...I began receiving physical threats: “You are no longer a Muslim, you are an apostate, you must be killed.” Finally, in 2004, the Dutch director Theo van Gogh and I created the film Submission focused on violence against Muslim women. Van Gogh was killed by a Dutch-born Islamic fundamentalist on a street in Amsterdam because of it.Read the rest HERE.
Before van Gogh’s death I was placed under intense security. Afterward I was put in a virtual prison to keep me safe. The logical thing was for me to emigrate somewhere else, where I could be free and safe: I found that in America. In 2006 the American Enterprise Institute, a think tank based in Washington, D.C., offered me a job, a community of scholars, an application for a visa. The AEI raised money to pay for private protection, which I still have to this day. In terms of shelter and protection, this country has been so absolutely wonderful to me.
Today, I pursue the work of my foundation, which I established in 2007. Our mission is to protect and defend the rights of women and girls in the West from oppression and violence justified by religion and culture. By religion, I mean, first and foremost, militant Islam.
For me America is a place of refuge and a great nation. I say this without being blind to the problems we have in this country. But the people I have encountered here have given me protection, friendship, love. I feel not only safe, but also absolutely free to lead the life I wanted.
The essay isn't hard-hitting. However, I surmise that people who read Smithsonian don't read a lot of anti-jihad material. Maybe some of those people reading Ayaan Hirsi Ali's essay as they are waiting in a doctor's office or visiting the public library will go to the Internet to learn more or, better yet, buy one of her books.
By the way, an essay by Ayaan Hirsi Ali also recently appeared in Newsweek. You can ready that essay HERE.
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