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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

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
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 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
Islam is not a race. Islam is simply a set of beliefs, and it is not ‘Islamophobic’ to say Islam is incompatible with liberal democracy.
AYAAN HIRSI ALI

Belief Democracy Islam Liberal Race Religion Simplicity
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
Bear true witness, even if it be against yourselves, your parents or your family.
AYAAN HIRSI ALI

Family Parents True Yourself
Reality is not easy, but all this make-believe doesn’t make it easier.
AYAAN HIRSI ALI

Believe Easy Reality
I would like to be judged on the validity of my arguments, not as a victim.
AYAAN HIRSI ALI

Argument Judgment Victim
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
Many people in Europe and the U.S. dispute the thesis that we are living through a clash of civilisations between Islam and the west. But a radical minority of Muslims firmly believes that Islam is under siege, and is committed to winning the holy war it has declared against the West.
AYAAN HIRSI ALI

Believe Civilization Commitment Declare Holy Islam Live People War
We must reclaim and retake feminism from our fellow idiotic women.
AYAAN HIRSI ALI

Feminism Ourselves Woman
I have had to pay a price for leaving Islam and for speaking out. I have to pay for round-the-clock security because of the death threats against me.
AYAAN HIRSI ALI

Death Islam Leaving Myself Pay Price Threat
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.
AYAAN HIRSI ALI

Argument Building Leaving Order Right State
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 love life more than I love death.
AYAAN HIRSI ALI

Choice Death Life Love Myself
Avoiding offense means that we don’t accept each other as equals.
AYAAN HIRSI ALI

Acceptance Avoid Equality Offense Partner
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.
AYAAN HIRSI ALI

Children Education Human Narrative Tolerance Yourself
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
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.
AYAAN HIRSI ALI

Acknowledgement Equation Majority Necessary Stupidity Terrorist Wrong
Drinking wine and wearing trousers were nothing compared to reading the history of ideas.
AYAAN HIRSI ALI

Compare Drinking History Ideas Reading
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
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.
AYAAN HIRSI ALI

Abuse Culture Equality Ignorance Maintain Oppression People Reality Respect Tradition
After the horrific massacre Wednesday at the French weekly satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, perhaps the West will finally put away its legion of useless tropes trying to deny the relationship between violence and radical Islam.
AYAAN HIRSI ALI

Death Horrific Islam Relationship Violence
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 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 ALI

Burn Herself Iron Live Metal Person Precious Rare System Time Writing
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
It takes a long time to dissolve the bars of a mental cage.
AYAAN HIRSI ALI

Cage Dissolve Mental Time

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.

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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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