It takes a long time to dissolve the bars of a mental cage.
AYAAN HIRSI ALIIt takes a long time to dissolve the bars of a mental cage.
AYAAN HIRSI ALII think of Canada, first and foremost, in terms of space. The amount of space available is breathtaking.
AYAAN HIRSI ALIOf course, the overwhelming majority of Muslims are not terrorists or sympathetic to terrorists. Equating all Muslims with terrorism is stupid and wrong. But acknowledging that there is a link between Islam and terror is appropriate and necessary.
AYAAN HIRSI ALIIf we don’t take effective measures now, the Netherlands could be torn between two extreme rights.
AYAAN HIRSI ALIThere is a huge difference between being tolerant and tolerating intolerance.
AYAAN HIRSI ALII’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.
AYAAN HIRSI ALIThere are some mosques with facilities for women; it’s usually a back room with a back-door entrance.
AYAAN HIRSI ALIAll my life I have been a nomad.
AYAAN HIRSI ALIIf such a young nation as the U.S. could make it to superpower status, we could do it as well.
AYAAN HIRSI ALIIn 2010, I suggested that if you are a good Muslim with a good conscience, go and look for a better God, and I think that was juvenile of me.
AYAAN HIRSI ALIFree speech is the bedrock of liberty and a free society. And yes, it includes the right to blaspheme and offend.
AYAAN HIRSI ALIUnlike the United Kingdom or the Commonwealth, the umma, or Muslim community, has no symbolic leader, let alone a formal one.
AYAAN HIRSI ALIIn a sense, my grandmother was living in the Iron Age. There was no system of writing among the nomads. Metal artifacts were rare and precious…. The first time she saw a white person my grandmother was in her thirties: she thought this person’s skin had burned off.
AYAAN HIRSI ALIEuropean children are educated in a narrative of human tolerance every day, and if you want to be sure to prevent a backlash, you should at least think of bringing Muslim children and teenagers into the fold of that narrative of tolerance.
AYAAN HIRSI ALII wanted secular, non-Muslim people to stop kidding themselves that Islam is peace and tolerance.
AYAAN HIRSI ALIMy conscience is informed by reason. It’s like Kant’s categorical imperative: behave to others as you would wish they behaved to you.
AYAAN HIRSI ALI