In this climate of rising social tensions, Hirsi Ali landed a job at the Labor Party’s think tank, the Wiardi Beckman Institute. Shortly after the 9/11 attacks she was invited to discuss Islam and gender on television. Asked to comment on Fortuyn’s descriptions of Islam, she said, “By some criteria, Islam could be considered a backward religion.” The reaction that followed shocked everyone, except possibly Hirsi Ali herself. There were written death threats, and when she walked in the street, groups of Muslim boys called her a whore and shouted that they wanted to kill her. She had to leave the country briefly. Pim Fortuyn’s shocking assassination in May 2002, Holland’s first political murder in 300 years, hardened Hirsi Ali’s determination to press forward. That fall she wrote an article calling upon Muslim women to abandon the “outdated religious opinions” that prevented them from claiming their rights under Dutch law. A circle of older Dutch writers and politicians began to gather around her. Some, like the University of Utrecht philosopher Herman Phillipse, warned that Holland’s Muslim community was rapidly becoming indigestible. Others, such as the writer Paul Scheffer, favored using the government to promote integration. The politician Geert Wilders was perhaps the most inflammatory. “Why are we afraid to tell Muslims to adapt to us, simply because our values and norms represent a higher level of civilization - better, more pleasant and more humane. No more integration, but assimilation!” Wilders wrote.

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