This has been a difficult week for Brandeis University.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the champion of women’s rights in Muslim communities was
invited by Brandeis University to receive an honorary degree and give the 2014
commencement address. Ms. Ali, a Somalian by birth, suffered female genital
mutilation at the age of five, fled to the Netherlands to avoid forced marriage
to a cousin and for the past decade has lived in constant danger of being
murdered for dishonoring Islam. In 2004 she co-produced a movie, Submission,
with Theo Van Gogh. The movie exposed the deplorable situation of women in the
Muslim world. Theo Van Gough, the great grandnephew of Vincent Van Gogh, was
murdered on an Amsterdam street shortly after the film appeared. The killer of
Van Gogh pinned a note to his chest saying that Ayaan Hirsi Ali would be next.
After going into hiding in Europe she eventually immigrated to the United
States.
The Council on American Islamic Relations expressed
outrage at Brandeis’ invitation and initiated a petition to have the invitation
withdrawn. Brandeis subsequently caved and withdrew the invitation. A great many regret this tragic decision, myself
included. In response to what the university has done Ms. Ali published her
intended commencement remarks. Below is the important message she planned to share. As
we prepare to celebrate our Passover, our redemption from Egyptian bondage, let
us be aware that redemption has not yet come to all of God’s children. Ms.
Ali’s message reminds us of that sad reality.
"One year ago, the city and suburbs of Boston were still
in mourning. Families who only weeks earlier had children and siblings to hug
were left with only photographs and memories. Still others were hovering over
bedsides, watching as young men, women, and children endured painful surgeries
and permanent disfiguration. All because two brothers, radicalized by jihadist
websites, decided to place homemade bombs in backpacks near the finish line of
one of the most prominent events in American sports, the Boston Marathon.
All of you in the Class of 2014 will never forget that
day and the days that followed. You will never forget when you heard the news,
where you were, or what you were doing. And when you return here, 10, 15 or 25
years from now, you will be reminded of it. The bombs exploded just 10 miles
from this campus.
I read an article recently that said many adults don't
remember much from before the age of 8. That means some of your earliest
childhood memories may well be of that September morning simply known as
"9/11."
You deserve better memories than 9/11 and the Boston
Marathon bombing. And you are not the only ones. In Syria, at least 120,000
people have been killed, not simply in battle, but in wholesale massacres, in a
civil war that is increasingly waged across a sectarian divide. Violence is
escalating in Iraq, in Lebanon, in Libya, in Egypt. And far more than was the
case when you were born, organized violence in the world today is
disproportionately concentrated in the Muslim world.
Another striking feature of the countries I have just
named, and of the Middle East generally, is that violence against women is also
increasing. In Saudi Arabia, there has been a noticeable rise in the practice
of female genital mutilation. In Egypt, 99% of women report being sexually
harassed and up to 80 sexual assaults occur in a single day.
Especially troubling is the way the status of women as
second-class citizens is being cemented in legislation. In Iraq, a law is being
proposed that lowers to 9 the legal age at which a girl can be forced into
marriage. That same law would give a husband the right to deny his wife
permission to leave the house.
Sadly, the list could go on. I hope I speak for many when
I say that this is not the world that my generation meant to bequeath yours.
When you were born, the West was jubilant, having defeated Soviet communism. An
international coalition had forced Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait. The next
mission for American armed forces would be famine relief in my homeland of
Somalia. There was no Department of Homeland Security, and few Americans talked
about terrorism.
Two decades ago, not even the bleakest pessimist would
have anticipated all that has gone wrong in the part of world where I grew up.
After so many victories for feminism in the West, no one would have predicted
that women's basic human rights would actually be reduced in so many countries
as the 20th century gave way to the 21st.
Today, however, I am going to predict a better future,
because I believe that the pendulum has swung almost as far as it possibly can
in the wrong direction.
When I see millions of women in Afghanistan defying
threats from the Taliban and lining up to vote; when I see women in Saudi
Arabia defying an absurd ban on female driving; and when I see Tunisian women
celebrating the conviction of a group of policemen for a heinous gang rape, I
feel more optimistic than I did a few years ago. The misnamed Arab Spring has
been a revolution full of disappointments. But I believe it has created an
opportunity for traditional forms of authority—including patriarchal
authority—to be challenged, and even for the religious justifications for the
oppression of women to be questioned.
Yet for that opportunity to be fulfilled, we in the West
must provide the right kind of encouragement. Just as the city of Boston was
once the cradle of a new ideal of liberty, we need to return to our roots by
becoming once again a beacon of free thought and civility for the 21st century.
When there is injustice, we need to speak out, not simply with condemnation,
but with concrete actions.
One of the best places to do that is in our institutions
of higher learning. We need to make our universities temples not of dogmatic
orthodoxy, but of truly critical thinking, where all ideas are welcome and
where civil debate is encouraged. I'm used to being shouted down on campuses,
so I am grateful for the opportunity to address you today. I do not expect all
of you to agree with me, but I very much appreciate your willingness to listen.
I stand before you as someone who is fighting for women's
and girls' basic rights globally. And I stand before you as someone who is not
afraid to ask difficult questions about the role of religion in that fight.
The connection between violence, particularly violence
against women, and Islam is too clear to be ignored. We do no favors to
students, faculty, nonbelievers and people of faith when we shut our eyes to
this link, when we excuse rather than reflect.
So I ask: Is the concept of holy war compatible with our
ideal of religious toleration? Is it blasphemy—punishable by death—to question
the applicability of certain seventh-century doctrines to our own era? Both
Christianity and Judaism have had their eras of reform. I would argue that the
time has come for a Muslim Reformation.
Is such an argument inadmissible? It surely should not be
at a university that was founded in the wake of the Holocaust, at a time when
many American universities still imposed quotas on Jews.
The motto of Brandeis University is "Truth even unto
its innermost parts." That is my motto too. For it is only through truth,
unsparing truth, that your generation can hope to do better than mine in the
struggle for peace, freedom and equality of the sexes."
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