Consider this: What do you think would happen if word went around that Geert Wilders, the Dutch politician who campaigns against both Islam and immigration, was coming back to Australia?
Last time he was here – in 2012 – he was the subject of protests and calls for a visa ban, and since then he's been convicted of hate speech directed towards Moroccans living in the Netherlands.
![Ayaan Hirsi Ali publicly broke with Islam, the religion of her birth, in 2002.](/web/20170220002123im_/http://www.smh.com.au/content/dam/images/g/u/7/i/8/g/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gu6l8b.png/1487518339489.jpg)
An uproar is predictable, surely, or at least a barney between the ratbag right and the defenders of 18C.
Now consider this: What would happen if a one-time parliamentary colleague of Wilders, a person with near-identical views but with a power base that extends from Amsterdam to Washington DC, from Fox News to Breitbart, was heading over for a lecture tour?
![France's Marine le Pen (right) and Dutch populist anti-Islam lawmaker Geert Wilders. Hirsi Ali says such ...](/web/20170220002123im_/http://www.smh.com.au/content/dam/images/g/t/x/6/b/u/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gu6l8b.png/1487518339489.jpg)
Another bunfight, you reckon? Don't be so sure.
The colleague in question in Ayaan Hirsi Ali, 47, and "complex" is simply not robust enough a word to describe her life and work.
To many, she is a hero: a Somali-born childhood victim of genital mutilation, an escapee from arranged marriage, one-time refugee, hardline Muslim-turned-apostate-turned-atheist, former Dutch politician, award-winning author, and women's rights campaigner.
To many others, however, she is an opportunist who lied in order to gain asylum, an Islamophobe who wants to deny asylum to others, a woman who calls women's rights activists "fake feminists", and a fellow traveller, at least, with people on the far right of both European and US politics.
![The Women's March in Washington DC the day after Donald Trump's presidential inauguration. Ali Hirsi declined to attend.](/web/20170220002123im_/http://www.smh.com.au/content/dam/images/g/t/w/d/2/u/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gu6l8b.png/1487518339489.jpg)
"We need to hold President Trump accountable for his promise that he was going to go after Islamic terrorism," she told Fairfax Media.
"We should not be distracted by disagreements on very small slices of policy, like the 90-day ban. Ninety days is not a long time. The problem of Islamic extremism is a huge one. It is one of the biggest threats facing the globe, not just the United States."
![Linda Sarsour (right) and Carmen Perez, co-chairwomen of the Women's March on Washington. Ali Hirsi alleges Sarsour ...](/web/20170220002123im_/http://www.smh.com.au/content/dam/images/g/u/7/m/9/i/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gu6l8b.png/1487518339489.jpg)
Hirsi Ali is a prominent campaigner against female genital mutilation, arranged marriages and other outrages against women, particularly in the developing world.
Among many honours, in 2008 she was awarded the Simone de Beauvoir Prize in recognition of her work for women's freedom, and in 2015 she was the recipient of the Lantos Human Rights Prize, named in honour of the late Tom Lantos, Democrat senator and Holocaust survivor.
![Suzi Jamil of Think Inc says Hirsi Ali's views might come off as severe "but it's an important discussion and a very ...](/web/20170220002123im_/http://www.smh.com.au/content/dam/images/g/n/8/f/3/m/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gu6l8b.png/1487518339489.jpg)
It may seem slightly surprising, therefore, that she chose not to be one of the estimated half a million people who gathered in Washington DC in January, the day after Donald Trump's inauguration, for the Women's March – the largest female-led protest in history.
There were two reasons for her non-attendance, she says. The first was brutally pragmatic.
![The late Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh, who made the 2004 film <i>Submission</i> with Ayaann Hirsi Ali and was murdered ...](/web/20170220002123im_/http://www.smh.com.au/content/dam/images/g/u/7/m/g/e/image.related.articleLeadNarrow.300x0.gu6l8b.png/1487518339489.jpg)
"I cannot really march; I can't go to places where large numbers of people are gathered. My movements are limited."
This is because there are people who want her dead – a concern that is grounded in fact rather than paranoia.
In 2004 Hirsi Ali, at that stage a frontbench member of the parliamentary coalition governing the Netherlands, made a short film, Submission, with writer-director Theo van Gogh. The film used verses from the Koran to portray violence against women in Islamic society.
After its release van Gogh was murdered – shot eight times and partially decapitated. Pinned to his body was a death threat against his collaborator. She has been in hiding ever since.
Hirsi Ali, however, dates the time her life came under threat to two years earlier, when she made a public and prominent break from the faith of her birth.
"My biggest fear is coming from Islamic extremists who want to kill me, so I am surrounded at all times by men carrying guns," she says. "I haven't felt safe since 2002."
Being an assassination target is surely reason enough for not standing in a crowd of people in the US capital, but Hirsi Ali has a second one. And it is here that the complexities start to multiply.
"I did get invited, and I explained to my friends why I couldn't go," she says. "But I also pointed out that there are radical Muslim extremists inside the United States that will try to hijack the feminist cause to promote their own ideas."
The reference is pointed and particular, aimed at Brooklyn-born Palestinian Linda Sarsour, prominent head of the Arab American Association of New York, high-profile Bernie Sanders supporter, and one of the co-chairwomen of the organising committee for the Women's March.
Hirsi Ali alleges Sarsour is a supporter of Sharia law, a statement the latter denies. The pair has been at loggerheads for years. In 2011, Sarsour tweeted (sarcastically, supporters suggest) that Hirsi Ali was "asking 4 an a$$ whippin' " and should have her vagina removed.
The tweet was revived by Fox News this month and Hirsi Ali invited to respond to it. She called Sarsour a "fake feminist" – a term she returned to in this interview.
"She really is a vocal defender of Islamic law," she says. "She's what I call a fake feminist, and the serious and sincere feminists who really care about the equality between men and women should not be seen with these fake feminists.
"They should not let the cause of feminism be hijacked by people who are defenders of Islamic law. There is no principle more demeaning, degrading and dehumanising than Islamic law to women."
Even if Sarsour is guilty as charged (and the charge is contested), it's reasonable to ask why the beliefs of just one of the organisers – one among hundreds of thousands of participants – are sufficient to condemn the whole event. But Hirsi Ali is a densely woven tapestry: she writes books of acknowledged nuance and sophistication, but also has a politician's gift for the attention-grabbing sound bite.
Brietbart loves Ayaan Hirsi Ali, and joyously repeated her "fake feminist" line. Interestingly, in 2015 the news service also carried her criticism of then-candidate Donald Trump's proposal for a Muslim travel ban. "I think it's a bad idea," she said at the time.
Last week, when the chaos of the real travel ban hit, it became clear that her position had changed. "Trump's immigration ban was clumsy," she tweeted, "but he's right about radical Islam."
Indeed, talking to Fairfax Media, she suggests that the ban does not go far enough.
She refers to a pre-election Trump speech in which the candidate compared radical Islam to totalitarian systems such as nazism, fascism and communism.
"That was of course very welcome, because that's exactly what it is," she says.
"Because it's an ideology, and you need many, many tools to try to persuade people to adopt other ideas. The immigration freeze is a small bit of it. For the people who really understand what an ideological conflict is, we all understand that only immigration tools are just not enough.
"I point out that the list does not have Saudi Arabia on it, or Pakistan, or several of the North African countries, or Turkey."
She adds that she understands the "geopolitical calculation" that governs such omissions and goes on to criticise the wording of the executive order that catalysed the ban, because it made no mention of "the path to citizenship".
This was not a reference either to Green Card holders caught up in the mayhem, nor a concern for traumatised refugees wishing for a way to ultimately achieve safe haven.
"Many of the people who plot terrorist attacks inside the United States are citizens," she says. "They are either born here or were raised here and became naturalised, or they are converts. So there's a lot here immigration alone can't solve."
There is a certain irony to her concerns that refugees might be dishonest and act against the interests of their host nation.
Hirsi Ali sought and was granted asylum in the Netherlands in 1992. In her application, she claimed she was fleeing war in Somalia as well as a forced marriage, and that members of her family were intent on killing her.
In 2004 – by which time she had been a parliamentarian for a year – a current affairs program presented evidence to the effect that she had lied about her name, age and circumstances in making her application.
Far from living in a war zone, the program asserted, she had been ensconced in a comfortable middle-class life in Kenya for 12 years. She had consented to the marriage, then asked for a divorce and been granted it. There was no tradition of honour killing in Somali society.
The revelations generated a furore in Holland. Eventually Hirsi Ali admitted to falsifying details on her asylum application, but said she had explained everything in her books. In 2006 she resigned from Parliament.
Vigorous debate ensued about the legitimacy of her citizenship; ultimately, the government of the day decided it remained valid. Hirsi Ali then declared she had resigned her seat under duress – an accusation that eventually led to the collapse of the cabinet and a period of minority government instability.
By that time, however, she was living in the United States.
During her time in Parliament she was a member of the right-wing People's Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD). While there, she teamed closely with fellow VVD member Geert Wilders, making statements about the need to restrict Muslim immigration. Both were placed in protective housing.
In 2004 Wilders, who compares the Koran to Mein Kampf and was once banned from entering Britain, formed his own party. He is a key player in the Dutch Parliament and regarded as a far-right populist.
His name will be familiar in Australia because of the political storm that arose in 2012 when he applied for a visa to give lectures as a guest of the anti-Islam Q Society. Calls were made for a visa to be refused on the grounds that the parliamentarian traded in hate speech. He had been charged with racial vilification in 2011, but acquitted.
Then-Immigration Minister Chris Bowen eventually decided against the ban, and his visit went ahead amid tight security. (In 2016 Wilders was charged a second time and found guilty of inciting discrimination against Dutch Moroccans. No sentence was recorded.)
"As far as I know I am still a member of the VVD," Hirsi Ali says. "Mr Wilders decided that he was going to become anti-establishment. He didn't think that the establishment was going to address the issues of Islamic extremism, immigration, and Europe.
"That's the history of how Geert Wilders came to found his own party. He's now the largest party, and to me anti-establishment parties, anti-establishment individuals, gain ground on the issues of Islam and immigration because the establishment parties avoid those extremely important issues.
"People are learning the lessons the hard way. If the host society is impacted negatively by immigration, and the perception is that the government is indifferent to our needs, then the host society tends to vote for anti-establishment ideas. Think about Brexit. Think about Donald Trump. Think about Marie Le Pen – that is really a fascist party."
When you think about it, this is not exactly a ringing and strident disendorsement.
There is, however, one perhaps crucial difference between her visit to Australia and that of her former colleague. Wilders was sponsored by an overtly political group for an overtly political campaign. Hirsi Ali is coming as a guest of an events company called Think Inc, which specialises in organising speaking tours for prominent intellectuals, including scientists such as US cosmologist Neil deGrasse Tyson and Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak.
Think Inc co-owner Suzi Jamil says the decision to organise the tour reflected prominence, not politics.
"Her story is a heroic story," she says. "She has an amazing story to tell and she is a very gracious woman. Her views might come off as severe or strong, but I think it's an important discussion to be had – and a very timely issue.
"We're not for or against anything our speakers say. We merely provide a platform. We believe Ayaan Hirsi Ali has a really important voice, and her position in this debate is a vital one – and that's why we chose to bring her to Australia."
And so here is the question her forthcoming visit raises. Geert Wilders was the subject of loud and passionate opposition when he came here. Will Ayaan Hirsi Ali, who advocates pretty much identical positions, formed at least in part in the same crucible of rightist Dutch politics, generate the same level of protest?
And if not, surely that difference can't be ascribed to something as shallow as the fact that Wilders seems the archetypal privileged European white man while Hirsi Ali is a stateless-to-powerful African black woman?
Or perhaps there's another paradigm in play here. Wilders, a former Roman Catholic, is an outsider when it comes to Islam. Hirsi Ali, a former Muslim, is an insider. Maybe that makes a difference.
And perhaps time matters. When Wilders came here Donald Trump was a reality television host and Cory Bernardi was a Liberal.
But what reaction, in the end, will say more about modern Australia: opposition or acquiescence?
Ayaan Hirsi Ali will speak in Brisbane, Melbourne, Sydney, Auckland and Canberra between April 6 and April 10. www.thinkinc.org.au