For HumanistNetworkNews.org
May 23, 2007
Infidel by Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Free Press, 2007
Ayaan Hirsi Ali is a remarkable woman. Still in her 30s, born in Somalia, she has lived in Saudi Arabia, Ethiopia, Kenya, the Netherlands and the United States. Multilingual (Somali, Arabic, Swahili, Amharic, Dutch and English), she is an accomplished writer, speaker, and politician.
Raised and educated as a devout Muslim, she has come to be one of Islam’s most severe critics, particularly with regard to Quranic theory and practice regarding women’s subjugation. Herself a victim of female genital mutilation, discrimination and forced marriage, she has become the most prominent voice for voiceless Muslim women.
Hirsi Ali is equally critical of fundamentalist Muslim dogmatism and authoritarianism, pointing out the damage to Muslim societies by their religion’s missing the enormous advantages of anything like the European Reformation and Enlightenment.
Infidel is her life story, from birth and childhood through the experiences of living in Somalia, Saudi Arabia, Ethiopia and Kenya, and her eventual immigration to the Netherlands, where she furthered her education, became involved in Dutch politics, and got elected to parliament.
In her struggle against Muslim mistreatment of women she become involved with maverick filmmaker Theo Van Gogh in producing a hard-hitting TV exposé, Submission (Islam in Arabic). The exposé resulted in Van Gogh’s assassination by a Muslim fanatic and such serious threats to her life that she was provided around the clock police protection by the Dutch government.
Of special interest to Americans is Hirsi Ali’s opening the attack on the Dutch constitutional policy of providing full tax support for faith-based schools. She makes the point that if the support goes to Catholic and Protestant schools, however attenuated religion may have become in the Netherlands, such support would have to go to conservative Islamic schools. These schools often promote the abuse of women (genital mutilation, "honor" killings, forced marriages, a husband’s right to regularly beat or rape his wife). The same mess will occur in the US if the Religious Right's campaign for school vouchers is successful.
This book will appall and anger readers, but it is surely one of the most important published this year.
Edd Doerr, president of Americans for Religious Liberty and immediate past president of the American Humanist Association, is the author of over 3,500 published books, sections of books, articles, columns, translations, letters, short stories, and poems.
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