“Of Somali birth and upbringing, Hirsi Ali fled to the Netherlands as a young woman to escape marriage to a much older man, forced upon her by her father; there, she learned Dutch, became Dutch, and was elected to parliament, only to leave for America after her forthright criticism of Islam made her too radioactive for the disappointingly timid Dutch to handle.”
Ayaan Hirsi Ali suggests that in Islamic cultures, there really hasn’t been anything like the Enlightenment. Honor killings, women kept apart from men, women kept under religious garments and in the home is not a matter of debate, but rather, a mandate from God and the only way to run your society. Islam demands that you submit your will in faith to God, and well, that’s usually the end of the discussion. In this vein, Hirsi Ali might be something of an Islamic reformer and has garnered skepticism, dismissal, anger and death threats from the Muslim world.
As mentioned, Hirsi Ali’s main target is Islam, and the injustice done against her by Muslims in the name of Islam, and she does so while using Western ideas and criticizing excessive relativism and multiculturalism as inadequate defenders of those Western ideas. Muslims immigrate but are never fully integrated into their new, European societies. They languish in generational ghettoes, maintaining their own cultures and languages and customs, and a wall of anger, resentment, injustice, xenophobia and suspicion builds. Whatever injustice she argues Islam delivered upon her, misunderstanding dominates in this environment and many guiding political ideas are simply not profound nor accurate enough to get over that wall.
If you’ve read the book, please share your thoughts.
Also On This Site: Many libertarians stand firm on freedom of speech: Repost-A Canadian Libertarian Making Noise: Ezra Levant…From Volokh: ‘”South Park” Creators Warned (Threatened) Over Mohammed’…Christopher Hitchens At Slate: Yale Surrenders–Yale concluded that the risk of violence and the potential consequences that stemmed from their decision to publish a scholarly work about the Mohammed cartoons (reprinting those cartoons) was not worth the risk. Hitchens is not a fan of religion.
Does Hirsi Ali really want to court the darker tendencies of the hard European right…or point out the flaws of the re-sentiment filled left?: Repost-Ayan Hirsi Ali At The CSM: ‘Swiss Ban On Minarets Was A Vote For Tolerance And Inclusion’
A British Muslim tells his story, suggesting that classical liberalism wouldn’t be a bad idea: From Kenanmalik.com: ‘Introduction: How Salman Rushdie Changed My Life’
Is Islam incompatibile with freedom as we define it here in the West?, and is this a particularly British, Church Of England, problem?: From YouTube: Roger Scruton On Religious Freedom, Islam & Atheism…
