Ayaan Hirsi Ali says she will not make sequels to her controversial 2004 film Submission, an attack on the treatment of Muslim women. In an interview for Dutch TV, the former Dutch politician said the risk to the crew and cast would be too great.
The script for Submission II is ready for filming and a third part was planned, Ms Hirsi Ali says, but it would be necessary for producers, crew and actors to remain anonymous, and this would be "extremely difficult if not impossible".
Submission criticised alleged violence against women in Islam, and featured images of women’s bodies painted with verses from the Qur’an. After the film was aired on Dutch TV, its director Theo van Gogh was murdered by a Muslim extremist. The filmmaker and broadcaster was an outspoken critic of Islam. He had insisted on being openly credited for his role in collaborating with Ms Hirsi Ali on Submission, which some Muslims criticised as blasphemous.
Fanatics
Submission II was to have tackled the position of men in Islam, including the oppression of homosexuals, Ms Hirsi Ali said in 2006. In part three God would have been portrayed speaking directly.
Ms Hirsi Ali denies her decision not to go ahead with the sequels was based on fear. Rather she says it was down to a sense of "responsibility". Creating a climate of fear was precisely the aim of Muslim fanatics, she says.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali now lives in the United States, where she works for the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank. She was elected as an MP for the free-market liberal VVD in 2003, having switched to the right from the Labour Party. As a feminist Islam critic she argued that Dutch politics had ignored the oppression of Muslim women.
In 2006 the then immigration minister said she wanted to withdraw the Somali-born politician’s Dutch citizenship because she had given a false name during her asylum application. The row led to the fall of the government. Ms Hirsi Ali retained her Dutch citizenship.
© Radio Netherlands Worldwide
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I really think this sequel should be made & Ayaan's decision seems uncharacteristic in light of what she has been fighting for for most of her life. That said, she is only human & I'm sure was deeply scarred by Theo van Gogh's murder so maybe she just wants someone else to take the initiative. I'm sure she wouldn't stand in the way of people who were willing to make this movie fully cognizant of the risks but willing to take their chances to fight this insanity. It is hard to believe the Western world has been so cowed by these maniacs! I think the only way to fight this is to face up to the threat this religion poses to the freedoms that the West fought so hard to attain. When the cartoon fiasco happened every household should have drawn their own illustration of the prophet & stuck it to the front door of their houses in solidarity, instead of criticizing the cartoonists for insensitivity. We are not attacking Islam, they are attacking us & it's time we stood up to these bullies. Otherwise the playground is not going to much fun anymore.
I agree --- all of us must face our fears. I feel it is important to speak our truth to power. To cower in fear is to enable the disrespectful behavior of tyrants to continue in their mad course.
I feel sure that Ayaan Hirsi Ali will walk through her fears and still do the film project at some point.
I cannot believe Ayaan submits to the islamists. This is a disaster.
CORRECTION: The Western/Judeo-Christian world is submitting inch by inch on its knees to Islam! In Germany here, I'm wearing my cross everywhere and I get such arrogant dirty looks and bad service (from sales persons) from Muslim men and women. Imagine that; we cannot even wear the cross (the most hated symbol of Christ and Christianity by Muslim fanatics) openly in most Islamic-ruled countries; and even in the West, they behaved with such contempt. But at least in the West, they cannot stop us! Thus is why, we must fight back through such civil rights expression, to defeat such Islamic arrogance and fanaticism, which simply cannot tolerate diversity and yet, expect others to tolerate its fanatical believers with their vile behaviour and its evil ideology! We must go on defending Western/Judeo-Christian individual freedom and responsibility, to fight such evilness under Islam!
so she choose to submit...how sad
That is a shame. Don't let the barbarians get away with siliencing you Ayaan!!