My friend, the Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh, was murdered in 2004 for having been insufficiently reverent toward Islam.
AYAAN HIRSI ALIWhat I find daunting always is to stand on a stage and talk to people, whether they agree with me or not.
More Ayaan Hirsi Ali Quotes
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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.
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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.
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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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I wanted secular, non-Muslim people to stop kidding themselves that Islam is peace and tolerance.
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We must reclaim and retake feminism from our fellow idiotic women.
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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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Free speech is the bedrock of liberty and a free society. And yes, it includes the right to blaspheme and offend.
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Every time I went on TV I got a threat.
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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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There are some mosques with facilities for women; it’s usually a back room with a back-door entrance.
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I love life more than I love death.
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As soon as something like Monty Python’s ‘The Life of Brian’ appears with a Muhammad figure as the main lead, directed by an Arabic Theo van Gogh, the controversial late Dutch filmmaker, we will have taken an enormous step forward.
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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.
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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?
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All my life I have been a nomad.
AYAAN HIRSI ALI