Infidel

Just finished Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s autobiography, Infidel.  I’ve been meaning to read it since it came out a year ago, since I heard the story of Ayaan’s remarkable progression from Muslim fundamentalist in Somalia to freethinking, free-marketer Dutch MP.  The first half of the book is a horrifying litany of family strife, religious abuse, and civil conflict in Somalia, Saudi Arabia, Ethiopia, and Kenya.  The second half of the book details Ayaan’s escape from an arranged marriage and flight to Holland, where she was accepted as a refugee claimant, and within a few short years managed to learn Dutch, earn a degree, work for a think tank, and become elected as an outspoken MP.  As a politician she advocated the assimilation of immigrants into Dutch society – and not the creation of multicultural ghettos, where the practices of feudal Islam – such as enforced female circumcision of girls and arranged marriages – continued.

She was the co-creator of the film Submission: Part One together with Theo van Gogh, who for his work was murdered on an Amsterdam street by an Islamic fundamentalist that had been offended by his portrayal of the female body juxtaposed with the Qu’ran.  You can watch the 10 minute film and judge for yourself. Since that day, Ayaan has lived as a marked woman, having had to flee Holland, and lives with constant threat of attack for having told the truth about living under fundamentalism.

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