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Monday May 15, 11:47 PMHirsi Ali to work in U.S. from Sept.(Kyodo) _ Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a Dutch member of parliament who is known for her short movie "Submission" on the role of women in Islam and for her fight for a more liberal Islamism, will work for a conservative think tank in Washington starting Sept. 1, the Dutch daily De Volkskrant reported Monday, citing her website."My message reaches the people only in a distorted way, I seem to destroy more than I can make up for," she said earlier this year in the same newspaper. Ayaan Hirsi Ali, of Somalian descent, came to the Netherlands in 1992 and gained Dutch citizenship in 1997. In October 2002, Hirsi Ali switched from the Dutch Labour Party to the Liberal party. She maintained that the Labour Party, which was always defending a multicultural society, did not know enough about the Islamic community. "I like the fact that the liberals watch the individual rather than a community. In this country, in this democracy, everyone has the right to be a free and responsible civilian," she said in an exclusive interview with Kyodo News last March in her office in The Hague. Since 2003, she has had a seat in parliament for the liberal VVD party. In 2004, she made a movie with Dutch filmmaker Theo Van Gogh on Islamism. Later that year, Van Gogh was killed in Amsterdam by an Muslim extremist. Hirsi Ali lives in constant hiding and under heavy guard since. "Right after the murder I was moved to the United States, later I came back and changed from hotel to hotel every night. I even stayed in a marine casern for a while as well as in a house close to the Israeli Embassy, one of the most protected buildings of Holland," she said in March to Kyodo. She will work for the American Enterprise Institute in Washington. She recently lost a court case set in by the neighbors of her apartment block who were protesting the fact that Hirsi Ali was living in their neighborhood, claiming this was a serious threat for their safety. Hirsi Ali was to leave her apartment in The Hague at the end of August. Last week, Hirsi Ali told Dutch press that she did not tell the truth about her past when entering the Netherlands. Politicians, including Minister for Integration Rita Verdonk of her own Liberal party, stated the procedure of her naturalization in that case had to be reviewed. A discussion erupted in Dutch politics about whether or not she could stay in parliament as a member or parliament. Chances she would lose Dutch citizenship are small, however, specialists say, as the time to appeal is over. She will announce her departure from the Netherlands officially on Tuesday. Reactions to her decision differ from optimism about her new career to indifference. The spokesman for European Union Commissioner Neelie Kroes, member of the VVD and the one who asked Hirsi Ali to come to her party, on Monday showed understanding of her "being economical with the truth." "Even if Hirsi Ali lived through three rather than through five wars, still she is someone who had to endure a lot. She did not exactly grow up in a nice Amsterdam suburb, from where she could bicycle to school happily every day," he reportedly said. |
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