Ayan Hersi And The Samatars

EDITORIAL

Ayan Hersi has made a name for herself in the west by her constant attacks against Islam as a religion. The western media not only reported these attacks but also praised Ayan Hersi as a morally courageous person fighting for the emancipation of Muslim women.

In spite of the fact that she knew little about the religion herself, however her slanderously distorted statements on Islam were aired by the western media in an uncritical fashion. By renouncing religion and culture, Ayan Hersi became a celebrity who makes a lot of money and was also elected as member of the Dutch Parliament.

It is strange that the media, at least in the Netherlands, hasn’t even attempted to investigate how Ayan related to members of the Somali community in Holland. Despite her portrayal as champion of the rights of Muslim women, there was no single case in which Ayan Hersi helped out a Muslim woman from her own Somali community.

In fact at least 30,000 Dutch citizens of Somali origin (about 90% of the community) left Holland for the UK in the last 5 years. The exodus was primarily caused by the feelings of Islam phobia that were triggered to a large extent by anti-Islamic statements attributed to Ayan Hersi and her many supporters in the western media and political establishments. Concerned with the onslaught on their culture and religious belief, these Somalis fled to Britain, a multi-cultural society that accepts and tolerates religious diversity.

Yet this side of the story never came to the attention of the western media or stopped Time Magazine from choosing Ayan Hersi as one of the world’s 100 most influential people. Ayan Hersi Magan is not the only Somali woman who falsely claimed “fleeing a forced marriage”. Other celebrities such as ex-models Iman and Waris Deriye had each fabricated a similar story in the past and got away with it.

The Ayan syndrome has also afflicted an increasing number of Somalis in the male category such as the Samatar brothers. Unlike Ayan, Ahmed and Abdi Ismail Samatar have only achieved fame within Somaliland and Somalia as a result of being frequently hosted by the BBC’s Somali Service for comment on Somali current affairs.

Though the Somaliland-born brothers have been living in the west over the last 25 years, yet they hardly seemed embarrassed to comment on a situation with which they lost touch. They liked to promote themselves as staunch unionists who support the concept of Greater Somalia. But like Ayan Hersi who waged a media campaign against Islamic faith as well as followers of the religion, the Samatars spread hatred against Somaliland as a country and people through the BBC’s Somali programme. Ayan never debated the Muslims in Holland about Islam but only sought the approval of its non-Muslim majority.

The main concern of the Samatar brothers has been to infuriate Somalilanders so as to keep the people of Somalia on their side. The two men have never stated clearly why they don’t like Somaliland to exist or why they should shamelessly degenerate themselves to the extent of inciting tribal hatred among Somaliland communities living side by side peacefully.

Like Ayan who lied about her name, age and family, the Samatars even lie about the name of their country by calling it “north western Somalia” and not Somaliland, in the hope that they might be invited to join the TFG.

Unlike the many Somalilanders who had risked their lives in pursuit of dialogue and reconciliation, people like Ayan Hersi and Ahmed and Abdi Samatar have only been interested in the perpetuation of hatred. Ayan alignated herself with the powerful (the political and media institutions in the west) against the weak (the Muslim minorities) while in the 1980s the Samatars showed a lack of moral courage to stand up against oppression. Instead they sided with the dictatorship.

Source: Somaliland Times

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