Zomergasten (Summer Guests) is a three-hour live interview programme, which had its 17th season this year with six episodes. Each episode features one guest who composes his or her ideal television evening by selecting excerpts from his or her favourite documentaries, feature films and television-programmes. The programme does not have any commercial breaks. Host of Zomergasten is Joost Zwagerman, a well-known author in the Netherlands. One of this year's guests was politician Ms. Ayaan Hirsi Ali. She was elected as a Conservative member of the Dutch Parliament in January 2003. Ms. Hirsi Ali was born in Somalia and came to the Netherlands as a refugee in 1992.
 
Shortly before her appearance in Zomergasten ms. Hirsi Ali and Theo van Gogh finished the short film Submission part 1. Ms. Hirsi Ali wrote the script, Van Gogh directed the film.
 
Ayaan Hirsi Ali insisted on showing her film, Submission part 1, in her Zomergasten evening. Not in the least, because she would be given the opportunity to comment on the motives that made her decide to make this film, in her discourse with Joost Zwagerman.
 
Theo van Gogh has been murdered and Member of Parliament Ayaan Hirsi Ali cannot appear in public nor in Parliament because of the death threats she receives. The events have alarmed the Netherlands and have stirred a wave of publicity and commotion abroad. For that reason, the editorial staff of Zomergasten has decided to place an English translation of the interview on the website, so as to enable people on an international level to learn about the context that Ayaan Hirsi Ali had in mind when making Submission part 1.
 
Many people reacted after the presentation of Submission part 1 in Zomergasten. We received over 500 emails, the largest part of which was positive or positive with a critical note. Five of the reactions were hate mail.
In the newspapers there were fierce debates on the film Submission part 1.
Shortly before the murder of Van Gogh, Ayaan Hirsi Ali published an article in the Volkskrant (a national newspaper) in which she responded to all the reactions.
She asked us to publish this article on the website in English as well. We gladly grant her our cooperation.
 
On behalf of the editorial staff of Zomergasten,
 
Peter van Ingen,
 
Editor in chief
 

BELOW YOU WILL FIND A TRANSCRIPT OF THE CONVERSATION BETWEEN AYAAN HIRSI ALI AND JOOST ZWAGERMAN FOLLOWING THE FILM SUBMISSION, PART ONE.

Earlier this evening we spoke briefly about the profile on you yesterday in NRC Handelsblad, it was a balanced profile. But on the front page of the newspaper we read: “New provocation by Ayaan Hirsi Ali”. What did you think when you read that?
 
I didn’t mean it as a provocation. Before I elaborate on what I meant by it… It’s a little film. You see a woman who is standing on her prayer mat and who turns to her Creator. She’s about to pray and she symbolises many women. Many women who inspired me. I’ve visited many houses that shelter women and I spoke with them. They say: “I submit to Allah and then everything will be alright”. You see a woman in a transparent veil and I wanted it to be transparent to say, “this is a woman”. She has feet, calves, knees, a belly button and breasts. Just a little peek for the viewers. She is a human being and at the same time that is part of her identity in Islam. It is exactly what she must hide and the consequences are hard. And this woman is saying: “Allah, I submit to you, but this is what’s happening, I’m being beaten, I’m forced into marriage, I have to be available all the time for a man I didn’t choose. I fall in love and am punished and the punishment is in your book. I’ve always obeyed the rules but then an uncle of mine moves in with us and my father says: “his honour is more important”. And then she says: “I have always submitted to you and yet you abandon me”.

This is the sum of the misery that you saw as a translator/interpreter, but the impression that I get from the film is that all that misery can be condensed in one life, or am I wrong?
 
That’s not how I meant it. You can see it as the sum of what has happened over the ages. It’s about the morale, the Holy Book. The Koran says “this is how a woman should behave” and as long as people think that, this will not change.

Should we see this woman as a symbol?
 
A symbol, yes. A symbol. That is what I want to show in ten minutes: for instance the calligraphy, it’s very beautiful but complex at the same time. Sometimes, behind that beauty lies cruelty, not so much for the viewer but for the Muslim woman. I want to show this in Iran and Saudi Arabia, I want to show it to women who live under the sharia and also to other women, smart women.”

Is that the audience you’re aiming at?
 
That’s why I did it in English.

The Dutch Muslim woman as well?
 
Yes, also the Dutch Muslim woman. That’s what the veil symbolises. Take a look behind the veil; what goes on in that mind?

But you do present that target group in Holland and abroad with a dilemma. Perhaps the style can divert from the contents. We see a naked woman with quotes from the Koran written on her body. From an Islamic point of view that is blasphemous. Aren’t you afraid that the style diverts from the contents?
 
If you want to stir up a discussion, you have to stimulate people to start thinking. You have to do things that present them with a dilemma. And not by means of violence or something like that but by means of words and images and that’s what I do. There is of course a possibility people will say: “the way she has done it, doesn’t make it interesting for me anymore”. But I am also certain that there are women who cannot turn their heads, who do not look merely at the style.

You don’t want to reach out to the men?
 
I certainly do. That would be very nice. How these men, but not all men… I really want to stress that not all Muslims beat their wives. And neither do all Dutch men or Christians or Catholics. But it is very important that Muslims, men and women, in the Muslim world are confronted with what is written in the holy texts. The Koran says: “beat your wife if she does not obey you, the man is superior to the woman”. These are very important elements that I think should be looked at.

That’s clear. But the question remains whether the style can divert from the message. Because that’s what we saw yesterday in NRC Handelsblad. Deputy Prime Minister Gerrit Zalm said literally: “well, that naked body…
 
He added to that very clearly “not my cup of tea”. He has the same fear: “it doesn’t divert me, the message is clear, but it could divert men, or other people.” But I say to that, well, yes, it diverts… There are of course people who benefit from unequal relations between men and women in Islamic culture and they will always hide behind the style or something else. But I would like to talk about the facts. It’s a fact that those texts exist and that they are applied.
Maybe. Your words now are very balanced, which is perhaps a bit in contrast with what you said yesterday: “The entire Muslim world will criticise me.”
In another context. I said: “it is possible that the Islamic world will criticise me.” Certainly not the entire Muslim world, but a part of it. I was raised with the Koran, the Holy Book. Allah’s word is most high, the highest there is and at the same time you have this image of the woman being the dirtiest, lowest of God’s creatures. If you combine that, it’s sacrilegious.

Blasphemous.
 
And then you have the prayer. That requires a certain procedure, and those are the elements that arouse the attention of Muslims, to make them look at the Holy Texts.

Their attention is aroused, but given their religion they’ll feel the urge to turn away because of the style. But anyway, I don’t think we will agree on this matter. Now for something else. People have often said about you: “Ayaan Hirsi Ali is so fierce because of her background. Look at what she has been through. Because of that background it is very understandable that she says what she says.” What do you have to say to that?
 
The human soul is impenetrable and I think we shouldn’t speculate about the subconscious, but that we should focus on facts and statements. And the facts are there and those texts are in the Koran. A large majority of Muslim women in the world are beaten and oppressed. I think it’s time… I think it’s good, also given my liberal belief, to address this matter. Many people are prepared to support me in this and there are many people who say: “ we feel hurt.” I am always prepared to explain to those hurt why I am doing this.

I hear you talking and I get the feeling that you still identify with your religion, even though you announced a year and a half ago that you had renounced religion. Freek de Jonge (a Dutch comedian) once said, in an entirely different context - he is the son of a vicar: “I miss God, we miss God.”
 
I don’t miss God. God represented for me fear and an afterlife and he was also consolation and an afterlife that was very promising for women: grapes and dates that I can buy on the market. This has changed. But apart from the religion… I said: “I’m going into politics and I shall battle the oppression of women and my priority till 2007 shall be: the Muslim women in Holland first and later abroad.” So I don’t think I’m being very irreligious if I do my best. Actually, what I’m trying to say is: I’m just doing my job.

What you’re trying to say is: “it doesn’t matter if I’m religious or not. This is my case, this is my mission.”
 
The only things that matter in a democracy are facts and statements. I don’t use a violent style. These are words and images.

But still. I’m very curious. When you said that you no longer believed, what feeling prevailed? Relief, happiness, triumph or was there also a sense of mourning? It may sound melodramatic, but you can mourn for something that you have lost. The certainties of a particular religion.
 
No. I did have certainties, but I also had the agony of religion. Maybe I didn’t believe these past ten years, because I didn’t obey the rules, but I postponed the moment in order to think it over. Relief, loss. To me my identity is something dynamic that can evolve throughout the years and I have of course new certainties and uncertainties. Just like any other human being.

The title role read: script: Ayaan Hirsi, direction: Theo Van Gogh, Submission Part 1. Will there be a part 2, part 3 and part 4?
 
Yes, I would like to make a series. Primarily with Theo van Gogh who in my opinion is one of the soldiers who fight for freedom of speech in Holland and a genius, a brilliant director. But I am not going to tell you what it will be about.”
 
ARTICLE BY AYAAN HIRSI ALI IN THE DUTCH PAPER

De Volkskrant – October 30, 2004

“I QUESTION ISLAM, A RELIGION WITHOUT SELF-REFLECTION. CRITICISM AGAINST ISLAM SHOULD COME FROM WITHIN, FROM PEOPLE WHO WERE RAISED WITH ISLAM, WHO SEE THE BLEMISHES”

Two months ago, Ayaan Hirsi Ali showed in Zomergasten (Summer Guests) her film Submission Part 1 that she had made with director Theo van Gogh. The film is an indictment of the position of women in Islam. The film gained much support but also evoked fierce reactions, nationally and internationally. The style she chose, Koran texts on women’s bodies, lead to the question whether Hirsi Ali chose the right way to achieve her goal. Today she responds for the first time to all the criticism.
 
My parents raised me with the notion that Islam is morally, socially and spiritually the most beautiful way of life. Years later I learned that the beauty of the face of Islam was blemished by ugly moles. But those who practice my parents’ religion do not see these cosmetic flaws. They play down the abuses in Islam by stressing that it’s not the religion’s fault, but that believers mess things up. In Islamic morality the sharia and the religious community make the individual subordinate to the demands of Allah. They do not trust the Muslim individual with anything: there are even rules that tell him how to sit, eat, sleep and travel; with whom he may or may not relate; which thoughts and feelings he may and may not have. What Allah and his prophet didn’t think about, is defined by the religious community, which is made up of his family and all other Muslims in the entire world. A Moroccan Muslim, who drinks a beer at a place where there are no other Moroccans, can be corrected by someone from Sudan or Afghanistan, just because this coincidental witness happens to be a Muslim.
This disregard of the individual Muslim is most strong in the relationship between the two genders. The sexual morality of Islam focuses very strongly on chastity. Sex is only allowed within marriage. In practice, women are more strongly confined than men. For instance, men can marry four wives, but not vice versa. Compared to that of non-Islamic women, the position of the Muslim woman is really bad.
Just like others, Muslims too are influenced by scientific progress. Muslims, who can afford it, make ample use of technological developments such as cars and airplanes. They live in modern houses and use machines and computers. But unlike Christianity and Jewry, the moral framework of Islam did not develop accordingly. Each Muslim is raised, as was the case in the early years of Islam, with the conviction that all knowledge can be found in the Koran, that it is not allowed to criticise the Koran and that each Muslim (also in 2004) should imitate as much as possible the life of the founder of Islam. In practice only few manage to behave exactly as the prophet used to do in the 7th century. This upbringing has lead to a serious restriction of human curiosity amongst Muslims. Any progress a Muslim makes is rejected by other Muslims and seen as in conflict with the religion. The religion has remained static.
People who deny this were challenged by critical outsiders after 9/11, to name one Muslim who had found a breakthrough in the field of science and technology, one Muslim who had changed the world or the arts. Those Muslims do not exist. In a religious community of over 1,2 billion people, it is not the knowledge, progress and prosperity that stand out, but poverty, violence and decline. To change that, it is necessary to change the moral framework of Muslim parents in raising their children. It is not only necessary for the well-being of Muslims that they learn to look at Islam with a critical eye, but it is also urgent for all other inhabitants of this world, because Muslims are involved in almost all current wars in the world. Most Muslims live in misery: hunger, diseases, overpopulation, unemployment. In their countries of origin Muslims are the victims of oppressive regimes that are sometimes based on the sharia. Most Muslims do not have access to proper education and they are often illiterate. It can no longer be denied that Muslims very often (absolutely unintentionally) are responsible for this misery. A profound analysis of Islam and the revision of many beliefs in that religion, that keep religious people imprisoned in a cycle of violence and poverty, offer Muslims the possibility to get rid of the oppression of the individual and to come to a sexual morality that offers men, women, heterosexuals and homosexuals equality.
This criticism should come from within, from the people who were raised with Islam and who see the blemishes of their culture. People who did have an education and who have been in touch with non-Muslims. People who pursued their own individual happiness and who know how hard it is to respond to the inner urge for freedom and be a good Muslim at the same time. People who live in a free country and do not have to fear immediately for their lives when they express their thoughts in public. These critics of Islam should keep in mind though that an ancient culture that does not know self-reflection will not welcome them warmly. They will be seen as traitors and deserters.
What should that self-reflection be like? I think that everything is acceptable, except physical and verbal violence. One can use words (novels, non-fiction, poetry, and comics), images (film, cartoons, paintings, art etc) and sound.
The film Submission Part 1 that I made with Theo van Gogh suits my aspiration to question the ethics that were central in my upbringing. It is not my goal to transform Muslims into atheists, but to show the ugly blemishes, such as the bad treatment of women. I observed a connection between the regulations in the Koran that a disobedient woman should be beaten, the explanation of this in the hadith (traditions of Mohammed) and the actual practice of violent Muslim men referring to the Koran if they are talked to about their conduct. Victims of violence justify the fact they have been beaten by referring to the Koran and return to their husbands and promise to mend their ways in the future.
Many critical reactions after showing Submission in Zomergasten, two months ago now, welcome the fact that the oppression of Muslim women is combated, but they ask themselves whether the strategy chosen by me is constructive. They put criticism of the drawbacks of Islam on the same footing as defeatism. They blame critics of the drawbacks of Islam for pessimism and point to third generation Muslims (in the Netherlands, ed.) who do not spend the whole day in the mosque and combine a crop top with a headscarf. But I am not a defeatist. On the contrary, I am an optimist. Criticism will humanize Islam. Criticism of Islam does not implicate a rejection of the faithful but only of those Islamic views that, if they are transformed into behaviour, have inhuman consequences.
Others have warned me, in reaction to Submission, for the unintentional effect of criticism of Islam: Islamophobes will take advantage of my criticism of Islam to discriminate against Muslims and make Islam appear in a bad light. This may be the case, but it is not my intention to play into the hands of Islamophobes, on the contrary, but to urge Muslims with inciting texts and images to reconsider their own part in the underprivileged position they find themselves in. The risk of Islamophobes or racists using my work does not stop me from making Submission II. No more than a journalist who rightfully insists on openness in a liberal democracy (Guantánamo Bay) would let himself be stopped by the worries of the government that transparency of policy could be abused by enemies of freedom.
It is striking that this group of critics, among whom (Dutch Labour Member of Parliament and Muslim Kadija, ed.) Arib and (Dutch Labour member of parliament and Muslim Nebahat, ed.) Al-Bayrak, do not offer an alternative strategy of which the effectiveness has been proved. They are obsessed by the pain easily offended smooth-talking prattlers, like the Dutch AEL (Arab European League) leader Nabil Marmouch claim to feel, but ignore the pain of the victims of violence, who are also brainwashed to the extent that they ‘voluntarily’ subject themselves to a doctrine that lies at the bottom of their distressing circumstances.
These Islamic ‘social democrats’ look away from the Muslim woman of about 23 years old who cannot read or write. Crouched she sits in a corner of women’s shelter somewhere in The Netherlands. Hardly three years ago she was snatched from her family in a rural area of a Muslim country from one day to the next. She was accommodated in an apartment in a poor area somewhere in a large city with a man who was alien to her and whom she had to marry.
When this husband frequently beat her police brought her to the women’s shelter. In the women’s shelter this woman sits in a corner and watches how her stressed baby crawls about. She hardly reacts to the irritated looks of her housemates and the exhortations of the relief workers to keep an eye on her child. This woman is not only homeless; she cannot go back to her family in her native country because she now belongs to her husband.
In the difficult conversations about her future and that of her child, that take place through an interpreter, she says she trusts in Allah. ‘Allah brought me in these circumstances and if I am patient he will rescue me from this misery. I only have to obey him.’ In Submission I try to show how submitting to Allah works.
Another variation on the ‘do-not-offend-Muslims-strategy’ is the claim that Muslims are put under severe pressure since 9/11.They feel like they are driven into a corner. They are called to account for actions of people who call themselves Muslims and are up to nasty things in faraway countries. Criticism on the position of Muslim women is good in itself, but my timing would be wrong. This argument is incorrect. Muslims in The Netherlands are not put into a corner. They enjoy enough freedom of religion and they enjoy the unprecedented prosperity of the western secular state. By the way: as long as Muslims are not in charge here, they will permanently feel offended.
The reactions of many Muslims to people who show them ugly moles on the face of Islam are fiercely negative. If they do not threaten with physical violence they fall into verbal abuse. It was the same in the case of Submission. Official spokesmen of several Muslim organizations in The Netherlands (of which nobody knows exactly who they represent, like Mohamed Sini of Islam en Burgerschap (Islam and Citizenship)) said about this film, ‘Hirsi Ali misses the mark with the production of this film. In itself it is good to discuss the position of women in Islam. But to devout people this is an enormous shock and many people will immediately be on the defensive. This spoils the debate in The Netherlands. It would be a good thing to return to the normal proportions. I do not know her motives, but I regard it as pure provocation.’
Nabil Marmouch of the Dutch branch of the AEL says, ‘The discussion about the position of Islam is spoiled by the provocation of Hirsi Ali. This can be expected from Theo van Gogh. He never thinks in a constructive manner. But she is a representative of the people. I do not understand what has gotten into her to insult the million of Muslims in The Netherlands.’ Marmouch maintains that, apart from excesses, there is not that much wrong with the position of women in the Islamic world. ‘Dutch people who want to know a little more about this, should not only go by the word of Hirsi Ali. She projects her bizarre experiences onto the whole group.’
These reactions are very predictable. It does not matter if those who say something about Submission have actually seen it or not. It does not matter if it was a film, a piece of text or another form of criticism of Islam. They all deny the biggest stain on Islam, i.e. they way in which women are seen and treated. The leaders of Muslim organizations warn that Muslims will not tolerate the images of women with Koran texts. What they have been tolerating for ages is the actual applying of the texts onto the bodies of the actresses in Submission.
The lashes on the bodies of ‘indecent’ women, the systematic maltreatment of ‘disobedient’ women, the rape within the marriage made available by Allah and expelling or killing girls and women who are victims of incest in order to save the family’s ‘honour’.
The representatives of the Muslim organizations not only ignore the message of Submission, but also the fact that large groups of Muslim women are lodged in women’s shelters, that many Muslim women are dumped in their native country without money and with the care of the children. The judicial authorities, forced by Muslim organizations, since otherwise their following might be offended, do not register the number of cases of blood and honour revenge.
The RIAGG’s (Regional institutes for mental welfare) know, as psychiatrist Carla Rus wrote (Forum 17 September) that many Muslim girls fall victim to incest and arranged marriages, and that they are transported to their native country by their fathers in order to get killed over there. The hidden agenda of the conservative spokespersons of Muslim organizations is the same as those of the Muslim schools: Allow Dutch Muslims a free hand over Muslim girls and women. These organized enemies of women subscribe to the silent consensus that also applies in Islamic countries: that it is up to the family how they treat their girls and women. If the behaviour of girls and women only slightly questions the honour of the family, fathers, brothers or other men decide what to do with her. The Koran texts not only serve as a justification of the violence against women, but also to reconcile the consciences of the offenders and the passive onlookers.
By raising the Holy Scriptures above criticism, the spokespersons of Muslim organizations succeed in maintaining the spirit and actual practice of repressing women, both in and outside The Netherlands.
The heart of the matter is that most Muslim men do not regard the way in which they treat women as ‘suppression’, ‘abuse’ or ‘murder’ but see it as a righteous answer to the behaviour of women. A Muslim woman knows what is right and what not. If she chooses to behave in a way that does not correspond to the regulations, it results in punishment. The words of Marmouch that ‘apart from excesses, there is not that much wrong with the position of women in the Islamic world’ are significant in this respect.
I also received reactions from Muslims who think I pay too much attention to the negative sides of Islam. They wonder why I do not worry about intolerance within Christianity or Jewry. Their conclusion runs: it is not about improvement of the position of the woman but about making the Islam appear in a bad light
Certainly, there are anti-female texts in the Bible and in the Talmud. It is a given fact that there are Christian communities in The Netherlands (and elsewhere in the world) who take the holy texts as literal as many a Muslim. They also hold sexual morals that resemble those of Sharia country Saudi Arabia as two peas in a pod. This group also treats women badly, rejects any form of progression and is intolerant against homosexuals.
But it is a pity that these Muslim critics do not carry through their comparative investigation. Because then they would find out that the size of the text followers within the Jewish and Christian world is many times smaller than in the Islamic world. The Christian and Jewish god is tamed and driven away to the private conscience of the devotee.
Nowadays he is called ‘love’ or ‘something’ and his followers have abolished hell. The communities of Christian and Jewish believers have lost their grip on the individual. The preachers, reverends and rabbis have not done this voluntarily. The liberty of conscience of the individual, the search for knowledge and bending nature to the will has been dearly won. A battle that started with words.
Most women born in originally Jewish-Christian countries can easily walk the streets on their own, enjoy the same education as men, reap the benefits of their work, choose with whom they want to share their lives and determine their own sexual lives, whether they want to have children and if so, how many. Most women of Jewish or Christian origin travel the world, buy their own houses and have their own possessions. This does not apply to everyone, but it does to the majority. But this only applies to a very small minority of women who were born in Muslim families.
Jewish and Christian women achieved this by criticising their holy scriptures, ridiculing them, and by showing that many texts in the Bible and the Talmud do not hold water. The texts have been preserved but the ideas about the roles of the sexes have progressed. When Jewish and Christian people discovered the image they also used this to hold their religion and culture against the light. Again and again the people who had an interest in the old situation, said that the texts, images and behaviour of the critics were ‘offensive’, ‘sinful’, and ‘radical’. For a long time the church has argued that the faithful should ignore the critics. Just like Muslim organizations do with my film.
There must have been people in the history of the Jewish and Christian search for relief by introspection who said that the strategy of analysing holy texts, in order to demonstrate how ridiculous, cruel or unjust they are, had a contrary effect. I copied my strategy from the Jewish-Christian criticism against absolutism based on religion. Submission part I should be viewed from that perspective. How successful the strategy chosen by me is, will be obvious to anyone who knows the history of Western religious criticism.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali is a member of the Dutch Lower House for the VVD (People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy) and author of De Zoontjesfabriek (2002, The Son Factory) and De Maagdenkooi (2004, The Virgin Cage)