Thoughts from Infidel

I have been thinking a lot about the book I just finished, Infidel by Ayaan Hirsi Ali. It is a tremendous book-- a captivating story of an African woman raised in Islamic culture. Ali was subjected to physical abuse, bigotry, and sexism. To escape from an arranged marriage, she sought asylum in Holland. She ended up receiving her master's degree in political science, was part of Dutch parliament, and now resides in the United States.

She believes in democracy and western values-- but she grew up as far from that as possible. Ali grew up believing that Jews and Americans were pure evil. She was severely beaten and attended Islamic schools. She was excised (female genital mutilation). Ali had a completely NON western worldview, although she questioned a lot.

You don't often hear from Somalian women writers, probably because most women there are in poverty and severely limited from doing any work-- Ali's mom wouldn't even go to the grocery store by herself! Writing would be totally out of the question.

What Ali has done is different than almost every other woman from her culture. Ali stopped wearing a headscarf. She adopted western ideas. She studied at a university. She cut ties with her "clan" in Somalia. She rejected Islam. Ali knows she is in a rare, rare, rare minority of women to escape her culture with minimal physical and emotional scarring-- a rare minority of Muslim women to SPEAK OUT against the sexism of her upbringing.

She writes this in the book:

"It is always difficult to make the transition to a modern world. I moved from the world of faith to the world of reason - from the world of excision and forced marriage to the world of sexual emancipation. Having made that journey, I know that one of those worlds is simply better than the other. Not because of its flashy gadgets, but fundamentally, because of its values.
The message of this book, if it must have a message, is that we in the West would be wrong to prolong the pain of that transition unnecessarily, by elevating cultures full of bigotry and hatred toward women to the stature of respectable alternative ways of life."

It is interesting that in lieu of our postmodern equality obsession, Ali speaks out that all cultures are NOT equal. Here are a few more of her quotes on Islam:

"Many well-meaning Dutch people have told me in all earnestness that nothing in Islamic culture incites abuse of women, that this is just a terrible misunderstanding. Men all over the world beat their women, I am constantly informed. In reality, these Westerners are the ones who misunderstand Islam. The Quaran mandates these punishments. It gives a legitimate basis for abuse, so that the perpetrators feel no shame and are not hounded by their conscience of their community. I wanted my art exhibit to make it difficult for people to look away from this problem. I wanted secular, non-Muslim people to stop kidding themselves that "Islam is peace and tolerance."

"...Bin Laden's quotes from the Quaran resonated in my brain: "When you meet the unbelievers, strike them in the neck." "If you do not go out and fight, God will punish you severely and put others in your place." "Wherever you find the polytheists, kill them, seize them, besiege them, ambush them." "You who believe, do not take the Jews and Christians as friends; they are allies only to each other. Anyone who takes them as an ally becomes one of them."

Ali is an amazing spokesperson, someone who comes from Islam and seeks equality for women. She ultimately concluded that Islam is NOT a religion of peace and that the religion justifies war against unbelievers, sexism, and racism.

It got me thinking about Malcolm Gladwell's book, The Outliers. He looks at what factors promote success in some people... what those factors are that contribute to those "outliers" in society. Most of what he found was dumb luck! For example, Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, and other computer mongols were all born in a few particular years. If they had been born earlier or later, they would not have had such success... Gladwell outlines countless examples like this.

Success is ability... and also a lot of luck. Ali's story reminded me of Gladwell's analysis. If Ali had been born much earlier, she would not have been able to escape from her culture, let alone study at a university or join parliament! She was born at the right place in the right time in the right circumstances.

Her disposition also has to do with it. Of her three siblings, Ali was the only one who was resilient to incessant physical abuse, including genital mutilation. While Ali's sister went crazy and died in her late teens, Ali sought answers by studying political science.

Ali is a rare gem of an author. She is aware that few Muslim women escape from their situations, and her main political cause is to bring light to Islamic subjugation of women.