'The Trouble Is the West'
Reason: Should we acknowledge that organized religion has sometimes sparked precisely the kinds of emancipation movements that could lift Islam into modern times? Slavery in the United States ended in part because of opposition by prominent church members and the communities they galvanized. The Polish Catholic Church helped defeat the Jaruzelski puppet regime. Do you think Islam could bring about similar social and political changes?
Hirsi Ali: Only if Islam is defeated. Because right now, the political side of Islam, the power-hungry expansionist side of Islam, has become superior to the Sufis and the Ismailis and the peace-seeking Muslims.
Reason: Don?t you mean defeating radical Islam?
Hirsi Ali: 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.
Reason: We have to crush the world?s 1.5 billion Muslims under our boot? In concrete terms, what does that mean, ?defeat Islam??
Hirsi Ali: I think that we are at war with Islam. And there?s no middle ground in wars. Islam can be defeated in many ways. For starters, you stop the spread of the ideology itself; at present, there are native Westerners converting to Islam, and they?re the most fanatical sometimes. There is infiltration of Islam in the schools and universities of the West. You stop that. You stop the symbol burning and the effigy burning, and you look them in the eye and flex your muscles and you say, ?This is a warning. We won?t accept this anymore.? There comes a moment when you crush your enemy.
Reason: Militarily?
Hirsi Ali: In all forms, and if you don?t do that, then you have to live with the consequence of being crushed.
Reason: Are we really heading toward anything so ominous?
Hirsi Ali: I think that?s where we?re heading. We?re heading there because the West has been in denial for a long time. It did not respond to the signals that were smaller and easier to take care of. Now we have some choices to make. This is a dilemma: Western civilization is a celebration of life?everybody?s life, even your enemy?s life. So how can you be true to that morality and at the same time defend yourself against a very powerful enemy that seeks to destroy you?
Reason: George Bush, not the most conciliatory person in the world, has said on plenty of occasions that we are not at war with Islam.
Hirsi Ali: If the most powerful man in the West talks like that, then, without intending to, he?s making radical Muslims think they?ve already won. There is no moderate Islam. There are Muslims who are passive, who don?t all follow the rules of Islam, but there?s really only one Islam, defined as submission to the will of God. There?s nothing moderate about it.
Reason: So when even a hard-line critic of Islam such as Daniel Pipes says, ?Radical Islam is the problem, but moderate Islam is the solution,? he?s wrong?
Hirsi Ali: He?s wrong. Sorry about that.
Reason: Explain to me what you mean when you say we have to stop the burning of our flags and effigies in Muslim countries. Why should we care?
Hirsi Ali: We can make fun of George Bush. He?s our president. We elected him. And the queen of England, they can make fun of her within Britain and so on. But on an international level, this has gone too far. You know, the Russians, they don?t burn American flags. The Chinese don?t burn American flags. Have you noticed that? They don?t defile the symbols of other civilizations. The Japanese don?t do it. That never happens.
Reason: Isn?t that a double standard? You want us to be able to say about Islam whatever we want?and I certainly agree with that. But then you add that people in Muslim countries should under all circumstances respect our symbols, or else.
Hirsi Ali: No, no, no.
Reason: We should be able to piss on a copy of the Koran or lampoon Muhammad, but they shouldn?t be able to burn the queen in effigy. That?s not a double standard?
Hirsi Ali: No, that?s not what I?m saying. In Iran a nongovernmental organization has collected money, up to 150,000 British pounds, to kill Salman Rushdie. That?s a criminal act, but we are silent about that.
Reason: We are?
Hirsi Ali: Yes. What happened? Have you seen any political response to it?
Reason: The fatwa against Rushdie has been the subject of repeated official anger and protests since 1989.
Hirsi Ali: I don?t know. The British sailors who were kidnapped this year?what happened? Nothing happened. The West keeps giving the impression that it?s OK, so the extremists will get away with it. Saudi Arabia is an economic partner, a partner in defense. On the other hand, they?Saudi Arabia, wealthy Saudi people?spread Islam. They have a sword on their flag. That?s the double standard.
Reason: I want my government to protest the Rushdie fatwa. I?m not so sure they ought to diplomatically engage some idiots burning a piece of cloth or a straw figure in the streets of Islamabad. Isn?t there a huge difference between the two?
Hirsi Ali: It?s not just a piece of cloth. It?s a symbol. In a tribal mind-set, if I?m allowed to take something and get away with it, I?ll come back and take some more. In fact, I?ll come and take the whole place, especially since it?s my holy obligation to spread Islam to the outskirts of the earth and I know I?ll be rewarded in heaven. At that point, I?ve only done my religious obligation while you?re still sitting there rationalizing that your own flag is a piece of cloth.
We have to get serious about this. The Egyptian dictatorship would not allow many radical imams to preach in Cairo, but they?re free to preach in giant mosques in London. Why do we allow it?
Reason: You?re in favor of civil liberties, but applied selectively?
Hirsi Ali: No. Asking whether radical preachers ought to be allowed to operate is not hostile to the idea of civil liberties; it?s an attempt to save civil liberties. A nation like this one is based on civil liberties, and we shouldn?t allow any serious threat to them. So Muslim schools in the West, some of which are institutions of fascism that teach innocent kids that Jews are pigs and monkeys?I would say in order to preserve civil liberties, don?t allow such schools.
Reason: In Holland, you wanted to introduce a special permit system for Islamic schools, correct?
Hirsi Ali: I wanted to get rid of them. I wanted to have them all closed, but my party said it wouldn?t fly. Top people in the party privately expressed that they agreed with me, but said, ?We won?t get a majority to do that,? so it never went anywhere.
Reason: Well, your proposal went against Article 23 of the Dutch Constitution, which guarantees that religious movements may teach children in religious schools and says the government must pay for this if minimum standards are met. So it couldn?t be done. Would you in fact advocate that again?
Hirsi Ali: Oh, yeah.
Reason: Here in the United States, you?d advocate the abolition of?
Hirsi Ali: All Muslim schools. Close them down. Yeah, that sounds absolutist. I think 10 years ago things were different, but now the jihadi genie is out of the bottle. I?ve been saying this in Australia and in the U.K. and so on, and I get exactly the same arguments: The Constitution doesn?t allow it. But we need to ask where these constitutions came from to start with?what?s the history of Article 23 in the Netherlands, for instance? There were no Muslim schools when the constitution was written. There were no jihadists. They had no idea.
Reason: Do you believe that the U.S. Constitution, the Bill of Rights?documents from more than 200 ago?ought to change?
Hirsi Ali: They?re not infallible. These Western constitutions are products of the Enlightenment. They?re products of reason, and reason dictates that you can only progress when you can analyze the circumstances and act accordingly. So now that we live under different conditions, the threat is different. Constitutions can be adapted, and they are, sometimes. The American Constitution has been amended a number of times. With the Dutch Constitution, I think the latest adaptation was in 1989. Constitutions are not like the Koran?nonnegotiable, never-changing.
Look, in a democracy, it?s like this: I suggest, ?Let?s close Muslim schools.? You say, ?No, we can?t do it.? The problem that I?m pointing out to you gets bigger and bigger. Then you say, ?OK, let?s somehow discourage them,? and still the problem keeps on growing, and in another few years it gets so bad that I belatedly get what I wanted in the first place.
I respect that it needs to happen this way, but there?s a price for the fact that you and I didn?t share these insights earlier, and the longer we wait, the higher the price. In itself the whole process is not a bad thing. People and communities and societies learn through experience. The drawback is, in this case, that ?let?s learn from experience? means other people?s lives will be taken.
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