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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.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali

I call myself a liberal – a classical liberal as in John Stuart Mill.
AYAAN HIRSI ALI

Call Liberal Myself
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
In 1985 as a teenager in Kenya, I was an adamant member of the Muslim Brotherhood.
AYAAN HIRSI ALI

Adamant Brother Islam
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
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
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
I’d like Muslims to look at their religion as a set of beliefs that they can appraise critically and pick and choose from.
AYAAN HIRSI ALI

Choice Criticism Muslim Myself Region
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
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
Americans have always welcomed people of all backgrounds, religions, and races. It’s a spirit of tolerance, now energized and amplified by the cult of multiculturalism.
AYAAN HIRSI ALI

Amplify Culture Race Religion Welcome
You have to let individuals make their own choices and respect that, even if it’s your own child. And that’s what was taken away from me. My father passed away thinking I still had to go back to his way of believing.
AYAAN HIRSI ALI

Believe Choice Death Father Freedom Independent Myself Thinking Willing
As a woman you are better off in life earning your own money. You couldn’t prevent your husband from leaving you or taking another wife, but you could have some of your dignity if you didn’t have to beg him for financial support.
AYAAN HIRSI ALI

Better Earning Financial Leaving Life Support Woman
There is a huge difference between being tolerant and tolerating intolerance.
AYAAN HIRSI ALI

Difference Huge Tolerance
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
I wanted secular, non-Muslim people to stop kidding themselves that Islam is peace and tolerance.
AYAAN HIRSI ALI

Islam Peace People Tolerance
Unlike the United Kingdom or the Commonwealth, the umma, or Muslim community, has no symbolic leader, let alone a formal one.
AYAAN HIRSI ALI

Alone Formal Leadership

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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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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Popular Authors

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