Born under fundamentalist religious law in Somalia in 1969, Ayaan Hirsi Ali lived under continuous sexism, sometimes racism and constant oppression during the first half of her life.
Since a young age, Ali witnessed the terrible condition and subjugation of women in her society, such as wife beatings, forced marriages and genital mutilations, the last of which she was subjected to at the age of five. When she was 22 years old, her father, whom Ali rarely saw due to his commitment to his other families, arranged for her to marry her Canadian cousin. Refusing the same fate as her mother and other females in her community, she escaped and found refuge in the Netherlands.
Spending ten years there, she assimilated to the culture by learning the language, earning a degree and eventually being elected to Parliament.
During her time in Parliament, Ali wrote a short documentary about the abuse of women in the society in which she was raised. The man whom she worked with, Theo van Gogh, was soon after found dead in the street, shot and stabbed numerous times with a five-page death threat addressed to Ali attached to a dagger that remained upright in his chest.
Ali was immediately put under intense surveillance and protection from the Dutch government and soon had to take refuge in the States. The Dutch government has been funding the protection of this advocate for free speech and women’s rights—that is, until Oct. 1 of this year. Now it is up to us to fund her protection so that she may remain here. I hope that whoever can donate some amount of money so that Ali can remain in the United States, her new home, join me in doing so by going to: http://www.samharris.org/site/security_trust/.
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