Cheryl Brown
Professor Jackson
English 401-13058
6 Nov 2012
What Is a Terrorist? The dictionary definition of a terrorist is someone who creates terror through violent action in order to achieve a goal. A terrorist is a dangerous person with weapons and has the motive to kill people. We, as an American, may view a terrorist as unthinking, immoral, brutal, murderous and in a way, not a human; but a monster. How could we view a terrorist in any other way? A moral American would never think of acting in such a way as a terrorist would, right? But a terrorist is indeed a human. A terrorist could be a man, woman or even a child. A living, breathing person with views that may be quite different than that of our own views. A person who may not see what we view as a terrorist act, but as a belief that may have been taught from birth.
One of these terrorists you will be learning about is Ayaan Hirsi Ali, “Somali-Dutch feminist and atheist activist, writer and politician who is known for her views critical of Islam. She wrote the screenplay for Theo van Gogh's movie Submission, for which she criticized the treatment of women in the Islamic society and “Juxtaposed with passages from the Qur'an were scenes of actresses portraying Muslim women suffering abuse.” (Voices on Antisemtisim). After which she and the director both received death threats, and the director was murdered by an Islamic extremist. The daughter of the Somali politician and opposition leader Hirsi Magan Isse, she is a founder of the women's rights organization the AHA Foundation.”(theahafoundation.org). Ayaan Hirsi Ali is not a terrorist of The United States of America, but of her own country.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali was born in Mogadishu, Somalia on November 13, 1969. She came from a wealthy family; her father Hirsi Magan Isse was a prominent member of the Somali Salvation Democratic Front and a leading figure in the Somalian Revolution. He studied out of the country and had vigilantly opposed Female Genital Mutilation, a procedure some societies in developing countries use as a means to “curb the sexual desire of girls and women and preserve their ‘”sexual honor”’ before marriage.”(Middle-east-info.org).Soon after Ayaan’s father was imprisoned for his opposition to Somalia's Siad Barre government, her grandmother had the traditional procedure performed on Ayaan when she was only five years old. Ayaan and her grandmother moved and settled in Nairobi, Kenya, where she attended the English-language Muslim Girls' Secondary School. There she and her fellow school mates were encouraged to adopt the more rigorous Saudi Arabian perception of Islam as opposed to the more calm versions that had been currently used in Somalia and Kenya. This is when she became more interested in the Qur'an, the Islamic version of our Bible, even though she had been impressed with the writings in it during childhood before she could even read. (To submit to the Book is to submit to their Hell).
After completing secondary school, Ayaan Hirsi Ali attended a secretarial course at Valley Secretarial College in Nairobi for one year and during this time she liked to read English adventure stories like the Nancy Drew series, “containing modern heroine archetypes which overstepped the limits traditionally imposed by religion and society.”(No Rest for a Feminist Fighting Radical Islam). Ayaan Hirsi Ali moved to the Netherlands in 1992 even though the events of her leading up to her moving here was unclear. Ayaan later admitted to lying on her application for asylum in the Netherlands because she was trying to escape an arranged marriage that her father had set up with a distant cousin and because she was a feminist activist and opposed arranged marriages, she felt the need to flee in order to escape. . “She gave a false name and date of birth to the Dutch immigration authorities; something she says was necessary in order to escape retaliation by her clan. She is known in the West by her assumed name, Hirsi Ali, instead of her original name, Hirsi Magan. Hirsi Ali received a residence permit within three weeks of her arrival in the Netherlands.”(www.vvd.nl). Ayaan would later be known to say that “Sigmund Freud's work placed her in contact with an alternative moral system, one that was not based on religion.”(To submit to the Book is to submit to their Hell). Ayaan Hirsi Ali did not like the position bestowed upon women in the Islamic societies and was very much against punishments for homosexuality and adultery. So on May 28, 2002, she denounced her Islamic religion and became an atheist. In an interview with a Swiss newspaper, Ayaan said she lost her Islamic faith while eating dinner at an Italian restaurant and drinking a glass of wine. ‘"...I asked myself: Why should I burn in hell just because I'm drinking this? But what prompted me even more was the fact that the killers of 9/11 all believed in the same God I believed in."’ (Ik geloof niet meer).
Ayaan would go on to continue criticizing the writings of the Qur’an saying that she could no longer follow a bible that condoned the beheading of captured aid workers, journalists and other Westerners that found their way to their land. Ayaan said that she could understand why Muslims were silent and was quoted as saying that silence is "better than an argument with the author of the Holy Book who has given the command to behead infidels." (To submit to the Book is to submit to their Hell). This doesn’t sound like the life of a terrorist, does it? But Ayaan Hirsi Ali is indeed a terrorist to the Islamic society; a terrorist for the writings in her books about how Osama Bin Laden used quotes from the Qur’an to support his hatred for The United States Of America; Ayaan would be labeled as a terrorist for showing how the westerners viewed the Islamic prophet Muhammad as a pervert for marrying a six year old girl and consummating the marriage when she was only nine. Ayaan Hirsi Ali was quoted as saying: He is against freedom of expression. If you don't do as he says, you will be punished. It makes me think of all those megalomaniacs in the Middle East: Bin Laden, Khomeini, Saddam. Do you think it strange that there is a Saddam Hussein? Muhammad is his example. Muhammad is an example for all Muslim men. Do you think it strange that so many Muslim men are violent? (De Verdieping) Had she focused all of her anger and anguish towards the United States of America, Ayaan Hirsi Ali would have most likely been seen as a heroin in her now rebuked Islamic society. The next terrorist that will be mentioned is Tarek Mehanna, 29, of Massachusetts. He is being charged with terrorism against The United States on the grounds of “conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists.” (mondoweiss.net). Carol Rose, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts was quoted as writing: There was no evidence presented in court directly linking [Tarek Mehanna] to a terrorist group. He never hatched a plot – indeed, he objected when a friend (who went on to become a government informer and has never been charged with anything) proposed plans to stage violent attacks within the United States. (mondoweiss.net).
Tarek Mehanna did communicate his opposition of U.S. military operations in the Middle East through instant messages and emails, and was very aware that he was being monitored by the FBI, he made this known through text messaging that he was aware of it. Tarek Mehanna concludes that he had nothing to hide. In actuality, Mehanna is guilty of communicating his opposition of U.S. military operations in the Middle East and openly criticized what he viewed as quoted by himself, “the oppression of Muslims in the United States”(mondoweiss.net). The fact being that Mehanna had been under investigation since 2005 by the FBI for his internet based text messages and within them revealing that Mehanna was aware of this investigation but continued to show his oppositions; Mehanna felt he was doing nothing wrong. Tarek was brought under suspicion by our government through the monitoring of his internet activities such as the videos he watched that involved jihad activity, openly expressing his views on suicide bombings, looking up information on the attackers of 9/11 and translating texts that were readily available on the internet. Perhaps this would not have been seen as suspicious terrorist behavior if a non-Muslim had been doing this. Mehanna was only executing his First Amendment rights as a United States citizen, in which he was born and raised. In a statement written by Tarek Mehanna, he calls into question Imperialism, US hegemony and the United States of America’s historical yet unashamed support of the oppression of minorities: I learned one more thing in history class: America has historically supported the most unjust policies against its minorities – practices that were even protected by the law – only to look back later and ask: ‘what were we thinking?’ Slavery, Jim Crow, the internment of the Japanese during World War II – each was widely accepted by American society, each was defended by the Supreme Court. But as time passed and America changed, both people and courts looked back and asked ‘What were we thinking?’… So, everything is subjective – even this whole business of “terrorism” and who is a “terrorist.” It all depends on the time and place and who the superpower happens to be at the moment. In your eyes, I’m a terrorist, I’m the only one standing here in an orange jumpsuit and it’s perfectly reasonable that I be standing here in an orange jumpsuit. But one day, America will change and people will recognize this day for what it is. They will look at how hundreds of thousands of Muslims were killed and maimed by the US military in foreign countries, yet somehow I’m the one going to prison for “conspiring to kill and maim” in those countries – because I support the Mujahidin defending those people. They will look back on how the government spent millions of dollars to imprison me as a “terrorist,” yet if we were to somehow bring Abeer al-Janabi back to life in the moment she was being gang-raped by your soldiers, to put her on that witness stand and ask her who the “terrorists” are, she sure wouldn’t be pointing at me. (mondoweiss.net).
Abeer al-Janabi was a fifteen year old Muslim girl who was brutally raped by five American soldiers in Mahmudiya, Iraq on March 12, 2006. These soldiers raped her, smashed her head in and set her legs and torso on fire, then proceeded in killing her parents and seven year old sister. The soldier who crafted this brutal murder was honorably discharged five months after he was sent to Iraq with a personality disorder, which was only two months after he and four other military members committed this heinous crime against Abeer al-Janabi. (www.time.com). The story of this little girl can be seen through many eyes as a terrorist attack of a Muslim civilian by the hands of our own American soldiers. But this is seen as nothing more than an unethical act of murder by an American soldier who was dishonorably discharged for a “personality disorder, “and his comrades. This brings one to think that America can be seen as one sided as to how a terrorist is defined and through the eyes of Tarek Mehanna, it can be understood why America in itself can be viewed as a terrorist also. In his statement he sheds light on the ways that America has put a “terrorist” label on actions that indeed has been done itself by the American Government. He mentions that his trial was not about his position on Muslims killing American civilians. It was about his position on Americans killing Muslim civilians, and that Muslims should defend their lands from foreign invaders whether they are “Soviets, Americans, or Martians.”(mondoweiss.net). This is what he believed and always will. Mehanna says that it is not terrorism or extremism but just simple logic of self-defense. Mehanna was also trying to show how one-sided America is in regards to terrorism in his statement by noting some very important American history facts:
By the time I began high school and took a real history class, I was learning just how real that paradigm is in the world. I learned about the Native Americans and what befell them at the hands of European settlers. I learned about how the descendants of those European settlers were in turn oppressed under the tyranny of King George III. I read about Paul Revere, Tom Paine, and how Americans began an armed insurgency against British forces – an insurgency we now celebrate as the American Revolutionary War. I mentioned Paul Revere – when he jumped on a horse and went on his midnight ride, it was for the purpose of warning the people that the British were marching to Lexington to arrest Sam Adams and John Hancock, then on to Concord to confiscate the weapons stored there by the Minutemen. By the time they got to Concord, they found the Minuteman waiting for them, weapons in hand. They fired at the British, fought them, and beat them. From that battle came the American Revolution. There’s an Arabic word to describe what those Minutemen did that day. It was a word repeated many times in this courtroom. That word is: JIHAD, and this is what my trial was about. (mondoweiss.net).
This is only small parts of Tarek Mehanna’s statement, but these are very concrete and real accounts of American history that is taught to our children in American schools. Although Tarek Mehanna is currently being held on trial for charges of terrorism against The United States on the grounds of conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists, his defense statement is very indicative of how many people may be able to see America’s view on terrorism as very one sided and how certain events throughout American history can be viewed as a form of the same terrorism that is defined within American dictionaries.

Works Cited
Ali Hirsi, Ayaan. “Women everywhere, of all cultures, merit access to education and basic human rights.” theahafoundation.org. N.p. n.d. Web. 03Nov. 2012.
“Ayaan Hirsi Ali's statement to the press.” www.vvd.nl. N.p. n.d. Web. 03 Nov. 2012.
Chamseddine Roqayah “In your eyes, I’m a terrorist’ but you killed and maimed 100s of 1000s of Muslims — Mehanna, on sentencing.” www.mondoweiss.net. Mondoweiss. 15 April. 2012. Web. 03 Nov. 2012.
“De Verdieping. Ayaan Hirsi Ali,” Trouw, 25 January 2003.Web.03 Nov. 2012.
“Female Genital Mutilation (FGM).” www.middle-east-info.org. N.p. n.d. Web. 03 Nov. 2012.
Grimes, William. "No Rest for a Feminist Fighting Radical Islam". The New York Times. The New York Times. 14 February. 2007. Retrieved 26 April 2010. Web. 03 Nov. 2012.
'Ik geloof niet Meer'". Elsevier.nl. 27 January 2012. Web. 03 Nov. 2012.
Raw, Julie. Ghosh, Bobby. “A Soldier’s Crime.” www.time.com. Time. 2012. Web. 17 Nov. 2012.
“To submit to the Book is to submit to their Hell", extract of speech. Sydney Morning Herald 4. June 2007. Web. 03 Nov. 2012. “Voices on Antisemtisim, Interview with Ayaan Hirsi Ali.” United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. 4 January 2007. Web. 03 Nov. 2012.