The idea that if people are just friendly and demonstrate they want peace, that will be answered with good will – that is really naive.
AYAAN HIRSI ALIIn 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.
More Ayaan Hirsi Ali Quotes
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In the real world, equal respect for all cultures doesn’t translate into a rich mosaic of colorful and proud peoples interacting peacefully while maintaining a delightful diversity of food and craftwork. It translates into closed pockets of oppression, ignorance, and abuse.
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Avoiding offense means that we don’t accept each other as equals.
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I would rather clean than beg.
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People ask me if I have some kind of death wish, to keep saying the things I do. The answer is no: I would like to keep living. However, some things must be said, and there are times when silence becomes an accomplice to injustice.
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Unlike the United Kingdom or the Commonwealth, the umma, or Muslim community, has no symbolic leader, let alone a formal one.
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In 1985 as a teenager in Kenya, I was an adamant member of the Muslim Brotherhood.
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I call myself a liberal – a classical liberal as in John Stuart Mill.
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There is a huge difference between being tolerant and tolerating intolerance.
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I talk about a Christianity that is enlightened enough to separate spirituality from the rest of life. Not just church and state, but knowledge and church.
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In April 2006, a Dutch court ordered that I leave my safe-home that I was renting from the State. The judge concluded that my neighbors had a right to argue that they felt unsafe because of my presence in the building.
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There are some mosques with facilities for women; it’s usually a back room with a back-door entrance.
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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.
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I would like to be judged on the validity of my arguments, not as a victim.
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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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I want people to emphasize life before death as opposed to life after death.
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Women covering their heads is traditional, but now we’re seeing more and more women covering themselves from head to toe. This is said to be for religious reasons but it’s actually the conflation of religion and politics – every political movement has its slogans, flags and dress.
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I see no difference between Islam and Islamism. Islam is defined as submission to the will of Allah, as it is described in the Koran. Islamism is just Islam in its most pure form.
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Tolerance of intolerance is cowardice.
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Of 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.
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If we don’t take effective measures now, the Netherlands could be torn between two extreme rights.
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Bear true witness, even if it be against yourselves, your parents or your family.
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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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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.
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However, some things must be said, and there are times when silence becomes an accomplice to injustice.
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European 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.
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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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