Helpful Score: 23
I must admit that I had to force myself through some of this book, but later on I realized that the earlier portion was important to understanding the changes in the author's life (she refers to it as her own personal enlightenment). It wasn't until Chapter 10 (page 183) where things really began to come together. It was really worth the effort.
Helpful Score: 13
Amazingsimply amazing.
Infidel is a page turner (even though it is more difficult to read than a fictional story). Ayaan Hirsi Ali captivated me with her ability to keep me in my comfort zone and yet tell the gruesome bits of her life. I find her amazing, more so because she was able to explain to me how Muslims think. She did not write a book that bashes the Muslim religion she wrote a memoir that clearly explains where she comes from and where the Muslims come from.
What I found most intriguing is how she could have such radical thoughts about her religion at such a young age with no one around her feeding her questions.
The one caution I would give other potential readers is that this book is highly political. I liked it a lot because I believe a lot of the things that Ayaan believes. However, for those readers that do not agree with those views this could be a very frustrating and maybe even enraging book.
I do highly recommend it to anyone even if they do not follow my beliefs on religion or politics. Everyone can take something away from this work.
Infidel is a page turner (even though it is more difficult to read than a fictional story). Ayaan Hirsi Ali captivated me with her ability to keep me in my comfort zone and yet tell the gruesome bits of her life. I find her amazing, more so because she was able to explain to me how Muslims think. She did not write a book that bashes the Muslim religion she wrote a memoir that clearly explains where she comes from and where the Muslims come from.
What I found most intriguing is how she could have such radical thoughts about her religion at such a young age with no one around her feeding her questions.
The one caution I would give other potential readers is that this book is highly political. I liked it a lot because I believe a lot of the things that Ayaan believes. However, for those readers that do not agree with those views this could be a very frustrating and maybe even enraging book.
I do highly recommend it to anyone even if they do not follow my beliefs on religion or politics. Everyone can take something away from this work.
Helpful Score: 9
This is a beautifully written, incredibly brave and deeply moving autobiography. A must read for anyone!
Wonderful book that illustrates this woman's life growing up a Muslim Somalian. Parts of this book will make you want to weep. It's Very interesting to see how other cultures treat women.
Helpful Score: 6
Although Ayaan's story was fascinating, her main point came later in the book: subsidizing Moslem immigrants in Europe, so that they can support their own parallel sub-culture, has caused the problems we see today.
Helpful Score: 4
Ayaan Hirsi Ali pulled no punches when relating her compelling story of growing up under oppressive Islam in Somalia, Kenya, and Saudi Arabia. When she was promised to a distant Muslim cousin in Canada and instead escaped to the Netherlands, I felt as relieved as if I had been the one staring down a life of faith-based oppression. This book made me outraged on behalf of Muslim women everywhere and took my intolerance of religious fundamentalism to new heights.
Helpful Score: 4
An incredible book, an incredible woman. For those who wonder why Muslims don't condemn what the Muslim radicals do, Ayaan not only answers that question, she answers others. I was a little reticent about saying out loud that not all religions should be tolerated. After reading this book, I won't be shy about saying it any more. It has a permanent place on my bookshelf, right beside They Call Me Infidel. When the PC crowd starts to intimidate me, I'll just open this book up again and read a few pages to remind myself that we're in a fight for our very survival.
Helpful Score: 3
This is a great book. While some parts were not as interesting as others, I could not wait to finish this book. Her story is incredible. She is an amazing person.
Helpful Score: 3
This book was one of the most informative, horrifying, yet inspirational books I have ever read. Ayaan Hirsi Ali takes us through her childhood and teen years in war ravaged, Islamo-fascist Kenya & Somalia. She shares stories about the strict rules placed on Muslim women and the prohibitions on freedom found in Islam. I thoroughly enjoyed the first hand descriptions of what Islam actually teaches. With the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and Libyia in the last couple of month (2011) an understanding of what these religious/political groups believe is essential.
THe writing style of Ali is beautiful. I did not even realize that her style changes throughout the book. She created the voice of an uneducated, scared young girl that eventually changes into the confusion of a teen who wants to rebel against strict standards. Finally, after finding her freedom, Ali writes with the authority of a woman who is confident in herself and her place in society. Beautiful. Absolutely beautiful.
THe writing style of Ali is beautiful. I did not even realize that her style changes throughout the book. She created the voice of an uneducated, scared young girl that eventually changes into the confusion of a teen who wants to rebel against strict standards. Finally, after finding her freedom, Ali writes with the authority of a woman who is confident in herself and her place in society. Beautiful. Absolutely beautiful.
Helpful Score: 2
This autobiography is remarkable on many levels. You learn a great deal about the Somali culture (including female circumcision) and its adherence to strict clan lines, as well as a first-hand account of the political struggles which have ripped apart that portion of the world. You also see the rise of fundamental Islam. But what is most interesting--and amazing--is the author herself, who against all odds made her own way in the world and became a dynamic and analytical thinker, all of which has put her life in jeopardy. Truly inspirational!
Helpful Score: 1
The book is very well written. Ms. Ali presents an interesting take on the Islamic way of life in Africa and Saudi Arabia and on fundamental Islam. She also offers some considerations to the debate about the assimilation of minorities in any culture. It is truly worth reading to hear those views.
Helpful Score: 1
This is one of the most amazing books I have ever read. What a brave and courageous woman for standing up for what she believed in. I had no idea the extent of female circumcision and didn't know much about Islam. I could never imagine being in an arranged marriage to my cousin or being stoned or beaten for something that is normal to most of the rest of the world. It shocked me! I will think about this book for a long time...
Helpful Score: 1
I read this book for a book club. It is awesome. It has some graphic descriptions, but it made me believe that US is really is nice place to live. I recommend this book to friends all the time.
Helpful Score: 1
I found this book to be very informative and gripping. A true account of one woman's struggle to be an individual in a society that does not permit women to have a voice. We take our freedoms in this country so lightly that it is a shock to believe that women still have no choices in other countries. I think that Ayaan Hirsi Ali finally puts to rest the debate on Islam and the treatment of women. I highly recommend this book to anyone that is interested in the human condition.
Wow! Ayaan is an amazing lady! Her courage and determination is incredible. Reading her life story makes me so grateful to have been born when and where I was. It would be nice to think that I could have done the same as her, faced with the challenges she was, but in all honesty I think I would have crumbled. She has a lot of important things to say about very complex issues facing society today.
Highly recommended!
Highly recommended!
Very interesting book!The abuse of women under the religion of Islam is horrible. Definitely an eye opener.
Mind changing. Realized the fallacy of being "open-minded" and accepting of all cultures in the face of injustice.
Fascinating and horrifying. I was impressed by Ayaan's courage in questioning the entrenched beliefs of her family and in boldly making a new life for herself in Europe. This book has really affected the way that I understand Islam's treatment of women. It is impossible not to respond to Ayaan's life story. Her insider's perspective and criticisms speak volumes. A must-read for those interested in religious issues and human rights.
This is a book I reviewed for my local bookclub. I have to say I chose it to shock the ladies of my club. I was shocked also. I kept having to check back and make certain the dates I had were correct. I simple could not believe that women are subjected to the things Ayaan went thru. I kept thanking God that I was born in the USA and not a country that practiced female mutilation and forced marriages.
Excellent book, informative and well written. I understand the mentality of Muslim men after reading about their upbringing. I would definitely recommend this book to everyone.
I loved this book! Some parts were difficult to read, but I learned so much from Ayaan's life experience. I knew so little about Muslims and Islam before. She has done so much with her life and I have a great deal of respect for her.
Fascinating and inspiring book. It gave me a lot of insight into religious extremism as practiced by some Muslim cultures. Hard to put down.
I noticed I had a lot of non-fiction books that I was wanting to read, but so often overlooked for something fictional. So, I decided my goal was to read one a month. This is my non-fiction choice for July. The following might be boring to anyone but me. (And after reading it, it reads more like an essay than a review).
Infidel is both a history lesson and a very personal story. I never know about the Clans and sub-Clans. I will admit, the first part of this book took longer to read than the second half. This was also eye-opening and also inspiring. I thought she was brave and courageous to speak up. Hirsi Ali brought up issues I had with Islam (and I will add other fundamentalist religious branches too). This review will feature numerous quotes that stayed with me. Her journey and questioning were similar to mine. By virtue of where I was born, I am lucky that I can question, debate, and outright disagree and not have to worry that someone will try to kill me. I am lucky that I can freely state my opinions. I dictate the direction of my life.
"How could a just God-a God so just that almost every page of the Quran praises His fairness-desire that women be treated so unfairly? If God was merciful, why did He demand that that His creatures be hanged in public? If He was compassionate, why did unbelievers have to go to Hell?" There are Bible passages too; that suggest slavery is okay, sex is only for procreation, women are less than men, Jesus is merciful (but non-Christians will burn is Hell) etc, etc. And while there are certain Christian denominations that are strictly conservative, believe, and preach that way, most aren't and view the Bible very differently. Both the Bible and the Quran were written a long time ago and by men. Both reflect the attitudes and social mores of that time. "It is a historical record, written by humans. It is one version of events, as perceived by the men who wrote it 150 years after the Prophet Muhammad died."
I think this next quote explains why women need autonomy and does a good job of pointing it out in such a way that I didn't think of. "I would not have put it this way in those days, but because I was born a woman, I could never become an adult. I would always be a minor, my decisions made for me. I would always be a unit in a vast beehive. I might have a decent life, but I would be dependent-always-on someone treating me well."
Once in Holland, she pursued education. I do think education is so important. This helps to explain why. Regarding her psychology class: "The idea of taking some distance from yourself, of thinking in a systematic way about who you are and how the mind is built up, gave me a whole new way of looking at life." "We were always asked what we thought."
She was right in pointing out the huge difficulties that refugees were having in assimilating. As a result, they formed their own communities (and distrust of outsiders), were more likely have low wages, and high rates of crime which more easily led to disillusionment. "It was depriving many women and children of their rights." Girls were still being genitally mutilated. Women were being abused by their husbands. Girls and women were still being denied educations.
"The concept of individual choice improved people's lives so visibly, as did equality between men and women. I was enamored of the idea that you should think precisely and question everything and build your own theories." Yes to the nth degree! "By declaring our Prophet infallible and not permitting ourselves to question him, we Muslims had set up a static tyranny. The Prophet Muhammad attempted to legislate every aspect of life. By adhering to his rules of what is permitted and what is forbidden, we Muslims suppressed the freedom to think for ourselves and to act as we chose. We froze the moral outlook of billions of people into the mind-set of the Arab desert in the seventh century. We were not just servants of Allah, we were slaves." "My message was that the Quran is an act of man, not of God. We should be free the interpret it; we should be permitted to apply it to a modern era in a different way, instead of performing painful contortions to try to recreate the circumstances of a horrible distant past. My intention was to liberate Muslim minds so that Muslim woman-and Muslim men, too-might be freer. Men, too, are forced to obey inhumane laws."
Amen and can I get a hallelujah?
At the end of the day, it should be noted, highlighted, and placed in bright, shiny letters that: "Even within Islam, not everyone thought the same way."
"The Prophet did teach us a lot of good things. My life was enriched by the Quranic injunctions to be compassionate and show charity to others."
WOMEN'S RIGHTS ARE HUMAN RIGHTS.
And just because this is my space (and my review), Donald Trump can go to hell (if there is one).
My vote is with HRC.
Infidel is both a history lesson and a very personal story. I never know about the Clans and sub-Clans. I will admit, the first part of this book took longer to read than the second half. This was also eye-opening and also inspiring. I thought she was brave and courageous to speak up. Hirsi Ali brought up issues I had with Islam (and I will add other fundamentalist religious branches too). This review will feature numerous quotes that stayed with me. Her journey and questioning were similar to mine. By virtue of where I was born, I am lucky that I can question, debate, and outright disagree and not have to worry that someone will try to kill me. I am lucky that I can freely state my opinions. I dictate the direction of my life.
"How could a just God-a God so just that almost every page of the Quran praises His fairness-desire that women be treated so unfairly? If God was merciful, why did He demand that that His creatures be hanged in public? If He was compassionate, why did unbelievers have to go to Hell?" There are Bible passages too; that suggest slavery is okay, sex is only for procreation, women are less than men, Jesus is merciful (but non-Christians will burn is Hell) etc, etc. And while there are certain Christian denominations that are strictly conservative, believe, and preach that way, most aren't and view the Bible very differently. Both the Bible and the Quran were written a long time ago and by men. Both reflect the attitudes and social mores of that time. "It is a historical record, written by humans. It is one version of events, as perceived by the men who wrote it 150 years after the Prophet Muhammad died."
I think this next quote explains why women need autonomy and does a good job of pointing it out in such a way that I didn't think of. "I would not have put it this way in those days, but because I was born a woman, I could never become an adult. I would always be a minor, my decisions made for me. I would always be a unit in a vast beehive. I might have a decent life, but I would be dependent-always-on someone treating me well."
Once in Holland, she pursued education. I do think education is so important. This helps to explain why. Regarding her psychology class: "The idea of taking some distance from yourself, of thinking in a systematic way about who you are and how the mind is built up, gave me a whole new way of looking at life." "We were always asked what we thought."
She was right in pointing out the huge difficulties that refugees were having in assimilating. As a result, they formed their own communities (and distrust of outsiders), were more likely have low wages, and high rates of crime which more easily led to disillusionment. "It was depriving many women and children of their rights." Girls were still being genitally mutilated. Women were being abused by their husbands. Girls and women were still being denied educations.
"The concept of individual choice improved people's lives so visibly, as did equality between men and women. I was enamored of the idea that you should think precisely and question everything and build your own theories." Yes to the nth degree! "By declaring our Prophet infallible and not permitting ourselves to question him, we Muslims had set up a static tyranny. The Prophet Muhammad attempted to legislate every aspect of life. By adhering to his rules of what is permitted and what is forbidden, we Muslims suppressed the freedom to think for ourselves and to act as we chose. We froze the moral outlook of billions of people into the mind-set of the Arab desert in the seventh century. We were not just servants of Allah, we were slaves." "My message was that the Quran is an act of man, not of God. We should be free the interpret it; we should be permitted to apply it to a modern era in a different way, instead of performing painful contortions to try to recreate the circumstances of a horrible distant past. My intention was to liberate Muslim minds so that Muslim woman-and Muslim men, too-might be freer. Men, too, are forced to obey inhumane laws."
Amen and can I get a hallelujah?
At the end of the day, it should be noted, highlighted, and placed in bright, shiny letters that: "Even within Islam, not everyone thought the same way."
"The Prophet did teach us a lot of good things. My life was enriched by the Quranic injunctions to be compassionate and show charity to others."
WOMEN'S RIGHTS ARE HUMAN RIGHTS.
And just because this is my space (and my review), Donald Trump can go to hell (if there is one).
My vote is with HRC.
Incredible story & woman.
This extraordinary book written by an extraordinary woman is groundbreaking, in that it's one of the rare few which have received acclaim despite its open criticism of Islam as a major ideological paradigm, regardless of where it is found or how it is practiced. One of the author's primary premises, in fact, is that Islam, irrespective of modest efforts to make it more palatable, is essentially a primitive philosophy/repressive desert culture masquerading as a religion, based on as its central tenet, the author argues, the violent subjugation and hatred of women, who are generally considered property akin to livestock. As the author demonstrates, the type of Islam practiced in the various places where she lived as a child and young adult, including in Africa and the Middle East, afforded women no autonomy or control over their own lives, requiring that all women pass from the ownership of fathers, to husbands, and eventually, to sons or other male relatives.
The fact that a book of this type would even be accepted for publication is astounding, but so are the life experiences of its author, and perhaps that's the secret. This astonishing soul offers a personal perspective and description of that which she so effectively denounces. The first section in the author's shocking autobiography describes in graphic, heartbreaking detail her horrific childhood and upbringing, in at least four different countries, and the torture - it's nothing short of that - she continually suffered at the hands of primarily her mother and grandmother, the people who should have been the most responsible for loving and protecting her and her siblings. Instead, her fanatical grandmother was the one responsible for violating even her (somewhat) progressive, activist father's wishes and having her and her sister subjected to female genital mutilation, in early childhood, at the age of five or six, due to the unimaginable (and scarcely credible) belief that failure to subject these young children to this barbaric, horrific, and sometimes fatal mutilation would result in the girls' genitalia growing until they reached the size of a male's ... anatomy. (I'm dubious that they actually believe this latter)
And the atrocities just keep on coming: Ali's descriptions of the constant abuse suffered at the hands of her relatives, inducing even her older brother, who was coddled and often times even encouraged by her clearly mentally ill mother to heap abuse on both his sisters, is beyond heartbreaking. It is clear that her mother was likely bipolar, suffering from clinical depression and quite possibly PTSD, herself a victim of the same abuse she later meted out to her children, after divorcing her first husband and being abandoned by her second, who then took a third wife and started yet another family. Her violent, sadistic mother beat her incessantly, and even permitted others to do likewise, on one occasion, to the point that she suffered a skull fracture and cerebral edema, which could have killed her. Ali's life nearly ended in yet another so-called "honor killing," all for asking the wrong questions. I am disheartened that Ali still somewhat defends her mother, claiming at times that she wasn't really targeting HER, but taking her frustrations out on her for all the disappointments she had suffered throughout her miserable life, just using her as a scapegoat, but I'm unconvinced.
People bristle at the thought, and oft-repeated, phrase that some cultures are better than others, but that's the author's entire credo, in my opinion, which is well-supported, the irrefutable evidence drawn from her lifelong personal experiences, being herself a black, former Muslim woman. As such, it's difficult to disagree with that statement, and herein lies the proof. Yes, this did take place some half-century ago, in some cases, especially in the case of Ali's mother and grandmother... but what's occurring in Somalia currently? From the descriptions offered by modern-day refugees, it appears that the situation is as bad if not worse than it was a half-century ago, especially for women, who have absolutely no protections from the failed-state anarchy which now prevails.
Herself a once-devout adherent to Islam, even in her teenage years, Ali began to question the tenets of the religion of her ancestors, which were often hurled at her by one violent, misogynistic, yet often ignorant and nearly illiterate fundamentalist extremist after another, even before experiencing the stark contrast once she escaped her family and moved to Europe. Initially critical of the ways in which women were treated in Saudi Arabia, which even her father abhorred, Ali began to wear a burka in her teenage years while living in Kenya after being indoctrinated and threatened with the fires of hell and eternal torment by a fanatical teacher at her Islamic school. However, in short order, she could not escape the hypocrisy she saw and the contradictions she encountered, which none of the so-called clerics could engage with.
Indeed, like most fanatical, toxic religions and the leaders who covet power and control, the only answer to Ali's legitimate questions (such as the ridiculous notion that men and women are "equal" in Islam - when one need only read in the Qur'an that a woman's testimony is worth half that of a man's, women do not receive the same inheritance as a man, and that men are always in control of women) was to sit down and shut up, or to just submit to the incessant abuse and accept your lot in life as the will of God, and await better things in some never-never-land Paradise promised to those who just accept and live with the near-constant torture, dehumanization, deprivation, depression, and invisibility.
Ali's break with her family, and her one-time faith, came in the form of her escape from an arranged marriage to a total stranger in another country, orchestrated by the father who had abandoned her and her entire family. The wedding even occurred in absentia: that is, she was not even present at her own wedding, which was allowed if not even encouraged by fundamentalist Islamic practice. Fortunately for the many women for whom Ali has been an inspiration, she had other ideas and effected an escape en route to Canada, ending up in the Netherlands where she declared and was eventually granted asylum status, although she initially had to lie about both her name and status.
Many books have been written by women critical of Islam: perhaps the most controversial and well-known being "The Rage and the Pride," by Italian journalist Oriana Fallaci, herself no stranger to conflict - she was a partisan during WWII - who famously came out of retirement and broke a ten-year hiatus after 9/11, calling for the destruction of Islam itself, but hers is admittedly the voice of an outsider. For Ali, too, 9/11 was a precipitous event which resulted in her eventual complete break with Islam. Other authors, like Mona Eltahawy, a self-described radical feminist and Muslim whose "manifesto" I read recently ("The Seven Necessary Sins for Women and Girls"), are also insider voices whose descriptions of experiences ring similar, although the authors come to different conclusions. Eltahawy remains a believer (despite being sexually assaulted at age fifteen at the hajj) who advocates a "modernization" of Islam, which is seemingly at war with itself, while Ali eventually renounced religion completely.
Why is this book so controversial, resulting in yet another round of abuses in the form of death threats for the author (and the murder of one of her colleagues)? In addition to her criticism of Islam, another of the most profound messages of the book, for me, was the discussion of the overt racism which Ali's family both experienced, and perpetrated, by and against other minorities, including black Africans. This, to me, permanently and irrevocably puts to bed the ridiculous, preposterous notion that "blacks can't be racist," nor other minorities, because they lack the requisite "institutional power." Ali describes the nearly universal attitude of all Muslims she encountered while growing up, specifically a violent hatred of Jews, itself a clear expression of racism, in which nearly all Muslim children were indoctrinated.
She also describes the attitudes of Arabs against blacks, including Somalis, but also other ethnic groups, which is nothing less than directed racism, which, curiously, in turn, her family, specifically her mother and grandmother, then inflicted on darker-than-thou Kenyans who were labeled with all manner of derogatory stereotypes (I won't repeat them here), to the degree that her brother had to lie about the ethnicity of "Kennedy," one of his Kenyan friends, who eventually proposed to Ali, because her family would not otherwise have even allowed him into their home. She rejected Ken's proposal of marriage, even though it would have meant an escape from her toxic, dysfunctional family, then living in a single bedroom in the house of a less-than-welcoming clan member, not the least because he was not of the same ethnicity as her and her family - as such, they would never accept the union, nor would he convert to Islam.
Finally, the book has raised some serious ire because it notes the stark contrast between Islamic-dominant countries and the west, and, specifically, because the author herself notes that the theocracy-oriented former simply doesn't work, resulting in untold misery for tens of millions of people, where women have it the worst of all. I'll let the author speak in her own words, below, as she articulates her views far better than I could. I will just finish by stating that, if all voices are valuable, Ali's is one of the most profound.
--------------------
"It irritated me now when Somalis who had lived in Holland for a long time complained that they were offered only lowly jobs. They wanted honorable professions: airline pilot, lawyer. When I pointed out that they had no qualifications for such work, their attitude was that everything was Holland's fault. The Europeans had colonized Somalia, which was why we all had no qualifications and were in this mess to begin with. I thought that was so clearly nonsense. We had torn ourselves apart, all on our own."
"It was the same sort of defensive, arrogant attitude that I had often seen among people from rural areas who emigrated to the city, whether Mogadishu or Nairobi. Here in Holland the claim was always that we were held back by racism. Everyone seemed to be in a constant simmer of anger about how we were discriminated against because we were black. If a shopkeeper wouldn't bargain over the price of a T-shirt, Yasmin said there were special, discount prices only for white people.... 'If you tell a Dutch person it's racist he will give you whatever you want,' Hasna once told me with satisfaction. There is discrimination in Holland - I would never deny that - but the claim of racism can also be strategic."
"I felt embarrassed and let down by the way so many Somalis accepted welfare money and then turned on the society that gave it to them... I didn't like how they denied misdeeds, even if they were caught red-handed, or how they boasted, or the myths and transparently false conspiracy theories they propagated. I didn't like the endless gossiping or the constant complaints that they were the victims of external factors. Somalis never said 'Sorry' or 'I made a mistake' or 'I don't know'; they invented excuses."
"Europe worked perfectly, every bus and clock of it. Not the first tremor of chaos was detectable... We Muslims were always boasting about something or other, but our whole culture was sexually frustrated."
"Ellen said Dutch women were never circumcised, and neither were Dutch men. Yasmin curled up her face in disgust at that. The minute we left, she started rubbing her skin: when she got home, she washed for hours. 'I sat in their house and ate off their plates, and they are not purified!' Yasmin said. 'She is filthy. This whole country is filthy.' I thought about it. Ellen wasn't filthy, and neither was Holland. In fact, it was a lot cleaner than Somalia or anywhere else I had lived. I couldn't understand how Yasmin could perceive Holland as evil, even though all around us were Dutch people treating us with kindness and hospitality. I was beginning to see that the Dutch value system was more consistent, more honest, and gave more people more happiness than the one with which we had been brought up. Unfortunately, many of these Dutch ideas seemed not to be congruent with Islam."
"Johanna['s] family was very like the whole country: so well-kept, so well-planned, so smoothly run and attractive. It seemed nothing could go unnoticed in such a place. Sometimes that felt constricting, but it also seemed welcoming, and safe. It was a much more attractive model than any family I'd seen in the world I came from."
"I wanted to understand why life in Holland was so different from life in Africa. Why there was so much peace, security and wealth in Europe. What the causes of war were, and how you built peace. I didn't have any answers, just questions. I thought about it all the time. Every contact I had with government, I thought, 'How do you get to have a government like this?' I watched H and E draw up schedules with the other girls they shared their flat with - and it was like the bus timetable: all the girls actually did all the chores. Amazingly, there wasn't even any conflict about it. How did you get to be this way?"
"Government was very present in this country. It could be bureaucratic - sometimes stupidly complex, but it also seemed very beneficial. I wanted to know how you do that. This was an infidel country, whose way of life we Muslims were supposed to oppose and reject. Why was it, then, so much better run, better led, and made for such better lives than the place we came from? Shouldn't the places where Allah was worshiped and His laws obeyed have been at peace and wealthy, and the unbelievers' countries ignorant, poor and at war?"
"When the conductor came to check our student transport cards, Naima would fume that he had stared at her card longer than at the white girls'. She never complained about the violence and humiliation she suffered at home, only about Dutch racism. I think now that this obsession with identifying racism, which I saw so often among Somalis too, was really a comfort mechanism, to keep people from feeling personally inadequate and to externalize the causes of their unhappiness."
"The Enlightenment cut European culture from its roots in old fixed ideas of magic, kingship, social hierarchy and the domination of priests, and regrafted it onto a great strong trunk that supported the equality of each individual, and his right to free opinion and self-rule - so long as he did not threaten civic peace and the freedom of others. Here, in Leiden, was where the enlightenment had taken hold. Here, the Dutch let each other be free. And here, this commitment to freedom took hold of me, too."
"In February 1995 there were huge floods across Holland. When Somalis are faced with catastrophic weather, drought and flooding, they all get together and pray. Natural disasters are signs from God, to show humans they are misbehaving on earth. But the Dutch blamed their government for failing to maintain the dikes properly... Almost everything was secular here. Society worked without reference to God, and it seemed to function perfectly. This man-made system of government was so much more stable, peaceful, prosperous, and happy than the supposedly God-devised systems I had been taught to respect."
"The result was that immigrants lived apart, studied apart, socialized apart. They went to separate schools - special Muslim schools or ordinary schools in the inner city, which other families fled. At the Muslim schools there were no children from Dutch families. The little girls were veiled and often separated from the boys... and [they] avoided subjects that ran contrary to Islamic doctrine. Children weren't encouraged to ask questions, and their creativity was not stimulated. They were taught to keep their distance from unbelievers and to obey."
"This compassion for immigrants and their struggles in a new country resulted in attitudes and policies that perpetuated cruelty. Thousands of Muslim women and children in Holland were being systematically abused, and there was no escaping this fact. Little children were excised [genitally mutilated] on kitchen tables - I knew this from Somalis for whom I translated. Girls who chose their own boyfriends and lovers were beaten half to death or even killed: many more were regularly slapped around. The suffering of all these women was unspeakable."
"Holland's multiculturalism - its respect for Muslims' way of doing things - wasn't working. It was depriving many women and children of their rights. Holland was trying to be tolerant for the sake of consensus, but the consensus was empty. The immigrants' culture was being preserved at the expense of their women and children and to the detriment of the immigrants' integration into Holland. Many Muslims never learned Dutch and rejected Dutch values of tolerance and personal liberty."
"By declaring our prophet infallible and not permitting ourselves to question him, we Muslims had set up a static tyranny.... By adhering to his rules of what is permitted and what is forbidden, we Muslims suppressed the freedom to think for ourselves and to act as we chose. We froze the moral outlook of billions of people into the mindset of the Arab desert in the seventh century. We were not just servants of Allah, we were slaves."
"The kind of thinking I saw in Saudi Arabia and among the Muslim Brotherhood in Kenya and Somalia, is incompatible with human rights and liberal values. It preserves a feudal mindset based on tribal concept of honor and shame. It rests on self-deception, hypocrisy, and double standards. It relies on the technological advances of the West while pretending to ignore their origin in Western thinking."
"It is always difficult to make the transition to the modern world... It was difficult for me, too. I moved from the world of faith to the world of reason, from excision and forced marriage to sexual emancipation. Having made the journey, I know that one of those worlds is simply better than the other. Not because of its flashy gadgets, but fundamentally, because of its values."
"The message of this book, if it must have a message, is that we in the West would be wrong to prolong the pain of that transition unnecessarily by elevating cultures full of bigotry and hatred toward women to the stature of respectable alternative ways of life."
The fact that a book of this type would even be accepted for publication is astounding, but so are the life experiences of its author, and perhaps that's the secret. This astonishing soul offers a personal perspective and description of that which she so effectively denounces. The first section in the author's shocking autobiography describes in graphic, heartbreaking detail her horrific childhood and upbringing, in at least four different countries, and the torture - it's nothing short of that - she continually suffered at the hands of primarily her mother and grandmother, the people who should have been the most responsible for loving and protecting her and her siblings. Instead, her fanatical grandmother was the one responsible for violating even her (somewhat) progressive, activist father's wishes and having her and her sister subjected to female genital mutilation, in early childhood, at the age of five or six, due to the unimaginable (and scarcely credible) belief that failure to subject these young children to this barbaric, horrific, and sometimes fatal mutilation would result in the girls' genitalia growing until they reached the size of a male's ... anatomy. (I'm dubious that they actually believe this latter)
And the atrocities just keep on coming: Ali's descriptions of the constant abuse suffered at the hands of her relatives, inducing even her older brother, who was coddled and often times even encouraged by her clearly mentally ill mother to heap abuse on both his sisters, is beyond heartbreaking. It is clear that her mother was likely bipolar, suffering from clinical depression and quite possibly PTSD, herself a victim of the same abuse she later meted out to her children, after divorcing her first husband and being abandoned by her second, who then took a third wife and started yet another family. Her violent, sadistic mother beat her incessantly, and even permitted others to do likewise, on one occasion, to the point that she suffered a skull fracture and cerebral edema, which could have killed her. Ali's life nearly ended in yet another so-called "honor killing," all for asking the wrong questions. I am disheartened that Ali still somewhat defends her mother, claiming at times that she wasn't really targeting HER, but taking her frustrations out on her for all the disappointments she had suffered throughout her miserable life, just using her as a scapegoat, but I'm unconvinced.
People bristle at the thought, and oft-repeated, phrase that some cultures are better than others, but that's the author's entire credo, in my opinion, which is well-supported, the irrefutable evidence drawn from her lifelong personal experiences, being herself a black, former Muslim woman. As such, it's difficult to disagree with that statement, and herein lies the proof. Yes, this did take place some half-century ago, in some cases, especially in the case of Ali's mother and grandmother... but what's occurring in Somalia currently? From the descriptions offered by modern-day refugees, it appears that the situation is as bad if not worse than it was a half-century ago, especially for women, who have absolutely no protections from the failed-state anarchy which now prevails.
Herself a once-devout adherent to Islam, even in her teenage years, Ali began to question the tenets of the religion of her ancestors, which were often hurled at her by one violent, misogynistic, yet often ignorant and nearly illiterate fundamentalist extremist after another, even before experiencing the stark contrast once she escaped her family and moved to Europe. Initially critical of the ways in which women were treated in Saudi Arabia, which even her father abhorred, Ali began to wear a burka in her teenage years while living in Kenya after being indoctrinated and threatened with the fires of hell and eternal torment by a fanatical teacher at her Islamic school. However, in short order, she could not escape the hypocrisy she saw and the contradictions she encountered, which none of the so-called clerics could engage with.
Indeed, like most fanatical, toxic religions and the leaders who covet power and control, the only answer to Ali's legitimate questions (such as the ridiculous notion that men and women are "equal" in Islam - when one need only read in the Qur'an that a woman's testimony is worth half that of a man's, women do not receive the same inheritance as a man, and that men are always in control of women) was to sit down and shut up, or to just submit to the incessant abuse and accept your lot in life as the will of God, and await better things in some never-never-land Paradise promised to those who just accept and live with the near-constant torture, dehumanization, deprivation, depression, and invisibility.
Ali's break with her family, and her one-time faith, came in the form of her escape from an arranged marriage to a total stranger in another country, orchestrated by the father who had abandoned her and her entire family. The wedding even occurred in absentia: that is, she was not even present at her own wedding, which was allowed if not even encouraged by fundamentalist Islamic practice. Fortunately for the many women for whom Ali has been an inspiration, she had other ideas and effected an escape en route to Canada, ending up in the Netherlands where she declared and was eventually granted asylum status, although she initially had to lie about both her name and status.
Many books have been written by women critical of Islam: perhaps the most controversial and well-known being "The Rage and the Pride," by Italian journalist Oriana Fallaci, herself no stranger to conflict - she was a partisan during WWII - who famously came out of retirement and broke a ten-year hiatus after 9/11, calling for the destruction of Islam itself, but hers is admittedly the voice of an outsider. For Ali, too, 9/11 was a precipitous event which resulted in her eventual complete break with Islam. Other authors, like Mona Eltahawy, a self-described radical feminist and Muslim whose "manifesto" I read recently ("The Seven Necessary Sins for Women and Girls"), are also insider voices whose descriptions of experiences ring similar, although the authors come to different conclusions. Eltahawy remains a believer (despite being sexually assaulted at age fifteen at the hajj) who advocates a "modernization" of Islam, which is seemingly at war with itself, while Ali eventually renounced religion completely.
Why is this book so controversial, resulting in yet another round of abuses in the form of death threats for the author (and the murder of one of her colleagues)? In addition to her criticism of Islam, another of the most profound messages of the book, for me, was the discussion of the overt racism which Ali's family both experienced, and perpetrated, by and against other minorities, including black Africans. This, to me, permanently and irrevocably puts to bed the ridiculous, preposterous notion that "blacks can't be racist," nor other minorities, because they lack the requisite "institutional power." Ali describes the nearly universal attitude of all Muslims she encountered while growing up, specifically a violent hatred of Jews, itself a clear expression of racism, in which nearly all Muslim children were indoctrinated.
She also describes the attitudes of Arabs against blacks, including Somalis, but also other ethnic groups, which is nothing less than directed racism, which, curiously, in turn, her family, specifically her mother and grandmother, then inflicted on darker-than-thou Kenyans who were labeled with all manner of derogatory stereotypes (I won't repeat them here), to the degree that her brother had to lie about the ethnicity of "Kennedy," one of his Kenyan friends, who eventually proposed to Ali, because her family would not otherwise have even allowed him into their home. She rejected Ken's proposal of marriage, even though it would have meant an escape from her toxic, dysfunctional family, then living in a single bedroom in the house of a less-than-welcoming clan member, not the least because he was not of the same ethnicity as her and her family - as such, they would never accept the union, nor would he convert to Islam.
Finally, the book has raised some serious ire because it notes the stark contrast between Islamic-dominant countries and the west, and, specifically, because the author herself notes that the theocracy-oriented former simply doesn't work, resulting in untold misery for tens of millions of people, where women have it the worst of all. I'll let the author speak in her own words, below, as she articulates her views far better than I could. I will just finish by stating that, if all voices are valuable, Ali's is one of the most profound.
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"It irritated me now when Somalis who had lived in Holland for a long time complained that they were offered only lowly jobs. They wanted honorable professions: airline pilot, lawyer. When I pointed out that they had no qualifications for such work, their attitude was that everything was Holland's fault. The Europeans had colonized Somalia, which was why we all had no qualifications and were in this mess to begin with. I thought that was so clearly nonsense. We had torn ourselves apart, all on our own."
"It was the same sort of defensive, arrogant attitude that I had often seen among people from rural areas who emigrated to the city, whether Mogadishu or Nairobi. Here in Holland the claim was always that we were held back by racism. Everyone seemed to be in a constant simmer of anger about how we were discriminated against because we were black. If a shopkeeper wouldn't bargain over the price of a T-shirt, Yasmin said there were special, discount prices only for white people.... 'If you tell a Dutch person it's racist he will give you whatever you want,' Hasna once told me with satisfaction. There is discrimination in Holland - I would never deny that - but the claim of racism can also be strategic."
"I felt embarrassed and let down by the way so many Somalis accepted welfare money and then turned on the society that gave it to them... I didn't like how they denied misdeeds, even if they were caught red-handed, or how they boasted, or the myths and transparently false conspiracy theories they propagated. I didn't like the endless gossiping or the constant complaints that they were the victims of external factors. Somalis never said 'Sorry' or 'I made a mistake' or 'I don't know'; they invented excuses."
"Europe worked perfectly, every bus and clock of it. Not the first tremor of chaos was detectable... We Muslims were always boasting about something or other, but our whole culture was sexually frustrated."
"Ellen said Dutch women were never circumcised, and neither were Dutch men. Yasmin curled up her face in disgust at that. The minute we left, she started rubbing her skin: when she got home, she washed for hours. 'I sat in their house and ate off their plates, and they are not purified!' Yasmin said. 'She is filthy. This whole country is filthy.' I thought about it. Ellen wasn't filthy, and neither was Holland. In fact, it was a lot cleaner than Somalia or anywhere else I had lived. I couldn't understand how Yasmin could perceive Holland as evil, even though all around us were Dutch people treating us with kindness and hospitality. I was beginning to see that the Dutch value system was more consistent, more honest, and gave more people more happiness than the one with which we had been brought up. Unfortunately, many of these Dutch ideas seemed not to be congruent with Islam."
"Johanna['s] family was very like the whole country: so well-kept, so well-planned, so smoothly run and attractive. It seemed nothing could go unnoticed in such a place. Sometimes that felt constricting, but it also seemed welcoming, and safe. It was a much more attractive model than any family I'd seen in the world I came from."
"I wanted to understand why life in Holland was so different from life in Africa. Why there was so much peace, security and wealth in Europe. What the causes of war were, and how you built peace. I didn't have any answers, just questions. I thought about it all the time. Every contact I had with government, I thought, 'How do you get to have a government like this?' I watched H and E draw up schedules with the other girls they shared their flat with - and it was like the bus timetable: all the girls actually did all the chores. Amazingly, there wasn't even any conflict about it. How did you get to be this way?"
"Government was very present in this country. It could be bureaucratic - sometimes stupidly complex, but it also seemed very beneficial. I wanted to know how you do that. This was an infidel country, whose way of life we Muslims were supposed to oppose and reject. Why was it, then, so much better run, better led, and made for such better lives than the place we came from? Shouldn't the places where Allah was worshiped and His laws obeyed have been at peace and wealthy, and the unbelievers' countries ignorant, poor and at war?"
"When the conductor came to check our student transport cards, Naima would fume that he had stared at her card longer than at the white girls'. She never complained about the violence and humiliation she suffered at home, only about Dutch racism. I think now that this obsession with identifying racism, which I saw so often among Somalis too, was really a comfort mechanism, to keep people from feeling personally inadequate and to externalize the causes of their unhappiness."
"The Enlightenment cut European culture from its roots in old fixed ideas of magic, kingship, social hierarchy and the domination of priests, and regrafted it onto a great strong trunk that supported the equality of each individual, and his right to free opinion and self-rule - so long as he did not threaten civic peace and the freedom of others. Here, in Leiden, was where the enlightenment had taken hold. Here, the Dutch let each other be free. And here, this commitment to freedom took hold of me, too."
"In February 1995 there were huge floods across Holland. When Somalis are faced with catastrophic weather, drought and flooding, they all get together and pray. Natural disasters are signs from God, to show humans they are misbehaving on earth. But the Dutch blamed their government for failing to maintain the dikes properly... Almost everything was secular here. Society worked without reference to God, and it seemed to function perfectly. This man-made system of government was so much more stable, peaceful, prosperous, and happy than the supposedly God-devised systems I had been taught to respect."
"The result was that immigrants lived apart, studied apart, socialized apart. They went to separate schools - special Muslim schools or ordinary schools in the inner city, which other families fled. At the Muslim schools there were no children from Dutch families. The little girls were veiled and often separated from the boys... and [they] avoided subjects that ran contrary to Islamic doctrine. Children weren't encouraged to ask questions, and their creativity was not stimulated. They were taught to keep their distance from unbelievers and to obey."
"This compassion for immigrants and their struggles in a new country resulted in attitudes and policies that perpetuated cruelty. Thousands of Muslim women and children in Holland were being systematically abused, and there was no escaping this fact. Little children were excised [genitally mutilated] on kitchen tables - I knew this from Somalis for whom I translated. Girls who chose their own boyfriends and lovers were beaten half to death or even killed: many more were regularly slapped around. The suffering of all these women was unspeakable."
"Holland's multiculturalism - its respect for Muslims' way of doing things - wasn't working. It was depriving many women and children of their rights. Holland was trying to be tolerant for the sake of consensus, but the consensus was empty. The immigrants' culture was being preserved at the expense of their women and children and to the detriment of the immigrants' integration into Holland. Many Muslims never learned Dutch and rejected Dutch values of tolerance and personal liberty."
"By declaring our prophet infallible and not permitting ourselves to question him, we Muslims had set up a static tyranny.... By adhering to his rules of what is permitted and what is forbidden, we Muslims suppressed the freedom to think for ourselves and to act as we chose. We froze the moral outlook of billions of people into the mindset of the Arab desert in the seventh century. We were not just servants of Allah, we were slaves."
"The kind of thinking I saw in Saudi Arabia and among the Muslim Brotherhood in Kenya and Somalia, is incompatible with human rights and liberal values. It preserves a feudal mindset based on tribal concept of honor and shame. It rests on self-deception, hypocrisy, and double standards. It relies on the technological advances of the West while pretending to ignore their origin in Western thinking."
"It is always difficult to make the transition to the modern world... It was difficult for me, too. I moved from the world of faith to the world of reason, from excision and forced marriage to sexual emancipation. Having made the journey, I know that one of those worlds is simply better than the other. Not because of its flashy gadgets, but fundamentally, because of its values."
"The message of this book, if it must have a message, is that we in the West would be wrong to prolong the pain of that transition unnecessarily by elevating cultures full of bigotry and hatred toward women to the stature of respectable alternative ways of life."
