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 ALIIn 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.
More Ayaan Hirsi Ali Quotes
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I come from a world where the word ‘trauma’ doesn’t exist, because we are too poor. I didn’t have an easy life compared to the average European. But compared to the average African, it wasn’t all that bad.
AYAAN HIRSI ALI -
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.
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The West is duly terrified. But it should not be surprised.
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I think of Canada, first and foremost, in terms of space. The amount of space available is breathtaking.
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All my life I have been a nomad.
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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.
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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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I do not believe in God, angels and the hereafter.
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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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I don’t believe there is such a thing as ‘moderate Islam.’ I think it’s better to talk about degrees of belief and degrees of practice.
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In 1985 as a teenager in Kenya, I was an adamant member of the Muslim Brotherhood.
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We had a world dominated by the Soviet Union on the one hand, and the Americans on the other hand. They called it the Cold War. But it wasn’t cold. I am someone who comes from the third world. In the third world, the cold war wasn’t cold. Millions had been killed. It was a proxy war.
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It takes a long time to dissolve the bars of a mental cage.
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If such a young nation as the U.S. could make it to superpower status, we could do it as well.
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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.
AYAAN HIRSI ALI