Charles Groenhuijsen : You're working on some kind of sequel - I wouldn't say a second Submission , but at least a second documentary. Can you tell us something about the tone of the documentary? This one, you could say, is confrontational. Is the second one going to be different?

Ayaan Hirsi Ali: I wouldn't call it a documentary. It's more like, I use this to show that the woman on the prayer mat is not talking to the media or talking to the world, she's talking to her god. And she's saying: “God, look, I've done everything that you've told me to do, and things are going wrong, and you're being silent.” And with that I intend to shift the Islamic relationship, which is one of total submission to God, to one of submission to dialogue.

I'll do the same in Part 2, but this time with men who will also - you know, the martyr, the hypocrite - men who do their very best to obey the laws of Allah and then things go wrong. Again, you will see a man on a prayer mat, with the holy texts written on his body, discussing with God and saying: “Look, God, I'm doing what you tell me to do but things are going wrong. “

Charles Groenhuijsen : And you didn't consider another approach, which is more toward dialogue and respect? Because the people on the other side, I saw some people looking at it in disgust. They would probably like to see it in more of a dialogue kind of way, more respectful, from their point of view.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali: I've never rejected dialogue and I'm open to dialogue. I would like to sit down with Muslims and watch Submission with them and discuss that with them. Unfortunately, the reaction of most Muslims to Submission was one of, yes, disgust and anger and threats, and the director of the film was killed.

I have a lot of questions for those who are "disgusted." For example, in the case of Submission Part 1, I'd like to ask them: What's more disgusting, the fact that this holy verse is written on the body of a woman - what's wrong with the body of a woman? - or the content of the verse, which says: “Beat her”? Or that you should be flogged 100 times for having premarital sex? These are the issues that Muslims have to face before we can reach the equality that Arab Muslims long for with Westerners. They will only reach that when Westerners hold to Muslims the same moral criteria they hold to themselves.

Charles Groenhuijsen : Mr. Atwan, was this hard for you to watch?

Abdel Bari Atwan : Yes, actually, it is very hard. Excuse my language, but I think this is cultural "bin Ladenism." This is extremism. To be honest, if we are against Muslim extremists, you are representing also the other side of extremism, which is extremely dangerous.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali: How am I dangerous?

Abdel Bari Atwan: Because you are provocative. It is revolting. You are insulting one billion and four hundred million Muslims. This is unacceptable. We have to respect other people's religion, other people's feelings. I'm not a religious man, but we have to respect people. If, for example, if you say something like this about Judaism, you will be accused of being anti-Semitic. So you are being anti-Islamic, and you are insulting the values of a billion and four hundred million people. Last week, the editor of a very well-known Persian newspaper was arrested because she beat up her husband, and he had a bloody nose because of that. Shall we generalise about this? [Applause] So, please, you have to respect us.

One last point. Yes, we are not perfect in the Arab world. We are not actually superior. We have our mistakes. But you cannot ignore this bombing of Iraq - 100,000 people were killed and 400,000 were injured - and say we should stop blaming the West. Yes, we are blaming the West, because the West supported and financed these dictatorships that have been keeping the women, as you said, as a lower class. The report you are referring to - the first article of this report said we are backward in the Arab world because women are not given their proper status in our society. You have to mention that.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali: I did mention that. I didn't say you should stop or start blaming. What I can, however, see the media doing is that when they report on Iraq, most of the Western media is extremely negative about the Bush administration going into Iraq. The newspapers and the television that I watch are extremely critical of Israel. My question to all of you is: Is it okay if the media hold the same moral criteria to the Arabs and the Arab world? Why, if the media are critical of Arab Muslims - morally and socially and politically - why is that seen as negative and bad and picking on them and blaming them? I mean, grow up.

Charles Groenhuijsen: Tariq Ramadan, I'm curious to hear from you, listening to this discussion in Amsterdam, what's your reaction in Paris?

Tariq Ramadan: I think we're dealing here with a very simplistic approach, saying: Are we accepting that the media take the same stand that they are taking with the Israelis and so on - of course, we are. The question is not that. The question is, to take the Koran and quote one verse - to generalise the question and say all Muslims are like that - is just the purely simplistic and superficial approach that I can hear from far-right parties. Extremist parties are promoting that.

This is not the true question. We have different trends and we have different readings, and what we expect from the media is just to show the complexity of the Islamic world, the different trends and evolutions - this is what we need. But to follow in the footsteps of this discourse, saying, “I can quote the Koran and show you how Islam is bad per se” is not going to help us. This is not the way. I can understand a personal life, dealing with suffering, but not to generalise and say: “Islam is that.” Because at the end of the day, the discourse of Ayaan Hirsi Ali is just to say: Islam is the problem.

There is something really important in what she says now. We need to be self-critical. We need media helping us to follow and to be self-critical when Muslims are doing wrong things in the name of Islam. But because some Muslims are doing wrong doesn't mean that Islam is wrong, that we have different ways of thinking and different ways of dealing with problems. The media should just show the complexity of the Islamic world, and this will be enough. We don't need journalists liking us - just being objective. [Applause]