They neglect subjects that conflict with Islamic teachings, such as evolution and sexuality. They teach by rote, no question, and they instill subservience in girls. They also fail to socialize children to the wider community.

I was making Paul Kalma nervous about my views on education. I no longer sounded right-wing to him; I sounded positive, communist. "Do you realize what Article 23 of the Constitution means to Holland, and to the feelings of the average Dutch person?" he asked me. "Don't you know the history of conflict that preceded it? Do you honestly imagine that article will be modified just because of the integration question?"?

My questions were taboo. According to my upbringing, if I was not a follower of God, I must be a follower of Satan.

My moral compass was within myself, not in the pages of a sacred book.

I was on a psychological mission to accept living without a God, which means accepting that I give my life its own meaning. I was looking for a deeper sense of morality. In Islam you are Allah's slave: you submit, and thus, ideally, you are devoid of personal will. You are not a free individual. You behave well because you fear Hell; you have no personal ethic. If God meant only that which is good, and Satan that which is evil, then both were in me. I wanted to develop the good side of me—discipline, generosity, love—and suppress the bad: anger, envy, laziness, cruelty.

All life is problem-solving, Popper says. There are no absolutes; progress comes through critical thought. Popper admired Kant and Spinoza but criticized them when he felt their arguments were weak. I wanted to be like Popper: free of constraint, recognizing greatness but unafraid to detect its flaws.

The reason, not obedience, should guide our lives. Though it took centuries to crumble, the entire ossified cage of European social hierarchy —from kings to serfs, and between men and women, all of it shored up by the Catholic Church—was destroyed by this thought.

Humans themselves are the source of good and evil, I thought. We must think for ourselves; we are responsible for our own morality. I arrived at the conclusion that I couldn't be honest with others unless I was honest with myself. I wanted to comply with the goals of religion, which are to be a better and more generous person, without suppressing my will and forcing it to obey inhuman rules. I would no longer lie, to myself or others. I had had enough of lying. I was no longer afraid of the Hereafter.?

In March 2002 Pim Fortuyn won a huge victory in local elections in Rotterdam. An almost total newcomer, he booted the Labor Party out of power in Holland's biggest city, and the world's largest port, for the first time since the Second World War. National elections were to be held in May, and Labor went into a flutter of panic.?

Though I would never have voted for him, I saw Fortuyn as mostly attached to a secular society's ideals of justice and freedom.

Pim Fortuyn was a symptom of the failure of the Labor Party and the other established parties in politics to take a clear look at the social situation of immigrants. Although I didn't always agree with his views, I was grateful, actually, that it was Fortuyn talking about some of these issues and not some real racist.

Dutch politics was becoming a mess. Citizens generally felt that established politicians weren't listening to what they really wanted, which was a better health care system, less bureaucracy, and a response to the social problems of immigrants.

What did political responsibility mean, if nobody suffered for a decision that caused thousands of deaths? How could politicians be surprised that people stopped voting for parties that behaved this way?

The elections were due in just nine days, and Fortuyn was now so high in the polls that he could even become prime minister. I felt, however, that even if he did take over the government, it wouldn't last long; he didn't have the experience to handle the job. His own political party was a mess—it didn't even have a proper name—and I had learned in Leiden that in party systems, such one-man candidacies are almost always a flash in the pan.

Two days later, Fortuyn was shot dead in a parking lot outside Holland's largest TV and radio studios.

The minute I heard about Fortuyn's murder I found myself thinking again, "Oh, Allah, please let it not be a Muslim who did this." I was not alone. There was a general sense that if Fortuyn's assassin was a Muslim, hideous things could happen in reprisal: killings, burnings. When we heard that a white animal-rights activist was apparently responsible for the shooting, it seemed as if the whole country let out a collective sigh of relief Wim Kok decided to hold the elections regardless, and Pim Fortuyn's party entered Parliament with twenty-six seats. Labor lost big.

The political arena became populated by people of much less stature and was reduced to personal squabbling and infighting of a kind that had not been seen before.?

My father told Karin that he was receiving threats on my life.

"Hirsi, if you don't do something fast to rein in your daughter, she is going to be killed." At first, Karin didn't tell me about that conversation. Later, when she did let me know, I didn't take it seriously. Who would bother to kill me?

When I was asked for my opinion, I explained that Islam was like a mental cage. At first, when you open the door, the caged bird stays inside: it is frightened. It has internalized its imprisonment. It takes time for the bird to escape, even after someone has opened the doors to its cage.

My father said, "Islam does not say women should be beaten. Islam is a religion of freedom, and peace. You can fight the oppression of women, Ayaan, but you must not link it with Islam."?

I couldn't bear to tell him directly that I no longer believed he was right. I spluttered, "No, it's not that," but my father cut me off He told me he was praying for me, and he told me to pray; then he hung up.?

Karin said, "Don't you realize how small this country is, and how explosive it is, what you're saying?"

Explosive? In a country where prostitution and soft drugs are licit, where euthanasia and abortion are practiced, where men cry on TV and naked people walk on the beach and the pope is joked about on national TV? Where the famous author Gerard Reve is renowned for having fantasized about making love with a donkey, an animal he used as a metaphor for God? Surely nothing I could say would be seen as anything close to "explosive" in such a context. "These people have lived here for years," I told her. "The girls were all wearing tight trousers and T-shirts—they're Westernized. They attend debates. They're accustomed to criticism."

After briefly introducing myself. Frits Barend asked, "So, you came to Holland in 1992 as an asylum seeker. Did you lie, like everybody else did?" I answered that yes, I had lied, about my name and about my story, and I explained why: I was afraid of being sent back to my clan. They seemed to accept that, and after more questions, asked the big one of the day: "Do you agree with Pim Fortuyn that Islam is backward?"

I was taken aback, but answered, "According to the Arab Human Development Report of the UN, if you measure by three things—political freedom, education, and the status of women—then what Pim Fortuyn said is not an opinion, it's a fact."

For a Muslim woman to abjure her faith is the worst kind of disobedience to God because it comes from the lowest, most impure element in society. It cries out for God's punishment.

Everyone seemed to agree that doom was nigh and I was too dumb to have spotted it. I began to feel a little intimidated.

My views became a subject for debate. Some people claimed that all the threats against me were just lies and hype, but many others, whom I didn't even know, seemed to be working now to gather support for me.

Neelie Kroes, a prominent politician from the Liberal Party, which is known in Holland as the WD, is a strong woman, very dignified and determined. Although we had never met, Neelie was outraged that someone in my position would have to leave the country to seek safety. She organized women politicians from all the main political parties in Holland to issue a statement in support of my right to speak freely, in safety.?

I felt disappointed by the Labor Party. I had joined them originally because, in my mind, social democrats stood for reform. They sought to improve people's lives; they cared about suffering, which I thought should have meant they would care about the suffering of Muslim women. But in reality, the Labor Party in Holland appeared blinded by multiculturalism, overwhelmed by the imperative to be sensitive and respectful of immigrant culture, defending the moral relativists. When I said the position of Muslim women had to change—to change how— people were always telling me to wait, or calling me right-wing. Was that what they told the mineworkers in the nineteenth century when they fought for workers' rights??

That night I thought about what Neelie had said. What was I trying to achieve? Three things: first, I wanted Holland to wake up and stop tolerating the oppression of Muslim women in its midst; the government must take action to protect them and punish their oppressors. Second, I wanted to spark a debate among Muslims about reforming aspects of Islam so that people could begin to?question and criticize, their own beliefs. This could happen only in the West, where Muslims may speak out; in no Muslim country can there be a free discussion on such a subject.

Third, I wanted Muslim women to become more aware of just how bad, and how unacceptable, their suffering was. I wanted to help them develop the vocabulary of resistance. I was inspired by Mary Wollstonecraft, the pioneering feminist thinker who told women they had the same ability to reason as men did and deserved the same rights. Even after she published/! Vindication of the Rights of Women, took more than a century before the suffragettes marched for the vote. I knew that freeing Muslim women from their mental cage would take time, too. I didn't expect immediate waves of organized support among Muslim women. People who are conditioned to meekness, almost to the point where they have no mind of their own, sadly have no ability to organize, or will to express their opinion.?

"We don't register murders based on that category of motivation. It would stigmatize one group in society."?

Even Amnesty International didn't keep statistics on how many women around the world were victims of honor killings. They could tell you how many men were imprisoned and tortured, but they couldn't keep tabs on the number of women flogged in public for fornication, or executed for adultery. That wasn't their subject.?

I wanted someone to register domestic violence by ethnic background—and sexual abuse, and incest—and to investigate the number of excisions of little girls that took place every year on Dutch kitchen tables. Once these figures were clear, the facts alone would shock the country.?

The excuse that nobody knew would be removed.

Social democracy is grounded in the rights of groups of people, not individuals. The Liberal Party may not have been as cuddly as Labor, but its philosophy was grounded in the values of personal freedom. My ideas felt comfortable there.?

Every society that is still in the rigid grip of Islam oppresses women and also lags behind in development. Most of these societies are poor; many are full of conflict and war. Societies that respect the rights of women and their freedom are wealthy and peaceful. I decided I would go wherever I had the most ability to effect change. If the Liberal Party was offering me a platform to stand on, then so be it.

Instead of blaming the violence on the men who were burning down houses and murdering people, she blamed the young reporter for making "unfortunate remarks."

Somehow I managed to control myself and read my speech.

They gave me a short bio of each journalist and told me what each was likely to ask. I received a quick education in Liberal Party priorities: the election program, agriculture, housing taxes, and so on. Because I was a Liberal Party candidate, it was normal that what I said to the media should roughly correspond to the Party platform.?

Most of the media thought switching political parties made me an opportunist, and they were watching to see if I screwed up. My first interview was supposed to be a human interest story, but I was asked if I still wanted to ban denominational, religious schools. It was the most sensitive issue in the Netherlands right then. If they won the elections, the Liberals were planning to govern with the Christian Democratic Party, and for the Christian Democrats, faith-based schools were a holy cow. I said I was opposed to this form of schooling. I explained how bad Muslim schools are for education. This set off a small storm about how I wasn't toeing the Liberal Party line, and how I wouldn't make it to the elections.

Gerrit Zaim, the Liberal Party leader, was a stalwart throughout my candidacy and my political career. As a professional politician, he was polished and effective, a real example, and on a human level, he proved himself to be clear-minded and direct. He didn't support me just because I could attract publicity for the Liberals and help them get elected; he never showed any sign of wanting to tidy me into some corner once the election was done, and he has stuck his neck out for me again and again. Throughout my political career, Zaim consistently led battles in support of my causes, from domestic violence to excision.

"You know, I can't agree with everything the Liberals say."

In Holland, voters for each list may, if they wish, indicate a preference for particular candidates. This makes for a complicated calculation because if many voters indicate their support for a candidate, that person can move up on the electoral list. I was sixteenth on the list, but sixth in terms of voters' individual preference—a high score for a newcomer. To be precise, 37,058 Liberal voters picked me to represent them. I felt a rush of strength at this support for my ideas. My combat was legitimate. I could make a difference. I felt the weight of real responsibility.

Imany - Take Care

"Hirsi Ali Calls Prophet Muhammad a Pervert."

In the interview I talked about the Ten Commandments in the Quran, the version of the Ten Commandments passed on to Muslims by the Prophet Muhammad. I described him as a cruel man who demanded absolute power and who stunted creativity by limiting the imagination to only what was permitted. I discussed aspects of his life. Conveniently, Allah helpfully indicated that Muhammad should marry the wife of his adopted son, Zayd. He also allowed the Prophet to marry the six-year-old daughter of his friend Abu Bakr, and to consummate that marriage when the girl, Aisha, was only nine. Aisha's description of the scene is truly pathetic; she was playing on her swing in the garden when her mother called her and placed her on the Prophet's fifty-four-year-old lap. I said, "By our Western standards, Muhammad is a perverse man, and a tyrant."?

Creative people with a dissident message need to get beyond the mental block that prevents them from treating religion like any other subject—and from treating Islam like any other religion. They need to get their own message across with pictures, not just with words, to people who don't, literally or metaphorically, speak their language.?

When you have been brought up to believe that religion and a holy book are absolute, it is difficult to accept that not everyone thinks that way and that no book is completely holy. But this was my point: Muslims needed to think about their beliefs and to think about what these beliefs actually do to human beings.?

Various people raged against aspects of my paper at the meeting, but the alpha males and alpha females declared their support, so the beta males and females mostly subsided into grumbling.?

Most of the letters of support I received were from white Dutch people. I did receive very few letters of support from Muslim women.

As I myself know too / well, it takes a long time to dissolve the bars of a mental cage. Almost all / the angry letters I received were from Muslims. People called me an Uncle Tom, white on the inside, a traitor to my people.

When you think something is holy and special and you're told it's not, if you're not ready for that information —and especially if you're from an honor background—you feel offended

They know the issues, but they simply never address them. They called me a traitor, but it is they who betray Muslims—Muslim women and children.

The film Theo and I made Submission: Part One is first and foremost about the relation of the individual with Allah. In Islam, unlike in Christianity and Judaism, the relationship of the individual to God is one of total submission, slave to master. To Muslims, worship of God means total obedience to Allah's rules and total abstinence from the thoughts and deeds that He has declared forbidden in the Quran. To modernize Islam and adapt it to contemporary ideals would require a dialogue with God, even disagreement with God's rules; but as Islam is conceived, any kind of disagreement with Allah is insolence because it assumes equality with Him.?

I called the film Submission, Part One because submission to Islam causes many other kinds of suffering. I saw this as the first in a series of films that would tackle the master-slave relationship of God and the individual. My message was that the Quran is an act of man, not of God. We should be free to interpret it; we should be permitted to apply it to the modern era in a different way, instead of performing painful contortions to try to recreate the circumstances of a horrible distant past. My intention was to liberate Muslim minds so that Muslim women—and Muslim men, too—might be freer. Men, too, are forced to obey inhumane laws.?

It was a simple film to make. Theo wasn't interested in writing up proposals for grants and subsidies: he said we should just make a ten-minute film and see what happened. I finished the script at the end of July. Theo rented a studio and hired an actress and a makeup woman, and a few props.

Before the Submission aired on TV, I thought it would be courteous to show it to the leaders of the Liberal Party. I also wanted to persuade them that Theo should be given more security because he insisted on keeping his name on the film.?

Then I showed the Submission to the defense minister, Henk Kamp. He was emotionally caught up by the film itself He said, "What a cruel world we live in." It was moving to see him so stirred by it. I asked him "What about security?" and Kamp said, "Muslims have had a lot to take this past year. They've been hardened—they won't react to this." And it seemed to be true. The submission aired on August 29, and there was no huge reaction. Everything seemed to be calm.

"He says something bad has happened to Theo van Gogh. There's been an attack."

"I heard that something happened to Theo van Gogh.,"

"Is he all right?"?

"No. Theo van Gogh is dead."?

If we hadn't made Submission, Theo would still be alive. I felt responsible for his death. I would not undo Submission, but I should have done it under my own name, alone.?

If I had been killed in those immediate few days, Holland could perhaps even have gone up in flames as citizens took up arms against each other—what all governments fear could happen. So I suppose the order was given: "Keep her safe, no matter what."?

"I don't understand half the stuff that happens. Sometimes it feels as if they don't trust me with my own life."

But I have learned that, like every other kind of human pursuit, politics can be an ugly game: clan against clan, party against party, candidate against candidate, with governments falling over trivial issues. Watching power will, I hope, be more agreeable than practicing it.?

The freedom of expression that I found in Holland—the freedom to think—is unknown where I come from. It is a right and practice that I always dreamed of?having as I was growing up. Whatever its flaws, no nation understands the principle of free expression better than the Dutch. It runs so deep in Dutch culture that Holland has chosen to protect me against death threats, even though members of the government constantly tell me how much they disagree with my ideas. I must say how grateful I am: I am lucky and privileged to be Dutch.

Muhammad Bouyeri, Theo's murderer, and others like him don't realize how deeply people in the West are committed to the idea of an open society. Even though the open society is vulnerable, it is also stubborn. It is the place I ran to for safety and freedom. I would like to keep it that way: safe and free.

People are always asking me what it's like to live with death threats. It's like being diagnosed with a chronic disease. It may flare up and kill you, but it may not. It could happen in a week, or not for decades.?

When I was born, my mother initially thought death had taken me away. But it didn't. When I got malaria and pneumonia, I recovered. When my genitals were cut, the wound healed. When a bandit held a knife to my throat, he decided not to slit it. When my Quran teacher fractured my skull, the doctor who treated me kept death at bay.

Even with bodyguards and death threats, I feel privileged to be alive and free.

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