Ayaan Hirsi Ali has hit back at a group of Australian Muslim women who accused her of being a “star” of Islamophobia and stirring up hatred.
The women took to Facebook on Monday when Hirsi Ali was due to arrive in Australia for a speaking tour that she cancelled at the last minute, citing concerns about security and the organisation of her trip.
In their video the six woman said Hirsi Ali – who was raised a Muslim but renounced her religion as an adult and became a fierce critic of radical Islamists and sharia law – was a “star of the global Islamophobia industry” and did not speak for them.
They criticised her for past descriptions of Muslim women as docile and irrational, accused her of using the language of white supremacists and profiting from “an industry that exists to dehumanise Muslim women”.
But Hirsi Ali says the women are “carrying water” for radical Islamic organisations like the Muslim Brotherhood, Islamic State and Boko Haram because they have done little to defend women with few rights under Islamic law.
“I just want to point my finger at all the places in the world today where Islamic law is applied and how women are treated and I want to say to these women, ‘Shame on you’,” Hirsi Ali said on Tuesday.
“Shame on you for carrying water for the Islamists, shame on you for trying to shut people up who are trying to raise awareness about sharia law.”
Hirsi Ali also told Triple J’s Hack program that she believes Islamophobia is a “manufactured” term.
“We can’t have that open discussion, we can’t stop the injustices if we say everything is ‘Islamophobic’ and hide behind a politically correct screen,” she said. “We should not make the mistake of finding ourselves inadvertently allied with the Islamists, as these petition-signers are doing.”
Comment was being sought from a representative for the women, who posted their video message on a Facebook page titled Persons of Interest.
The US-based, Somali-born activist, who was subject to female genital mutilation as a child and became an MP in the Netherlands after seeking political asylum, has for years lived with tight security as a result of her stance on radical Islamists.
She had hoped during her visit to Australia to highlight the need for western countries to educate themselves about dawa, or how radical Islamists spread their ideology.
Hirsi Ali says while the west should continue its military battles against terrorists, it needed to focus on the spread of Islamic ideology through schools, mosques and non-government organisations that on the surface appear non-violent but ultimately act as a “conveyor belt” for violence.
She argues such organisations can flourish in western countries by exploiting laws safeguarding freedom of religion, expression and association.
“I don’t believe individuals are born wanting to join the jihad. It’s a process, a long process,” Hirsi Ali said. “Jihad does not take place without the dawa.”
