True Unbeliever

From "Infidel":

"A woman . . . is like a pious slave. She honors her husband's family and feeds them without question or complaint. She never whines or makes demands of any kind. She is strong in service, but her head is bowed. If her husband is cruel, if he rapes her and then taunts her about it, if he decides to take another wife, or beats her, she lowers her gaze and hides in tears. And she works, hard, faultlessly. She is a devoted, welcoming, well-trained work animal."

This observation is as cutting as it is overreaching, but it's this outraged expression of horror -- and the desire to avoid such a fate at all costs -- that would propel her onto an international stage.

She was given to a man she scarcely knew in an arranged marriage. En route to his home in Canada, she got off the plane in Germany and sought asylum in the Netherlands. She worked at menial jobs, learned Dutch, graduated from college. Then came 9/11.

The attacks on the Trade Center were not by a "lunatic fringe," she said, but by the very center of the faith: "This was not just Islam, this was the core of Islam . . . [this was] not frustration, poverty, colonialism, or Israel: it was about religious belief, a one way ticket to Heaven." She began to scorn her fellow immigrants. She said Muslims needed to adopt Western values; if necessary, the Netherlands should amend its Constitution to ban faith-based schools in order to keep Muslim parents from sending their children to Muslim schools. She stood for office on the Liberal ticket, one of a slate of candidates, and made it into parliament -- an immigrant elected on a current of anti- immigrant sentiment.

During the uproar that followed filmmaker van Gogh's murder, there was a television documentary that showed people, including her ex-husband, saying much of what she had said about her arranged marriage was false. It became public knowledge that she had lied on her immigration application (she had changed her name, age and important details about her refugee status). The government, furious, announced she would be stripped of citizenship. That set off another uproar that toppled the ruling coalition of parties, but saved her Dutch nationality.

What's left after such an ordeal?

The United States, of course.

American Dream

She wants a green card. She says she wants to stay and that she's tired, after five years of almost constant controversy.

"I'd like to buy a place, have a circle of friends around me, work, have a weekend. I'd like to try being an average American." In her first book, she wrote that "Right now the media are still lapping it up: a black woman who criticizes Islam. One day the magic around me will disappear."

Perhaps so.

But, you know, you have to wonder how idealized a concept she has of this country. You wonder what she'll make of the cultural incoherency: 50 Cent, Rosie O'Donnell, Jerry Falwell, Don DeLillo, the death penalty, the state of Idaho, college football, the gun lobby. She seems as if she'd be perfectly at home at a Georgetown reception as the only black person in the room and perfectly lost at a Harlem dinner party. She wouldn't rate an invitation to the Dearborn, Mich., Arab American dinner.

Does any of that matter?

Probably not.

But still, somewhere in the chord of Ayaan Hirsi Ali, there is a note as discordant and troubling as it is compelling.

Smart, angry, tough, vulnerable: She'll be a big hit in this country.