According to Ayaan Hirsi Ali, it is only the liberation of women that can bring about lasting reform in the Muslim world. It has been the core piece of her agenda as an "enlightenment fundamentalist" as it is called these days, and it is the central theme of the short movie Submission which she co-produced with Theo van Gogh. While the story behind the film and its eventual impact are now well-known, I wondered about its intentions and brief history prior to it becoming a global firestorm after Van Gogh’s violent death.

According to her biography (due out in the US and Canada in February 2007) the idea for the film came from Hirsi Ali who responded to Van Gogh’s experiences with Muslim leader Aboe Jahjah (see below) and his increasing irritation over the submissive role of women in Islam. Once that idea was seeded in the moviemaker’s hyperactive brain, he wasted little time in getting the project to fruition and he urged Hirsi Ali to produce a workable script. The movie, only ten minutes long, was produced during the summer of 2004 and aired in the 'Zomergasten' (“Summer Guests”) show from the VPRO, a station traditionally known for its somewhat alternative and intellectual programming:

Van Gogh paid the costs of the film, 18,000 Euros himself. De VPRO paid him 2,000 Euros. Next week the film will be available on the filmer’s website. “I will send it to Al-Jazeera” says Van Gogh. “They broadcast these Bin Laden films, so they probably won’t object to this one”

Van Gogh’s boldness was matched by Hirsi Ali’s care. She cleared the airing of Submission first with the VPRO, who were fine with it but thought her idea to let it be part of Zomergasten somewhat unusual. She went one step further and consulted with her party members – she was after all an elected member of parliament for a governing party – and the reactions differed. Elder statesman Bolkestein was concerned. Vice-Premier and Finance Minister Gerrit Zalm betrayed his basic skill set as a numbers man by rationally verifying that the texts from the Koran quoted in the film were indeed accurate. Johan Remkes, Minister for the Interior, could not understand why Ayaan was so worried over security and protection. The same sort of response was offered by the Defence Minister Henk Kamp whose reaction was as shocking as it was revealing (from Hirsi Ali's biography):

“I asked him: what is the status of security?” Kamp responded: “the Muslim community has had to swallow a lot this year. It has hit them hard – they won’t respond to this”

It is telling that politicians with security in their portfolio – defence and interior – were the ones most oblivious to the dangers of the film. The Dutch press however knew immediately that something was amiss with the production and wasted no time plastering it on the front pages:

“New Provocation Hirsi Ali” said the NRC Handelsblad which revealed as much about the content of the short film as it did about the newspaper’s editorial sentiments. But it begs the question: did such a deliberate attempt to offend her religion create a situation in which a debate could be waged over the role of women in Islam? Neither Ian Buruma in his book, nor Hirsi Ali in hers, give a satisfactory answer to that question and I suspect that there isn’t one, yet. Hirsi Ali however did argue in the said TV show what she would like to see as the possible outcome:

“If you want something to lead to a discussion, if you want people to start thinking, then you have to do things that will place them in front of dilemmas. And not by way of violence or something like that, but through words and representations, that is the way I do it. Of course, there is a chance that people will say, ‘yes, the format is such that I am no longer interested in the contents’. But I am convinced that there are women who simply can not look away from this, women who won’t just look at the message’s format.

Muslim women – the few that saw the movie - reacted mostly defensively, and preferred to indeed look away. But the film and its deadly outcome reached another audience: the western non-believers, who all of a sudden realized to what extent ‘free speech’ had come under extreme pressure in their own society. Ayaan’s provocation to the Muslim world turned out to be one directed at the ‘free’ western world.

Submission’s real value therefore may only prove itself over time. Recognizing that freedom of speech should never be compromised is one, liberating the Muslim world quite another and an even more difficult one. Like most reform movements, attempts at change are usually perceived as being either unwarranted or arriving too early. That perception does not apply to Submission, but the evidence of that has yet to reveal itself. It did however come too early for the man who made and relentlessly championed it.