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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

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
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.
AYAAN HIRSI ALI

Belief Believe Better Degree Islam Modern Patience Practice
I call myself a liberal – a classical liberal as in John Stuart Mill.
AYAAN HIRSI ALI

Call Liberal Myself
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.
AYAAN HIRSI ALI

Artifact Beautiful Building God Love Myself Visit
In 1985 as a teenager in Kenya, I was an adamant member of the Muslim Brotherhood.
AYAAN HIRSI ALI

Adamant Brother Islam
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
If we don’t take effective measures now, the Netherlands could be torn between two extreme rights.
AYAAN HIRSI ALI

Measurement Right
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

Belief Impose Oneself Thinking
Where there is no freedom of speech, there is no conscience.
AYAAN HIRSI ALI

Conscience Freedom Speech
If such a young nation as the U.S. could make it to superpower status, we could do it as well.
AYAAN HIRSI ALI

Nation Status Well Young
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 ALI

Answer Friendly Goodness Ideas Naive People
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
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.
AYAAN HIRSI ALI

Domination Hands Kill War World
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
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
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

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.

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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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