Criticism was not long in coming. The outfit is political, Professor Kjell Lars Berge of the University of Oslo claimed, and not an existential or private choice.
“It testifies to a religious conviction that is extreme and connected to a political program leaning in a Fascist direction. We know well what these groups represent and it has no place in the classroom,” he told Klassekampen newspaper in January 2012.
In protest, the author Morten Skårdal returned a prize he had been awarded by Association!Read. The culture editor of the Bergens Tidende newspaper, Hilde Sandvik, drew a parallel between Aisha Shezadi and the right-wing extremist Anders Behring Breivik, and claimed that supporters of the talks in the schools were legitimizing violence. Her colleague in Norway’s newspaper of record, Aftenposten, Knut Olav Åmås, warned against equating the niqab with extremism. “Should a niqab-wearing Norwegian youth from Bærum be prevented from touring schools because nearly everyone hates what she stands for? No.” He asserted that society needed more openness and debate after the terrorist attacks of July 22, 2011, as a strategy against those forces that did not want either of those things.
The tour of schools had not drawn much attention until Aisha had expressed support for the Taliban’s attacks on Norwegian soldiers. Beneath a photograph of an international coalition soldier and a Taliban fighter on her Facebook page she wrote: “No matter how much equipment they have they will never eliminate the lions of Allah.” She encouraged people to protest, and on another Facebook event page titled “Demonstration: Norwegian soldiers out of Afghanistan,” she wrote, “Inshallah, the demo will be a success … the more attention it attracts the better—it will mean more people pay attention and we inshallah can show what we are good for.” On a discussion thread supporting the introduction of sharia in Norway, she wrote, “What is the point of democracy anyway when we have sharia?”
The main speaker at the demonstration was Arfan Bhatti, a charismatic man in his midthirties, with deep-set dark eyes, a long beard, and agile steps. He was of medium height, broad shouldered, and feared for his aggressiveness. After serving several prison sentences for acts of violence, he had drifted from the criminal underworld into the group of extremist Islamists, reinventing himself as an emir, a Muslim commander.
“The people of Norway need to know that their security is in danger as long as Norway has soldiers in Afghanistan. This is not a threat. It is a warning for your own good!” Arfan Bhatti shouted to the assembled demonstrators. This de facto leader of the Islamists, a man who mixed newly learned hadiths with street slang, said the country was at war with Islam and therefore with all Muslims. He called Norwegian soldiers terrorists and promised revenge.
Aisha, in her niqab outside the Parliament building that January day, approved of what she heard and what she saw.
This outfit was unequivocally political.
10
IT’S ALL ABOUT THE HEART
On December 25, 2011, Ayan turned eighteen. She could obtain a passport, apply for a credit card, order things online, qualify for a driver’s license, and vote. The school could no longer contact her parents with any concerns they had, as attendance was now her own responsibility.
In January she opened a Twitter account. Her debut of 140 characters was a quotation by a man her Koran teacher often referred to, Muhammad al-Tirmidhi: “Know that victory comes with patience, relief with affliction, and ease with hardship.”
Ayan’s profile, in contrast with Aisha’s, contained nothing hateful or extreme. She posted links to interviews and talks, such as one in which the American journalist Glenn Greenwald spoke of how meaningless the terms “terror” and “terrorism” were, and she wrote, “The U.S. is kicking out 1000 immigrants a day. Not bad for a people who stole the land in the first place.”
She was interested in her own African identity. “Being black is not easy wallahi [I swear to God]! How the world is against black people at times!! I praise Allah for Islam.” She added, “Especially in countries like Norway! But Alhamdulillah for Islam!”
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The Arab Spring was entering its second year. It was a year since the Tunisian dictator Ben Ali had fled to Saudi Arabia in the wake of mass demonstrations. Hosni Mubarak was in prison in Cairo, and a few months earlier Muammar Gaddafi had been dragged from a drainage pipe, beaten bloody, sodomized with a bayonet, and shot in the head before his corpse was placed on display at a militia headquarters in Misrata until the stench made them remove him.
In Syria, Bashar al-Assad was still in power. Ayan followed developments from afar, waging jihad with her heart, tongue, and keyboard. “Ugliest dog in the world dies—what a misleading title, I thought they finally killed Bashar,” she tweeted in March 2012.
Western leaders declined to support the Syrian uprising as they had backed Libya’s. They sat on the fence when the Assad regime attacked peaceful demonstrators, and when the demonstrators took up arms they were left to fend for themselves. An intervention in Syria would involve an entirely different set of challenges. The Syrian military was far stronger and possessed advanced Russian-produced antiaircraft systems. In addition, the regime was supported by Iran, and any intervention would motivate Iran to assist Assad more directly and further undermine American interests in Iraq, in turn jeopardizing Iran’s continuing involvement in the negotiations for a deal regarding their nuclear program. It was simply not worth it.
Western leaders turned a blind eye as the first foreign fighters from Europe entered the theater of war. For a time they were viewed as something akin to aid workers and freedom fighters. Although a few enlisted in the Free Syrian Army in the hope of introducing democracy to the country, most were jihadists and joined al-Qaida’s Syrian branch.
With Islam Net’s Peace Conference approaching, Ayan’s activity
