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I confront the European elite’s self-image as tolerant ‘while under their noses women are living like slaves.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali

We who don’t want radical Islam to spread must compete with the agents of radical Islam. I want to see what would happen if Christians, feminists and Enlightenment thinkers were to start proselytizing in the Muslim community.
AYAAN HIRSI ALI

Community Enlightenment Islam Radical Start Thinking
I confront the European elite’s self-image as tolerant ‘while under their noses women are living like slaves.
AYAAN HIRSI ALI

Elite Image Live Myself Slave Tolerance Woman
Let us recognize that we can no longer tolerate violent oppression of women in the name of religion and culture any more than we would tolerate violent oppression espoused by any other bully in the name of a twisted rationale.
AYAAN HIRSI ALI

Name Oppression Recognition Religion Tolerance
When I was with the Labor Party, I’d get into trouble because the party bosses determined that some of what I wrote, or proposed to write about, wasn’t conducive to their policies or to electoral success.
AYAAN HIRSI ALI

Determination Myself Party Policy Success Trouble Writing
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?
AYAAN HIRSI ALI

Agreement Himself Organization Shirt Victory Woman
The Christian take on Hellfire seems less dramatic than the Muslim vision, which I grew up with, but Christian magical thinking appeals to me no more than my mother’s angels and djinns.
AYAAN HIRSI ALI

Angel Drama Islam Magic Mom Myself Thinking Version
Every time you take a train, step into your car, walk into the shopping mall, go to the airport – every single time, something could happen. That’s how terrorism works.
AYAAN HIRSI ALI

Terrorism Time Train Work Yourself
I was a Muslim once, remember, and it was when I was most devout that I was most full of hate.
AYAAN HIRSI ALI

Hate Myself Religion Remember
All my life I have been a nomad.
AYAAN HIRSI ALI

Life Myself Traveler
Islam was like a mental cage. At first, when you open the door, the caged bird stays inside: it is frightened. It has internalized its imprisonment. It takes time for bird to escape, even after someone has opened the doors to its cage.
AYAAN HIRSI ALI

Door Escape Islam Open Prison Religion Stay
What I find daunting always is to stand on a stage and talk to people, whether they agree with me or not.
AYAAN HIRSI ALI

Agreement Finding Myself Stage Stand
I believe that the dysfunctional Muslim family constitutes a real threat to the very fabric of western life. It is in the family that children are groomed to practise, promote and pass on the norms of their parents’ culture.
AYAAN HIRSI ALI

Believe Culture Family Islam Life Myself Parents Western
However, some things must be said, and there are times when silence becomes an accomplice to injustice.
AYAAN HIRSI ALI

Injustice Silence Time
My first experience in the Netherlands was very pleasant, extremely pleasant. I mean, I got my residence permit, refugee status, within four weeks of arrival. People treated me extremely well.
AYAAN HIRSI ALI

Experience Home People Pleasant Resident Treat
Muslim leaders should ask themselves what exactly their relationship is to a political movement that encourages young men to kill and main on religious grounds.
AYAAN HIRSI ALI

Encouragement Ground Movement Muslim Politics Relationship Religious
Young people, some of whom are not born into the faith, are being fired up by preachers using basic Islamic scripture and mobilized to wage jihad by radical imams who represent themselves as legitimate Muslim clergymen.
AYAAN HIRSI ALI

Born Faith Islam People Religion Scripture Young
But without doubts, without a standpoint reached through questionings, human beings can’t acquire knowledge.
AYAAN HIRSI ALI

Doubt Human Knowledge Point Stand
In a well-functioning democracy, the state constitution is considered more important than God’s holy book, whichever holy book that may be, and God matters only in your private life.
AYAAN HIRSI ALI

Book Constitution Democracy Holy Life Privacy State
The demand that Islam makes of women is to not attract attention to yourself, and if you are in a secular society, that attire does exactly that, and it is a political symbol, no longer religious.
AYAAN HIRSI ALI

Attraction Demand Islam Religious Society Symbol Woman
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.
AYAAN HIRSI ALI

Born Critical Enlightenment Freedom Social Start Thinking Yourself
Avoiding offense means that we don’t accept each other as equals.
AYAAN HIRSI ALI

Acceptance Avoid Equality Offense Partner
I do not believe in God, angels and the hereafter.
AYAAN HIRSI ALI

Angel Believe God Myself
I assume the closest members of my family don’t actually want to kill me, but the truth is that I have shamed and hurt them; they have to deal with the outrage that my public statements cause, and undoubtedly some members of my clan do want to kill me for that.
AYAAN HIRSI ALI

Assume Close Doubt Family Kill Member Myself Public Statement
I don’t have much in me left for Somalia, because the country is so broken, it’s not realistic to daydream about it.
AYAAN HIRSI ALI

Break Country Myself Realistic
My brother thinks it is very, very bad that I left Islam. My half-sister wants to convert me back; I want to convert her to Western values. My mum is terrified that when I die, and we all go to God, I will be burned.
AYAAN HIRSI ALI

Bad Brother Burn Death Family Mom Myself Religion Thinking
Reality is not easy, but all this make-believe doesn’t make it easier.
AYAAN HIRSI ALI

Believe Easy Reality
Every time I went on TV I got a threat.
AYAAN HIRSI ALI

Myself Threatening Time

I confront the European elite’s self-image as tolerant ‘while under their noses women are living like slaves.

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I confront the European elite’s self-image as tolerant ‘while under their noses women are living like slaves.

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