« Nation of Islam: History - Part 4 |
| Egypt: Blogger Who Insulted Islam Loses Appeal »
March 10, 2007
US: The WSJ Looks at Ayaan Hirsi Ali
The nation's largest newspaper profiles this courageous woman: Free Radical
NEW YORK--Ayaan Hirsi Ali is untrammeled and unrepentant: "I am supposed to apologize for saying the prophet is a pervert and a tyrant," she declares. "But that is apologizing for the truth."Statements such as these have brought Ms. Hirsi Ali to world-wide attention. Though she recently left her adopted country, Holland--where her friend and intellectual collaborator Theo van Gogh was murdered by a Muslim extremist in 2004--she is still accompanied by armed guards wherever she travels.
Ms. Hirsi Ali was born in 1969 in Mogadishu--into, as she puts it, "the Islamic civilization, as far as you can call it a civilization." In 1992, at age 22, her family gave her hand to a distant relative; had the marriage ensued, she says, it would have been "an arranged rape." But as she was shipped to the appointment via Europe, she fled, obtaining asylum in Holland. There, "through observation, through experience, through reading," she acquainted herself with a different world. "The culture that I came to and I live in now is not perfect," Ms. Hirsi Ali says. "But this culture, the West, the product of the Enlightenment, is the best humanity has ever achieved."[...]
Posted by Ruy Diaz at March 10, 2007 12:38 PM
Comments
If only she could help the rest of their women escape and the whole thing will be mute point in a generation or two.
Posted by: Catawhumpus ![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.westernresistance.com/nav-commenters.gif)
at March 10, 2007 5:19 PM
I have noticed that Ayaan Hirsi Ali enrages even Muslims who wish to appear as moderates ! See for example this blog, from a Muslim man to whom I will make the grace to believe he is sincere :
http://drhassaballa.blogspot.com/2007/02/ayan-hirsi-ali-here-we-go-again.html
OK, he doesn't write with rage, but how these people can't understand that Ayaan Hirsi Ali is not half as outrageous towards Islam as Voltaire was towards Christianity in his time ? And that it is thanks to people like Voltaire that the church(es) had to retreat from its (their) excesses, violences and authoritarian behaviour. If only people like Ayaan Hirsi Ali could achieve the same results with Islam. Is it possible or not ? At least Voltaire wasn't threatened to death. (But Galileo Galilei was...) Can we draw parallels ? With the advent of modern weapons, I am afraid that we cannot afford the luxury of waiting for centuries for Islam to reform itself, if it can...
Posted by: Spipou at March 11, 2007 6:29 PM
Spipou,
Just for the record, Galileo was never threatened by the Church for attacking the faith. Contrary to the enlightment propaganda, he was a rather egocentric and troublesome person, who couldn't adequately respond to scientific and pragmatical objections.
Nevertheless, he was a very devout Christian.
Posted by: AlexPeccator at March 14, 2007 11:35 AM
Post a comment
Thanks for signing in, . Now you can comment. (sign out)
(If you haven't left a comment here before, you may need to be approved by the site owner before your comment will appear. Until then, it won't appear on the entry. Thanks for waiting.)