14
Aug
2007
35 Comments
You can spit on freedom!
Just it takes some extraordinary people like Ms. Ayaan Hirsi Ali who really gave a thought to what she believed before (Islam) and now criticizes it logically, articulately and knowledgeably.
In following interview, Ms. Ayaan Hirsi Ali says:
“I don’t find myself in the same luxury as you. You grew up in freedom, and you can spit on freedom, because you don’t know what it is not to have freedom. I haven’t. I know there are many things wrong with America, and I know that there are many things wrong with Americans, but I still believe it’s the best nation in the world.”
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08EYqwyns-k[/youtube]
I admire her thoughts and I give her my best gratitude.
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Sorry, Ayaan Hirsi Ali is a joke, who doesn’t criticize Islam “knowledgeably” or considerably. I have never came across anyone so insulting and seemingly hateful as she is.
when she was younger she had same feelings to Salman Rushdie then later she studied more and changed her thoughts.
She is bright and intelligent, I’ll give you that much, but definitely misguided with her opinions on Islam. You can read some of my problems with her in this thread.
It’s just that she is so incredibly offensive. Her personal experiences as a child growing up in Saudi Arabia certainly clouded her vision of the true aspects of Islam. She continues to categorize all women as oppressed, and she uses the fact that she receives death threats as something that supports her opinions of Islam.
That is very untrue. Even activists, and “moderate” Muslims get death threats. They are targeted even more than the “infidels” in certain societies. So what is her problem with us, really, other than her bad experiences?
She is no different than Dr. Wafa, who also came to her conclusion on Islam based on personal experiences. And who suffers in the end? It harms everyone. She creates a bigger gap between Muslims and the rest of the world.
I read the German translation of her book and some of her articles and, as an Iranian born, have full understanding for her critic on Islam.
I believe, Islam as a social order “al-Islamw’l dwala” has failed to be a fair system.
I personally believe in no religion, but as a secular and democrat believe that Muslims around the world have free choice to practise their faith in the confined privacy.
So, lets briefly express myself:
No to political Islam!
Yes to freedom of religion!
What I find so incredibly hypocritical about people like Ayaan is that they actively promote the idea that peace on Earth will ever be achieved with the complete destruction of Islam. Really, that’s just the most shallow and idiotic philosophy ever. It goes against the very basic principles of “freedom” which they are supposedly promoting.
I find it even more hilarious that she is entirely against the Hijab, and at the same time promoting the idea of “freedom of choice.”
I mean if a woman chooses to wear a hijab, which many do, then shouldn’t that be respected as an independent choice? Not to Ayaan! Of course, little Miss Hirsi Ali believes that a hijab defines oppression, and it goes against any notion of progress and development. Yes a scarf on the head, apparently that’s just the end of the world for us Muslim women!
Sigh. I can’t believe that people buy her opinions so easily and trust her as a “valuable” source. She frustratingly contradicts herself with each statement, enjoying how blindingly people accept her.
LOL, of course she has to say this… she got kicked out of the Netherlands and now needs to secure her stay in America. Ass kisser.
She did not get kicked out of the Netherlands in the end. The decision to revoke her citizenship was never approved.
Sarcasm REALLY doesn’t work on you, does it?
But then again nothing does.
Out of about 1.4 billion Muslims, how many of them actually do that?
“Muzzithugs,” interesting terminology. Ayaan would be proud. You should get together with her, she can teach you how to tie your shoe laces or something. Grand.
How many? TOO MANY. So what have Islamic systems produced lately? Several horrible countries. Muzzithugs. Muzzipsychos. Men living in the open like packs of mad dogs, filthy as pigs. Aggressive as apes.
Fold your clean hands, Esra’a.
So that’s like, 5. On TV and LGF.
Fox News for Prez, 2008!
Yesterday, I finished reading Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s remarkably moving and well-written book, Infidel. I am surprised at how many misconceptions about this woman even I had absorbed, but it’s not really surprising: the media doesn’t give an accurate representation of the facts any more. One misconception was that Hirsi Ali, after she left Islam, went too far in the other direction: became a right-winger, or something. But this isn’t true. It’s what the squeamish liberals would have us believe, because they’ve absorbed the defensive Muslim attitude of “Islamophobia.” And of course, the right-wingers would want to claim Hirsi Ali — she is about as good as it gets if you want a spokesman against Islam.
I stayed up late, I woke up early, just to read this book. It’s riveting. It’s the best autobiography I’ve ever read. Not only is her story astonishing, but her voice rings clear, strong, true.
But her story….how often do we get someone who comes from the most benighted lands imaginable, from the most unfortunate continent, and speaks to us in our language and makes us see and experience what she saw and went through? Ayaan is (ironically enough) like the voice of God — transcending improbable distances and gaps and barriers and speaking to us in this gentle, restrained, almost humorous tone (except that God isn’t ever so effective). I can hear her, and I can’t believe she lived to tell the tale, I can’t believe she isn’t howling with rage, insane with grief.
She takes us through Somalia, Kenya, Ethiopia and Saudi Arabia. She shows us the horror of civil war and the heartbreak of women. She learns languages, steps forth where her brother retreats in cowardice, protects her family, sacrifices herself, rises above, time and again.
The media has built this image of Ayaan as an extremist in her own right. Someone who is incendiary and doesn’t know Islam very well and ascribes all sorts of evils to Islam just because she saw Muslims being evil. She does no such thing. Even after she has just finished describing her horrific mutilation, she immediately clarifies that this is practiced by non-Muslims as well, and is not mandated by Islam. On the other hand, of course Islam’s inherent misogyny means Muslims don’t condemn it, don’t stop doing it, and it does neatly fit into their views about sexuality and women’s bodies.
The writing is powerful. I can’t imagine what it must have taken for this brave woman to travel back into her past and put it all down in such beautiful, painful detail. As I read of some of the things her family did, I kept turning back to check if she had included a particular family member in her dedication, and sure enough, there they were: Her grandmother who mutilated her, her brother who bullied her, her mother who mercilessly beat her, her father who abandoned her mother and married her off against her will…the only ‘innocent’ person the book is dedicated to, is her sister. And yet she loves them, and forgives them.
I was surprised to read that her enlightenment is of relatively recent date. She stayed a Muslim for quite a while after she escaped from Somalia, and I suspect her ideas are still evolving. This is a young woman — in her thirties — who completed her education when she was thirty. Before that, her ignorance of how the world worked, what the world was like even, was vast. She was catapulted to fame because of 9/11 and a vacuum in Dutch politics for someone like her, and then of course because of Submission (the short poetic film she wrote and which was directed by Theo Van Gogh, who was murdered for it). She obviously became too public, too fast, in a very small country, and retreated from the limelight just as fast, and not only because of the death threats. Her life, as she wants to live it, has almost just begun. There is so much in this woman…
Such courage. Such superhuman strength and restraint and patience and a greatness of soul that is rare across centuries. And I’m afraid some nutjob is going to murder her because she tells the truth about Islam, and I’m sure all the Muslims — all of them, without exception, including the Svend Whites — are going to be glad of her death, because to them, this will be the death of an “Islamophobe.” They won’t even read her book, because for them, their authoritarian Islam is more important than any individual human soul, and the beauty and inimitable value of this soul worthless next to the preservation of false gods.
She’s worth ten thousand illiterate village hooligans from Pakistan and basij in Iran. We are fortunate to be in an era when her escape and new life were possible. When our escape and new life were possible. I want us to live without hatred and without the clerics exploiting our most debased emotion (hatred of “others”) to divide humanity in order to line up their own pockets and keep their religous industry and jobs.
Where in the Koran is mutilation supported? Where does it justify forced marriage? Where does it dismiss honor killing?
No one is against her values – she is certainly longing for more freedoms, but is she attacking the right people? It seems as though she does attack the faith and does insist that we are most likely ignorant of its realities. Why? Because she considers herself as someone who saw the true face of Islam, does she not? And it’s unfair for the rest of us who don’t see our religion in the same light as she does. Is she truly spreading the “truth?” In my opinion she feeds much of the hatred that is overwhelming us. She is more than welcome to express her opinions on Islam, she is not welcome however to imply that getting rid of it will solve many of the problems that we are facing in Muslim cultures (and also in many Christian or non-Muslim communities within Africa.) Cultural, traditional, and societal practices are often confused as representations of Islam but that’s far from our reality. What she went through was not Islamic practices. It was corruption within Muslim countries and could’ve happened anywhere else. Her implication that it was sheer Islam is insulting and ill-informed.
There’s a huge difference between criticizing a faith and downright insulting its followers and our deeply revered Prophet. The latter is nothing but provocative, so why does she complain about the reactions? Are we not allowed to express our disagreements? Death threats aside, everyone faces these in many societies regardless of religion, and she is no exception.
If she is truly fair, why would she be so utterly outspoken in documentaries like the infamous “Submission” and articles that further criminalize and misrepresent the faith? Where is her objectivity if “happy” Muslim women aren’t given a voice in her presentations? Does she claim to be doing us a favor? Does she really think her approach will serve as something progressive? Intelligent?
Surely the media plays with her image – in the US and Europe, her work is for the most part praised and anti-Muslims everywhere idolize her. Granted, she went through a lot of pain. But that doesn’t make what she says accurate and without bias. She is hurting the very people she claims to be fighting for: other Ayaans of the Muslim world. If she really understood how life worked for these women today, she would be attacking a totally different concept and not an entire religion. Bad leadership, poor education, lack of free speech and awareness is what ultimately causes corruption, not religion.
Finally, what has she actually contributed to the societies she grew up in? I would at least hope that she’s involved in campaigns that fight for women’s rights, otherwise she is not half as influential as people give her credit for. Fame and action are two different things. She proved that she’s famous, let’s see where her “actions” lead to.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali is a fraud, just like the rest of the so-called “ex-Muslim” crowd.
She has accomplished nothing except being a publicity whore, but alas, that’s the type Fariborz seems to love.
She would fit well with the dipshits from LittleGreenFootballs or JihadWatch.
Muslims do look like they’re in denial of their realities and problems. It’s remarkable so many cling to the “islamic state” idea. It’s remarkable that 1/5 of the world is biting the legs of the other 4/5, dreaming of imposing their will. So. Shall the ME go down in flames and blood, followed by rest of world? Will Islam suddenly go Ka-poof or will it wither away slowly? Stay tuned…
Infidel, hush up. The grown ups are talking now.
Thanks Tori, my bad, it was still an embarrassing experience for her I’m sure.
Can someone please prevent “Infidel” from spamming? It’s the hatefully ignorant and irrelevant kind that easily gets on my nerves. Please consider moderating it to prevent people from getting away with spam in this forum.
What somebody has experienced as Islam, is Islam. There is no way to be objective about something as haphazard, historically tenuous and myth-ridden as religion.
Of course, those who believe in Islam think anyone who interprets Islam positively is being objective. Those who don’t believe in Islam find greater objectivity from those who interpret it unfavorably.
But I’m reading Hitchens now (God is Not Great) and his account of religions seems pretty objective to me: It’s unfavorable, to be sure, but it is also based in sense, reason, history, and probability. Another thing I take away from Hitchens that in the realm of religion, where literally anything goes, Ayaan is right to interpret religion from her experiences, which, you seem to forget, had very little to do with Somalia, where she barely lived. Her religious convictions were based in the Muslim Brotherhood — an Egyptian movement. Syed Qutb can hardly be dismissed as ‘not objective’ whether you agree with him or not: He goes to the sources and he’s scholarly in his approach.
No…I find Ayaan’s account of Islam extremely credible and authentic.
There is, in fact, very little to admire in organized religion. VERY little. Ayaan paints quite a diverse picture of Islam, approaching it from several countries and interpretations. I myself have experienced two distinct forms of Islam, and I found her experience VERY credible as that of millions upon millions of people. If that is what a multitude of people experience under the rubric of Islam, then that is at least one very dominant expression of Islam as a religion.“Islam” doesn’t deserve blame for bad cultural practices. But by the same token, “Islam” doesn’t deserve praise for good cultural practices—and I suppose one can find such good practices if one searches hard enough.
In truth, “Islam” isn’t anything at all, since it doesn’t refer in any way to reality. It is just a set of slogans adopted in various ways by benighted cultures to resist rationality, humanism and modernity.
But the Quran says it’s ok to kill non-Muslims and to beat women! How is that not Islam if the holy book says it’s ok to do it? That IS a part of Islam, plain and simple. Muslims either deny the Hadiths we quote about killing apostates by saying they’re not valid hadiths, or say we are “misinterpreting them”. They are trying to convince non-Muslims that Islam isn’t violent when in fact it is. Not all Muslims are violent, but Islam is.
WOW. Sorry, but thanks for pointing out how faulty your comments are! Your approach is the problem that many Muslims today are trying to get rid of: misperception, misconception, misinformation and misrepresentation. You are feeding all of this and it’s destructive to the core.
Middle East makes up of roughly 30% of All Muslims. Out of that how many countries actually do the muzziuthug thinggy? And within those countries how many are actually invovled in the muzzithug thinggy… hmmm… I know facts are your enemy but you dumb fucks are going overboard with blaming every fucking thing you don’t like on Islam. Have fun now bie.
Can I use the same logic on white people, Christians…?
Yes Jina, what someone experienced as Christianity is Christianity. KKK included. That has to be a correct representation, the same goes for the British National Party. They work for a white Christian nation. Blacks and Muslims are apparently spawns of Satan, and I think it’s very mature and intelligent to categorize this hatred/violence as “Christianity.” Extremely fair and well informed, no reading required, and no consideration to history. Who cares? If the media calls it Christianity then who are we to doubt and question it? OMGZ
Wasn’t it Jesus who told Bush to bomb Iraq? No, seriously. Would it be fair for us to call Christianity a religion of war then? Applying theories of our smartass friends above, I guess I can!
Murad how dare you insult our Christian friends, have you no heart?
Attack Islam all you want, but other religions are off limits! It’s only Islam that causes war on Planet Earth! Terrorists come in Muslim packaging only. Ask Ayaan, she’s an expert.
Hi folks, Surely the nature of Islam is a great pre-occupation for people all over the world, but it is a complicated religion that often is judged only by a cursory reading of the Koran, which would be the equivalent of judging Judaism only by the what is written in the Old Testament.
Mideast Youth is really about improving the conversation among us. But many Muslims in the group feel like their religion is fair game for attacks. We do not tolerate these kinds of attacks on Judaism or Christianity, and cannot tolerate them on Islam.
Personally I think there is a place for questioning, but it really should be done in a different tone.
We are going to go ahead and close this thread for now. Maybe we can start the conversation out on the right foot a different time.
Pingback: Mideast Youth - Thinking Ahead » Blog Archive » You can spit on freedom! - part 2
Re-opened for comments on the condition that people behave themselves.
By the way, here is a good post about why Ali is as famous as she is. It doesn’t has much to do with her “intellect” or past experiences.
Esra’a,
Thanks for linking to my other blog, but a better post is this one http://gettingtruth.wordpress.com/2007/08/05/laila-lalami-on-ayaan-hirsi-ali-and-irshad-manji/
I quote from an article that appeared in the Nation magazine by Laila Lalami.
I will quote a partr of it here to show you that Ayaan Hirsi Ali is not this intelligent, well informed person, those on the political left and right like to claim.
Esra’a – if someone cut off your genitals in the name of a supernatural belief system, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if you hated those beliefs. Or the people who did it to you.
As for Muslims being offended, well that’s just tough. No one likes being told they’re wrong. But just because they don’t like it, doesn’t mean it isn’t true.
As for Muslims being offended, well that’s just tough. No one likes being told they’re wrong. But just because they don’t like it, doesn’t mean it isn’t true.
That’s the truth which for people (here, some Muslims) who emotionally attached to the subject is hurting which it shouldn’t. Anybody has to come up with their logic, not their emotions.
I find nothing more insulting and offensive than a bunch of babies crying about their persistence of knowing the “truth.” It’s not the truth. It’s shallow ignorance, and we have every right to confront it. Is that understood?
What Fariborz blogs about is far from the truth, and it’s far from logical. It’s a clear misrepresentation of Islam. His “knowledge” on Islam is just hideous, just like his approach. So yes it angers us that someone so ignorant can run around claiming to know the religion inside out.
By the way – mutilation is not supported anywhere in the Koran, and is thus not an Islamic practice. This is another thing that Fariborz doesn’t seem to understand. Just because the political rule calls it Islam, does NOT make it Islam! Put your thinking caps on, people, and stop allowing your stupid generalizations cloud your vision on how most Muslims really live.
highlandladdie,
Do those living in developing countries have a right to hate the Untied States and its allies because while the U.S. and its allies preach human rights and democracy, they bomb contries, engage in regime change and support brutal dictators and kings who do their bidding?
Again allegations to me and my blogs, why?
If you do have any evidence you should discuss on each blog and prove me that I am wrong which I appreciate good knowledge and constructive debates. not like your approach here, which is destructive one.
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