Ayaan Hirsi Ali: A (living) martyr with a cause...

Last night, I was riveted to a BBC interview with Somali-born Dutch MP Ayaan Hirsi Ali. And here’s why:

In 1989, Iranian leader and self-annointed Islamic lawgiver, Ayatollah Khomeini, issued a Fatwa (death warrant) against author Salman Rushdie for writing a book, Satanic Verses, that the Ayotallah deemed “a blasphemy against Islam”. Since then, however, Rushdie has lived the gilded life of an international cause celebre (complete with 24/7 bodyguards – provided by Scotland Yard - that must make P Diddy blush with envy). And, for many in his jet-set circle, shaking the hand of Salman Rushdie has become as coveted as one might imagine touching the garment of Jesus might have been.

Meanwhile, as I wrote in this previous article, the Ayatollah’s overly-zealous disciples issued a similar fatwa last year against Hirsi Ali after they deemed her film, Submission, Part I, an insult to Islam. And to demonstrate their conviction about this fatwa, Muslim thugs promptly assassinated the acclaimed director of the film, Theo van Gogh, and knifed a message in his corpse informing Hirsi Ali that she was next.

Naturally, at this point, most people expected Hirsi Ali to flee, like Rushdie, to the insulating vortex of New York City – with full security accoutrements. Instead, she not only refused to leave the danger zone, but actually defied her Muslim (would-be) assassins by vowing to write and produce more Submission films to further expose the nihilistic, chauvinistic, misogynistic and atavistic interpretations of the Koran that pass for Islamic orthodoxy in many Muslim countries today.

Indeed, Hirsi Ali attributes her confrontational activism to the rude awakening she experienced in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, when she realised that Bin Laden culled much of his jihadist rhetoric from the Koran. Here’s how she described that pivotal moment:

"I grabbed the Koran and I started to read what Bin Laden had written and...I put (his) citations next to what is written in the Koran and I realised that, yes, a lot of it is part of my religion and what do I think of that?"

Therefore, it is an interesting juxtaposition to see Rushdie being fêted by New York's secular elites and continuing to write his Islamic fiction; whilst Hirsi Ali works in relative obscurity and isolation as a Dutch legislator and continues her mission “to reform Islam…from pre-modern to modern - [a transition that] Judaism and Christianity have gone through.”

And, as for her safety, Hirsi Ali is as philosophical as she is heroic:

"It's like the sword of Damocles that hangs above my head. I do realise that…I live like someone who has been told 'you have some kind of terminal disease - we just don't know when it's going to strike'."

As living martyrs go, who gets your sympathy and respect?

Click here to listen to Hirsi Ali in her own words. It’s only 30 minutes and well worth the time because she not only addresses conflicts within Islam but also explains how this great religion has been hijacked by suicidal fanatics to use as a torpedo against western civilization.

And, click here to read Shay's post at the Booker Rising blog on Hirsi Ali's recognition by Reader's Digest as the European Of The Year 2006.

Note from CNN: Click here to read my 2006 predictions. And, please take note of the segment on the Caribbean because my main prediction for this region is about to come to pass as Caribbean leaders convene this week to decide the fate of regional integration….

Technorati: Salman Rushdie, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Submission