Ayaan Hirsi Ali: "I Absolutely Won't Adapt"

The moderate Dutch parliamentarian spoke with NRC Handelsblad in a teary-eyed but reflective interview about her personal situation, political future, and Holland's current social climate. It was her first interview since she went into hiding almost a month ago (article in Dutch). She is doing a follow-up project to "Submission", the controversial film about how Islam promotes violence against women, made with murdered filmmaker Theo van Gogh. Submission II will be how Islam oppresses individual freedom, with women at the center.

The self-described "lapsed Muslim" is especially busy writing a book, Shortcut to Enlightenment. She said that both Judaism and Christianity have undergone the difficult task of modernization. "And the challenge for liberals [in the European sense, which means limited government] before the people of the Enlightenment that believe in reason, is Islam," MP Hirsi Ali said. She will continue her goal to abolish or phase out Islamic education in the Netherlands.

The Somali-born politician says that she is not being held in hiding against her will, as some of her friends claim the Dutch government is doing to maintain public order. MP Hirsi Ali says that she is spiritually in order, and hasn't mentally collapsed (as some Dutch media reports claim). She is disturbed by claims that she insults Muslim men with her work. She also clarifies her 2002 comments calling Mohammed a "pedophile," discussing historical context.

MP Hirsi Ali has gone into hiding several times - including fleeing to USA after her "Mohammed was a perverse tyrant" comments - because of numerous death threats. An Islamic extremist shot and nearly beheaded Mr. Van Gogh on November 2, and left a five-page death threat letter to her. A police raid recently undercovered a conspiracy to murder her and other politicians.