Infidel by Ayaan Hirsi Ali

Infidel by Ayaan Hirsi Ali

A memoir that forces one to think. About the effects of growing up amidst poverty and war in Somalia. About the incredible cruelty and oppression of female circumcision. About the role that the Islamic faith has played in the woman’s life, and in the lives of many African and Arabic females. About the values of Western Society and how this has impacted the integration of Islamic immigrants and refugees.

This memoir tells the very personal story of a brave, intelligent and resourceful woman who is able to escape the shackles of her upbringing in Somalia, and forge a new life of freedom in Holland. However, even as she finds her voice, tells her story and promotes her newfound values, the forces of Islamic repression threaten her life and attempt to kill her. The brutal murder of Theo Van Gogh brings her struggle to an unwanted head. The short film that Hirsi Ali and Van Gogh made together, Submission, was a vivid attempt to document the abuse of women that is promulgated under the name of Islam.

This incident is all too reminiscent of the controversy that erupted over Salman Rushdie novel, The Satanic Verses. Certainly, the fatwa issued urging his assassination highlighted the depth of intolerance that some Islamic leaders would promote, and how much their values differed from those of the West. The principal of freedom of expression, that ideas should be debated publicly under the standards of rationality and reason, was directly assaulted by this fatwa. Indeed, it is impossible to understand the belief that a person should be killed for something he said or wrote. It is indefensible, barbaric in the essential sense of the word, to call for the death of a person over an idea.

Before she was forced out of her short career as a member of the Dutch parliament, she cautioned that the famous Dutch tolerance of other cultures and lifestyles was not working in the case of Islamic immigrants and refugees. The Dutch people assumed that the Islamic values were congruent with their own, that the principals of equality and respect of different cultures and genders, the nurturing and education of children as independent and intelligent beings, that reason must prevail over dogma in a civilize society.

Ali contends, with eloquent and persuasive force, that Islamic thought has not been updated in the same manner as Western religions. It does not teach tolerance towards non-adherents to its philosophy, thus it cannot be said to promote peace. It does not teach equality; sections of the Qur'an are repeatedly used to justify the oppression and abuse of women. Their thoughts are worth half that of a man, they are considered property - the sexual slaves of their husbands. They must hide their bodies and suppress their own sensuality. They can be beaten at will, and will be stoned to death for the audacity of being raped. It is this manner of thought that Ali rails against, this forced submission of Islamic females under the guise of religious belief.