Free speech is the bedrock of liberty and a free society. And yes, it includes the right to blaspheme and offend.
AYAAN HIRSI ALIMany people in Europe and the U.S. dispute the thesis that we are living through a clash of civilisations between Islam and the west. But a radical minority of Muslims firmly believes that Islam is under siege, and is committed to winning the holy war it has declared against the West.
More Ayaan Hirsi Ali Quotes
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I am grateful to my father for sending me to school, and that we moved from Somalia to Kenya, where I learned English.
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In 1985 as a teenager in Kenya, I was an adamant member of the Muslim Brotherhood.
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Many people in Europe and the U.S. dispute the thesis that we are living through a clash of civilisations between Islam and the west. But a radical minority of Muslims firmly believes that Islam is under siege, and is committed to winning the holy war it has declared against the West.
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I love life more than I love death.
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Tolerance of intolerance is cowardice.
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As soon as something like Monty Python’s ‘The Life of Brian’ appears with a Muhammad figure as the main lead, directed by an Arabic Theo van Gogh, the controversial late Dutch filmmaker, we will have taken an enormous step forward.
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What we are now doing with the victory, and I agree with you if you condemn that and I condemn whole-heartedly the trivial bullshit it is to go after a man who makes a scientific breakthrough and all that we as women — organized women — do is to fret about his shirt?
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I’d love to go and visit the Mosque in Mecca again, just for the sheer beauty of it, not for God – much the way a non-Catholic might go to Vatican City because of the beauty of the buildings and the artifacts.
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The idea that if people are just friendly and demonstrate they want peace, that will be answered with good will – that is really naive.
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We have to start with the little babies who are born now, socialize them in freedom and critical thinking. We don’t have to throw away their faith. People confuse the two, thinking if you are enlightened that means apostasy. It doesn’t.
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There is a huge difference between being tolerant and tolerating intolerance.
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After the horrific massacre Wednesday at the French weekly satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, perhaps the West will finally put away its legion of useless tropes trying to deny the relationship between violence and radical Islam.
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I don’t have much in me left for Somalia, because the country is so broken, it’s not realistic to daydream about it.
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No one in the American Enterprise imposes their beliefs. We clash, and I think that’s what the West is all about.
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It takes a long time to dissolve the bars of a mental cage.
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