Q&A With Ayaan Hirsi Ali

Q: You made a short film with Theo van Gogh, called Submission, that featured Koran verses written on a woman's torso. After it aired on Dutch television in 2004, a radical Islamist impaled a written threat against your life on a knife plunged into van Gogh's body. Did you have any idea the movie would provoke a lethal response?

A: I thought it was going to provoke discussion and debate, but I didn't expect a murder. I live with the threat, and especially with the feelings of guilt about Theo, thinking that I should have been much more prudent. Then again, through out the history of Islam, many people who wanted to change anything were threatened, exiled, killed, humiliated, locked up, or called mad. So there's this permanent stagnation of thought-nothing progresses. Submission was not worth a human life. I have learned that the best thing is to go on doing what I'm doing, but more carefully.

Q: As a Somali-born member of the Dutch parliament, you spoke out about how Islam violated women's rights.

A: People were hearing immigrants say the same thing [about assimilation] over and over. I said, "Certain things about Muslim culture, the way we treat our women and practice our faith, make it difficult for us to assimilate into Dutch society." It caused a huge commotion, which I have not been able to recover from in Holland.

Q: In Infidel, you write about your grandmother overseeing your genital mutilation in Somalia when you were 5. Was this typical for little girls there?

A: There are 6000 girls mutilated every day; according to the U.N., 135 million girls have been mutilated. Those who practice it see it as cleansing. I try to explain in the book how my grandmother believed she was doing us a big favor.