It takes a long time to dissolve the bars of a mental cage.
AYAAN HIRSI ALIIslam 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.
More Ayaan Hirsi Ali Quotes
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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 -
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.
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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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They decided to let immigrants in and I am an immigrant. They gave us a chance to participate in this country’s life and I took it.
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Tolerance of intolerance is cowardice.
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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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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.
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But without doubts, without a standpoint reached through questionings, human beings can’t acquire knowledge.
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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.
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I do not believe in God, angels and the hereafter.
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Unlike the United Kingdom or the Commonwealth, the umma, or Muslim community, has no symbolic leader, let alone a formal one.
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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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However, some things must be said, and there are times when silence becomes an accomplice to injustice.
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Liberal capitalism is not perfect, but compared to the other ‘isms,’ it’s far superior.
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In a well-functioning democracy, the state constitution is considered more important than God’s holy book, whichever holy book that may be, and God matters only in your private life.
AYAAN HIRSI ALI