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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

The more we oblige, the more we self-censor, the more we appease, the bolder the enemy gets.
AYAAN HIRSI ALI

Bold Enemy Obligation
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
In 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 ALI

Conscience Goodness Myself Thinking
In Holland I have seen well-meaning, principled people blinded by multiculturalism, overwhelmed by the imperative to be sensitive and respectful of immigrant culture, while ignoring criminal abuse of women and girls.
AYAAN HIRSI ALI

Abuse Crime Ignorance Meaning Myself People Principle Respectful Woman
My friend, the Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh, was murdered in 2004 for having been insufficiently reverent toward Islam.
AYAAN HIRSI ALI

Friendship Islam Murder Myself Religious
Bear true witness, even if it be against yourselves, your parents or your family.
AYAAN HIRSI ALI

Family Parents True Yourself
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
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
Avoiding offense means that we don’t accept each other as equals.
AYAAN HIRSI ALI

Acceptance Avoid Equality Offense Partner
But without doubts, without a standpoint reached through questionings, human beings can’t acquire knowledge.
AYAAN HIRSI ALI

Doubt Human Knowledge Point Stand
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
Liberal capitalism is not perfect, but compared to the other ‘isms,’ it’s far superior.
AYAAN HIRSI ALI

Capitalism Liberal Perfection Superior
The liberal psyche wants to protect minorities, to apologize for imperialism, colonialism, slavery, and the appalling treatment of black people during the civil rights movement. At the same time, they want to continue to defend the rights of individuals.
AYAAN HIRSI ALI

Apologize Defend Individual Liberal Movement People Right Treatment
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
There are some mosques with facilities for women; it’s usually a back room with a back-door entrance.
AYAAN HIRSI ALI

Entrance Facility Religious Woman
Tolerance of intolerance is cowardice.
AYAAN HIRSI ALI

Coward One Liner Tolerance
Drinking wine and wearing trousers were nothing compared to reading the history of ideas.
AYAAN HIRSI ALI

Compare Drinking History Ideas Reading
I am grateful to my father for sending me to school, and that we moved from Somalia to Kenya, where I learned English.
AYAAN HIRSI ALI

English Gratitude Language Learning Move
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
It takes a long time to dissolve the bars of a mental cage.
AYAAN HIRSI ALI

Cage Dissolve Mental Time
I love life more than I love death.
AYAAN HIRSI ALI

Choice Death Life Love Myself
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
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 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
I would rather clean than beg.
AYAAN HIRSI ALI

Beg Cleaning One Liner
I lived in countries that had no democracy. so I don’t find myself in the same luxury as you do. You grew up in freedom, and you can spit on freedom because you don’t know what it is not to have freedom.
AYAAN HIRSI ALI

Country Democracy Freedom Known Live Luxury Yourself

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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