Jonge Vos handed me a sheaf of legal papers. My neighbors had been suing the government to evict me from my apartment, claiming that the security around me deprived them of privacy and my presence made them unsafe. This had been going on for months, but I had never allowed myself to imagine seriously that I might lose the case. Jonge Vos told me the papers contained the decision of the appeals court that was considering my neighbors’ case. I had just been evicted. I had four months to leave, till August 27, Jonge Vos kindly told me. He had gone to the trouble of working it out.
I was stunned. Where could I go? To a hotel? An air base? To some bulletproof hut in the forest? Where could I live—where, in Holland, could I find a place where I would have no neighbors? The Netherlands is a small country with a lot of people. How could I function if I kept having to move from place to place? It was a blow. It may sound trivial, but when I heard Jonge Vos’s news, I felt something close to despair. Would my wandering never end?
A few days later, in early May, I was scheduled to fly to the United States on a long-planned trip to promote The Caged Virgin, a book of my essays. But I also intended to meet with Christopher DeMuth, the president of the American Enterprise Institute, a think tank in Washington that was interested in offering me a job. After two and a half years as a member of Parliament, I had become disenchanted and I wanted to leave Dutch politics. Months before, I had informed Gerrit Zalm that I didn’t plan to run again. There were aspects of Parliament I loved, like the sharpness of some debates, the matching of blade against blade. A real Parliament in action can be a fine thing. But the legislative process is slow and frustrating. I didn’t want to toe party lines and grow deeper in my understanding of Europe’s Common Agricultural Policy and the transportation system around Rotterdam. I didn’t want to waste ridiculous amounts of energy building coalitions with people who accepted my ideas but who wouldn’t vote with me because I was in the Liberal Party. The media frenzies that blew up constantly at my every comment or misstep made it difficult to function. Although the media attention did, of course, give me a platform, it also intensified the animosity that so many parliamentarians clearly felt toward me and my political initiatives.
It also seemed to me that I had already achieved a big part of what I had set out to do. I had wanted Islam to be part of the political debate, and now it was. All kinds of opinion makers were now saying that it was irresponsible and indeed morally wrong to pretend that appeasing Islamic leaders would magically lead to social harmony. Dutch society was churning with discussion over how best to integrate Muslims, and Muslims in Holland also seemed largely aware now that they needed to choose between Western values and the old ways. Above all, Muslim women were now prominently on the agenda of the country.
When I had been approached for a think tank position in the United States, I thought that perhaps it could take my ideas to a larger platform and give me more time to develop them. And now I knew that I wanted to do it sooner than expected.
* * *
When the Zembla show aired in Holland on Thursday, May 11, under the title “The Holy Ayaan,” I was still in the United States, but a Dutch journalist living in New York arranged for me to view it in a studio. The tone was unpleasant, and it was certainly intended as a character assassination. But friends of mine who phoned me didn’t seem to think it was in any way seriously damaging. The reporter had apparently tracked down Osman Moussa, who was still living in Canada, and he had claimed that I had married him willingly. But as someone said to me, “Who would admit to marrying a girl who didn’t want to be married to him?” It seemed pretty clear that the reporter had gone to Kenya and Somalia to try to dig up dirt about me; if this was all he could come up with, I thought, then I was doing fine.
But then the drum rolls began. As the minister in charge of immigration affairs, Rita Verdonk had in the past ordered that a number of asylum seekers be deported from Holland because they had lied on their residency applications. The day after the “Holy Ayaan” show aired, Rita faced taunts that she ought now to deport Ayaan Hirsi Ali just as she would any other lying immigrant.
Rita was my friend. Known to others as Iron Rita, she was found to be rigid, and they constantly taunted her about her former job as a prison warden. I, however, had always found her to be warm, even motherly. Although we frequently disagreed about policy, she was often my ally in our Party and in Parliament; we exchanged ideas often, and she used bits and pieces of my proposals. I also intervened with her frequently on behalf of asylum seekers she was planning to have deported. Rita was one of the people who had comforted me after Theo’s death. In a caucus where I had few friends, she had gone to a lot of trouble on my behalf.
And Rita knew very well that I had lied on my asylum application. Even if she hadn’t read my interviews on the subject (and why should she have), we had spoken of it several times, most recently just a few weeks before, after she had decided to deport an eighteen-year-old girl from Kosovo, Taida Pasic, although she was due to take her final high school exams. I had phoned Rita from Leon de Winter’s house, where I was having dinner, and pleaded with her to reconsider the girl’s case, but Rita was adamant.
“She lied,” Rita told me then. “My hands are tied.”
“But Rita, I lied, too!” I said. Leon heard me.
Rita’s words: “If I had been the minister when you applied for asylum, then I would have deported you as well.”
* * *
On Friday, the day after the broadcast of the documentary, Rita publicly announced that I had nothing to fear from her. But Rita was running hard to be elected leader of the Liberal Party. The vote was scheduled for May 30. She could not afford to look weak. “Rules are rules” was her mantra, and she was adamant that she could not make any exceptions. And so, on Saturday morning—the day after calls began demanding that she examine my status as a lying asylum seeker—Rita let it be known that she was investigating my immigration file.
I suddenly felt like that foolish, trusting nomad from the tales Grandma used to tell me as a child.
By Sunday I had heard rumors that Rita was planning to retract my citizenship. So had everyone in the country: it was in the newspapers. My passport could be taken away. If I was no longer Dutch, I couldn’t vote; it went without saying that I was no longer a member of Parliament. Would I even be allowed to remain in the country? Without a passport, would I be able to travel? If I were no longer in Parliament, would I have bodyguards? I was incredulous. Even when Gerrit Zalm walked into my apartment that Monday night and told me it was really happening, and I received the letter from the Ministry—even then, the whole thing still seemed completely unreal.
* * *
When I woke up on Tuesday morning, my voicemail was overflowing with calls. Hundreds of e-mails jammed my inbox. Due to hold a press conference that afternoon, I settled in to think about what I was going to say. The manuscript pages of my memoir were scattered across my printer: “I am Ayaan, the daughter of Hirsi, the son of Magan,” I read.
How could this be happening, when I had so repeatedly told the truth about my real past? Yes, I should have told the whole truth in 1992 when I arrived in Holland, even though I was frightened of being sent home. In time, as I learned not to be afraid, I learned that it was wrong not to tell the truth.
Now, having been truthful, I had no idea what my citizenship was, or even if I could remain in Holland. The only thing that was clear to me was that I should resign from Parliament earlier than I had planned.
That afternoon, I walked into the news center beside Parliament and faced the cameras again. I announced that I was leaving politics and that I would be leaving Holland. I thanked various people for their support and tried to sum up what I thought I had achieved. My hands were shaking and my throat was dry. A few hours later, Christopher DeMuth called from the American Enterprise Institute and confirmed that I would have a job there in September.
* * *
My press conference that Tuesday was at two p.m.; by 4:4
5, Rita Verdonk was in Parliament answering questions from my angry colleagues. For over three years I had worked with these men and women—eaten with them, socialized, made alliances, traded votes. Now, after an internal inquiry that had lasted just four days, I was no longer a Dutch citizen and, as a result, I had been stripped of my position beside them. Many members of Parliament were outraged, and they made no secret of it.
At around eleven that night, under heavy questioning in parliament, Rita stumbled. She said I had never been Dutch. Then she claimed that I was now Dutch for a six-week waiting period, even though I had never been Dutch in the first place. She claimed to have no idea that I had lied on my asylum application. She said she had never heard of me using another name despite the fact that there were dozens of examples where I had. Whether it was in the press, in earlier publications, or even in simple everyday parts of my life (such as my e-mail address in Parliament, which was
[email protected]—the Dutch equivalent of “parliament-dot-Netherlands”), I had made no secret that in my youth my family name was Hirsi Magan.
Rita’s support in the lower chamber of Parliament began falling away. The calculus of self-interest that hums just beneath the surface of politics was in action now, and this was no longer about me. Rita Verdonk would have been a strong leader of the VVD, and so the VVD’s opponents wanted her destroyed. Within our own Liberal Party, too, there were people who were prepared, even delighted, to sacrifice her, whether on this pretext or some other.
By this time, millions of Dutch people were tuned in to the parliamentary debate on live TV. They watched as Rita was slowly torn to pieces in the arena. Leaders of the governing coalition began edging away from her on the podium. Two motions instructing her to review my case were tabled. Sometime around 2:30 in the morning, the chairman of the Parliament apparently passed her a note warning her that she must accept the next motion or she would be forced to step down from government. Abruptly, at around three in the morning, she agreed to reopen my case and review my naturalization. I would receive a decision within six weeks.
From this point on, the whole situation became a farce. I found a lawyer, who told me that because I used the name Ali, which was the birth name of my grandfather known as Magan, I hadn’t in fact fraudulently filled in any forms. She also filed a document analyzing Somali law, which showed that I had a right to use any name in the long list of my male ancestors as my family name. (I hadn’t known that.) Because I was unable to procure birth certificates for my grandfather, father, and mother, as requested, I obtained a statement from my brother confirming that my grandfather Magan was named Ali at his birth. Then I settled back to wait.
As the weeks passed, I heard the rumors, like everyone else: Jan Peter Balkenende, the prime minister, wanted Rita to retract her decision and reinstate me as an honorable Dutch citizen, but Rita didn’t want to lose face. Finally, just two days before Parliament was due to break up for the summer, Balkenende scheduled a meeting with her late on Monday night, June 26, and insisted that she inform Parliament that she was retracting her decision, making me Dutch again.
When I learned about this meeting, just before it happened, I was in Washington, in the office of the lawyer who was helping me with my U.S. immigration. My phone rang at about three p.m. It was my Dutch lawyer telling me that I must urgently fax a declaration stating that I would henceforth always use Ali as my name, and not another name like Magan. Once I did that, everything would be fine with my Dutch citizenship. I had to find a FedEx office in downtown Washington to send it immediately—it was too urgent to wait.
A few hours later, a real estate broker was showing me around an apartment for rent in Washington when the phone rang again. There was another declaration that I must sign before everything could be resolved. I should state that I was to blame for the entire business, because I had told reporters that I had lied when I called myself Ali, when in actual fact I hadn’t lied—I was legally permitted to use the name.
I wanted to get the whole thing behind me. I no longer had a home in Holland. Without Dutch citizenship, I would be stalled in my application for a U.S. visa. Not to sign this statement could lead to years of insecurity and legal battles. My lawyers, who were in constant contact with The Hague, told me that I was not allowed to change a word in the statement—I had to take it or leave it. I did however manage to get one change put through. I took out “I am sorry” and replaced it with “I regret.” (Apparently, Prime Minister Balkenende made Rita promise in return never again to say “Rules are rules.”)
The next day, Tuesday, I was at the office of the American Enterprise Institute when Dutch reporters began arriving with camera equipment. I hadn’t received any notification yet, but they had heard that Rita had agreed to reinstate my Dutch citizenship. I simply said how glad I was. That was it; I just wanted the matter closed. But the reporters told me a debate had already been scheduled in Parliament for Wednesday evening, just before Parliament broke for the summer. People in The Hague were saying that I had been blackmailed into writing the letter accepting blame and that it was shameful behavior by Rita Verdonk.
There was no blackmail, and I told the reporters so. There was only the pressure of time. I wanted the whole thing finished, so I could put it behind me.
When the debate in Parliament opened at eight p.m. on Wednesday night, June 28, Rita Verdonk and Prime Minister Balkenende came under attack almost immediately. Rita had notified Balkenende by voice mail of her original decision to take away my naturalization, and then never got back to him before it was announced. What kind of leadership was that? It was also obvious that many members of Parliament felt that the government was insulting their intelligence by claiming that the whole thing was essentially my fault.
In the early hours of the morning, Balkenende was asked in Parliament if I had been obligated to put my signature to a document taking blame for the whole affair—whether that had been a precondition for me to get back my citizenship. He said yes, it was a precondition: Rita had insisted that I should sign the statement or there was no deal. The floor of Parliament erupted in a frenzy as members rushed for the microphone.
At 4:30 a.m., the Green Party called for a motion of no confidence in Rita Verdonk. Many people across the country were still up and watching on TV. When the votes were counted, sixty-six members supported it and seventy-nine were against, which meant that D-66, a small party that was one of the three partners in the governing coalition, had voted no confidence in the government’s minister. Either Rita would have to resign or there was no longer a coalition, and the government would collapse.
It was now June 29, the last day of the parliamentary term. At nine a.m., there was an emergency meeting of the cabinet. The prime minister emerged after lunch and told the press that Rita would stay on as minister: it was up to D-66 to decide what to do about it. Their six members quit the coalition that evening.
Balkenende’s government had fallen. New elections would have to be called in the fall.
As the drama unfolded, I was kept abreast of it by text message. Friends of mine on the parliamentary staff, as well as my former colleagues, sent me hundreds of them. When the government collapsed, I received more than fifty messages almost simultaneously.
By that point, I was in Aspen, Colorado, where I had been invited to attend a conference at the Aspen Institute with a constellation of American politicians and heads of corporations. I was taken aback by how many people kept coming up to me to tell me how angry they were with the Dutch government. I found myself constantly explaining that Holland wasn’t a xenophobic country and had not suddenly kicked me out.
I tried to tell people that I very much regretted the collapse of Balkenende’s cabinet, because a government should not fall apart over such a minor issue. It leads to voter cynicism: people elect their leaders to make tough, big decisions, and this was a very small one. Above all, I told these people that Holland is a peaceful country, open and tolerant and free. It was in Holland that I became a free ind
ividual, and I am Dutch—completely Dutch again, and very glad to be.
* * *
Whatever your feelings on the subject, the United States is the leader of the free world. By taking my ideas to the United States, I don’t feel in any way that I am selling out. At the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, I will have more time to think than when I was a member of Parliament in The Hague, trying to wheel and deal programs in the legislative process. At the risk of repeating myself, I am not leaving Holland because of the issue of my Dutch citizenship: it is an entirely personal decision, made long before the citizenship saga came about.
Years ago, fresh out of Leiden, I thought that politics was a truly noble pursuit, and that the institutions of democracy were humanity’s means to better the world. I still think that’s true. But I have learned that, like every other kind of human pursuit, politics can be an ugly game: clan against clan, party against party, candidate against candidate, with governments falling over trivial issues. Watching power will, I hope, be more agreeable than practicing it.
The freedom of expression that I found in Holland—the freedom to think—is unknown where I come from. It is a right and practice that I always dreamed of having as I was growing up. Whatever its flaws, no nation understands the principle of free expression better than the Dutch. It runs so deep in Dutch culture that Holland has chosen to protect me against death threats, even though members of the government constantly tell me how much they disagree with my ideas. I must say how grateful I am: I am lucky and privileged to be Dutch.
Muhammad Bouyeri, Theo’s murderer, and others like him don’t realize how deeply people in the West are committed to the idea of an open society. Even though the open society is vulnerable, it is also stubborn. It is the place I ran to for safety and freedom. I would like to keep it that way: safe and free.
* * *
People are always asking me what it’s like to live with death threats. It’s like being diagnosed with a chronic disease. It may flare up and kill you, but it may not. It could happen in a week, or not for decades.