Hirsi Ali and extremism
Mary Madigan
On Sunday, Judith, Jeff and I went to hear Ayaan Hirsi Ali speak at PEN's 'World Voices' tour.
The basic points of the talk: Ayaan Hirsi Ali told New York Liberals to respect their enlightenment values. Interviewer Gourevitch wondered what was to be done with this difficult woman. The audience responded by giving her a five minute ovation. I'm surprised we didn't light candles and do the wave.
Speaking for myself, we weren't just clapping because we agreed with her or because we admired her bravery. We were clapping because she could express feelings that we no longer can. Like Wafa Sultan and many pro-democracy activists in the Middle East, Hirsi Ali understands and loves liberal and enlightenment values. Ms. Ali tried to communicate that love and passion to us, but even the basically sympathetic audience didn't really get it. Some people giggled uncomfortably when she mentioned freedom and the joys of owning property; they were like a bunch of junior high-schoolers listening to passionate love song - they wanted to hear more, but the subject was so embarrassing.
The best surprise: Salman Rushdie, author of the Satanic Verses, sat near the stage. Early on, the soft-voiced Ali confessed that as a young Muslim, she protested in favor of his death. Later she admitted that she had wanted to burn his book. "Not just the book" he quipped.
Ali describes herself as a Muslim atheist. She speaks out in favor of bringing the enlightenment to the Muslim world. Like Irshad Manji, her message is that Muslims need to question the authority of their Imams and of Mohammed. Muslims need to think for themselves.
She said that there are many Muslims and former Muslims out there who believe the same thing - but they're not willing to say so out loud, because they fear the wrath that the Islamists will stir up. She hopes that the West would defend their own values and the lives of the whistle-blowers of the Muslim world.
That is basically the message that has prompted death threats, accusations of Islamaphobia and extremism against this soft-voiced, elegant and reasonable woman.
Unfortunately, we've gotten so used to living with the kill-all-apostates brigade - their message often raises fewer eyebrows than Ali's.
Honestly - does Hirsi Ali's message sound extreme to you?
[More details from the New York Sun, linked to by Atlas ]
UPDATE: I should also mention that while Hirsi Ali was on tour, her neighbors successfully evicted her from her home. Of that, Callimachus writes
Of course, for her bravery, Hirsi Ali has been rewarded by the Eurocrats by being evicted from her home because the neighbors are afraid to live next to someone who makes waves.I remember the aftershock week that followed Sept. 11. The attacks cracked through America's shell and some of what oozed out was darkly ugly. My girlfriend at the time lived in Birmingham, and one of her best friends was a pretty Persian girl, identifiably Middle Eastern on sight. Nobody knew what was happening, or what was going to happen next. There were stories of physical attacks on anyone who looked vaguely Islamic; there were fears of how law enforcement would react.
But her neighbors rallied to her, and every time that girl left the house, for an errand, for her job, for anything, someone went with her. Just in case. There were stories like that everywhere. People who had never been inside a mosque turned out to stand guard over one, just in case. Those of us with Middle Eastern neighbors kept an eye on the, always asked how they were doing, if they needed anything. Just in case.
I don't think we're better than the average European. But I do think we're different. How could we not be? We're the same people, 300 years back, who segregated themselves voluntarily. Those who took religion seriously, those who were greedy and ambitious, those who felt the stirring of individual spirit stronger than the urge to stay safe in the herd — they came here. At tremendous risk, they crossed half a world. They survived here, in part, by keeping an eye on each other. They're our grandfathers and grandmothers.
Those who were content, or unwilling to take risks, stayed. Modern European history has many heroes, brave men and women. But they are, on the whole, exceptions. The mass of Europeans kept their heads down and hoed their own rows. When the knock on the door came in the middle of the night at their neighbors' houses in 1942, they closed their eyes tighter and pulled the covers around them tighter and pretended to sleep.
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since I don't buy the implied argument that these two statements are equivalent - yes, she sounds like an extremist to me. She wants us muslims to do more than "question authority" - she wants us to reject our faith.
I wish her the best in life and strongly condemn anyone who dares threaten her for speaking her mind. But I also will ignore what she has to say, as I certainly don't need the spiritual advice of someone who as a practicing muslim, was so weak-minded that she actually wanted to kill Rushdie, and now as an ex-muslim thinks the answer is for all muslims to abandon the pillars of faith.
As an unbeliever myself, I cannot think that a self-described "muslim atheist" is going to be able to do much to change the hearts and minds of the religious.
She didn't actually say that, though- those are another's words describing her. For instance, she may have meant MORE Muslims should question authority rather than ALL Muslims...
Even if that's an accurate despcripton of her message though, it is one thing so say she's wrong- another to say she's an extremist. It sort of dumbs down extremism, I think. She's not advocating violence is she? I mean if she's an extremist what are the people who are calling for her to be murdered because they don't like what she says? Super-duper-extremists?
Completely off point but she appears to be a hottie.
...I certainly don't need the spiritual advice of someone who as a practicing muslim, was so weak-minded that she actually wanted to kill Rushdie...
That's a pretty strong questioning of authority, since it was muslim "authorities" who called for Rushdie's death.
Well, I guess we should define authority. Authority could be the leader of a particular Muslims' mosque, it could be the Koran, or it could be an Islamic state leader. Or there could be other authorities?
Ali never said that she wanted Muslims reject their faith, yet Aziz implied that she did. So I was wondering if the idea of questioning any or a particular authority was considered to be an automatic rejection of one's faith.
She never did. The strongest statement she made is that we should look for alternative energy sources, because oil gives power to the kleptocrats, not the people.
Probably not very far, given how many Christians there are in the US.
But what is your point? Have I been missing a world-wide epidemic of crazed Christians blowing up non-believers, cutting off their heads on videocamera, threatening secular authorities, telling people not to vote, telling people their Christian duty is to kill non-believers, and the like?
I'm pretty sure if that were happening, I'd be hearing about it.
I'm pretty sure you woudln't have heard about these things, even though they're all true. You can blame the MSM for that.
can you give me a link on this one please? I scroogled it but came up dry... Was this a case of Christians killing Muslims out of religious fervor?
Also, my understanding of Rwanda is that it was a tribal conflict, as opposed to a religious conflict. While Christian churches, Catholic and Presbyterian, did NOT stop the violence, and in many cases DID commit violence, I thought it was about the Hutu trying to have a final solution regarding the Tutsi.
For example the Tutsi Christians would go to their Hutu priest for help, and the Hutu priest would tell them to go in the church, and then have other Hutus massacre them.
In the face of overwhelming evidence that France backed the Hutu-dominated Rwandan army responsible for the massacre of some 800,000 people ten years ago, it continues to deny its responsibility in the tragedy.
On the contrary, former minister for foreign affairs Dominique de Villepin claimed three weeks ago that ”French intervention in Rwanda saved hundreds of thousands of lives.”
New Rwandan leader Paul Kagamé, a Tutsi, corrected De Villepin. ”Yes, the French saved many lives -- of those who committed the genocide.”
De Villepin was referring to Operation Turquoise, a peacekeeping mission launched by the French government with UN authorisation on June 23, 1994 -- when the genocide was mostly over.
The French are Christians, sort of, but their involvement was mostly to preserve the French-speaking Hutu culture.
French involvement is also responsible for the current mess in the Congo. Which is why no one should want the Francophones in Chad to get involved in the Sudan.
I've always believed in God, but never in religion, so I'm certainly no expert on faith issues, but, as far as I know, Christians often question the authority of their religious leaders. They usually respect their leaders, but they don't follow them without question. Of course, when they question authority, they usually do it politely. Hirsi Ali was, at all times, very polite.
Christians also don't believe that anyone who converts from Christianity should be killed.
But what do I know - I was raised by liberal, enlightenment-educated parents and teachers who told me that 'just following orders' without thinking for oneself was sometimes a bad thing.
Beyond that, I'll just note for you how incredibly convenient I find it for Christians to dismiss everything bad Christians do as simply ethnic or tribal, or not representative of the faith. But when Muslims do bad things it's conveniently ascribed to the faith itself. I also find it convenient that none of the Christians who believe crap like that, including many commenters on this blog, ever bother reading Muslim blogs or asking Muslims what they actually believe and what they actually think. In this, they are identical to anti-Semites who bark about what Jews think and what Jews believe or what Jews secretly do, but never actually talk to any Jews. I'm sick of the mentality--seriously, very sick of it.
What have you actually asked a Muslim lately? (WHYAAAML?)
According to your liberal and enlightenment values, can someone who believes that apostasy should be punished by death be called a moderate?
It's when you post nonsense like this that MEGO.
A great deal of Muslim violence against non-Muslims today is explicitly justified as religious.
Christians once committed widespread atrocities in the name of Christianity, but I'm not aware of that happening now. Are you? Or is this just another instance of your "Christians are just as bad" equivalence?
Just a couple of quick points.
1 - While the Balkans were an ethnic struggle, it was also a religious one, with the leaders of each party donning religious rhetoric. Serbian Nationalism is Christian.
2 - Maybe you guys haven't heard about the Ugandan civil war and the close to 100,000 people murdered in the name of the Christian God by Christians. Look up Lord's Rebel Army in Uganda, who wish to establish a state in the name of the Ten Commandments. These are numbers reported by the National Geographic. You can read more about the LRA on this post on my blog. Though please read the post before attacking me for bringing it up.
3 - Hrsi Ali has to understood for what she is: a Western Muslim thinker. Even most traditionalist Muslim Western thinkers bear no relevance to the world of the Middle East, or South Asia. We, by virtue of our association with the West are seen as having turned our backs to the "home" country and are not taken seriously. In other words, Hrsi Ali can inform the West, but she cannot reform the East. As I've told Dean, and I think he concurs, Islamic reform will be local. I have set forth a five part 'map' of how Islamic Reform will work.
4 - I have no problem with Hrsi Ali's atheism. If she can go from wanting to kill Rushdie to sitting with him maybe she will believe in God again. However, she should realize that her atheism inhibits her from having any moral capital with Muslims (even in the West). As I would have suggested to Wafa before she turned atheist: fake it till you make it.
Hrsi Ali has to understood for what she is: a Western Muslim thinker
People like Hirsi Ali and Wafa Sultan are inspiring to us in the west, but they may or may not be able to influence opinion in the Muslim world. It's hard to tell. According to Hirsi Ali, there are many other Muslims who agree with her, but they're afraid to speak out. I guess the threat of death intimidates people.
Who knows, the situation in the Muslim world may be like the situation in pre-invasion Iraq, when Saddam got 100% of the Iraqi vote. Again, the threat of death is a very influential political tool.
Wahhabi/extremist influence on Islam and on the West is a very destructive force. If we decided to fight this influence, that fight could probably be won using military or (preferably) economic means.
The solution to our problems with terrorism/Islamism is mostly within ourselves. We have to decide, at some point, that we're worth the effort. That's why I think it's important for us to listen to speakers like Hirsi.
Whether Islam decides to reform itself or not is a side issue. Since the west can't (and shouldn't) influence the process in any way, the whole thing is irrelevant to any war on terrorism. We need to reform ourselves, to learn to respect our own laws, which forbid murder for the crime of apostasy and other civil rights violations that are a part of some sharia laws. But, otherwise, reforming Islam is up to Islam. The west should have no need to influence or finance it.
Dean - so, according to your liberal and enlightenment values, is the idea that one should think for oneself and question authority extreme?
According to your liberal and enlightenment values, can someone who believes that apostasy should be punished by death be called a moderate?
To think for yourself and question authority is not extreme by my values, nor is it extreme (from what I can see) for Muslim values. But by Christian, Muslim, or Jewish values, however, to declare oneself an atheist is extreme. And that's okay, if that's who you are, but it's not a viewpoint that seems likely to make the faithful re-examine their faith and ask what is right or wrong in their current expression of it. You might as well ask Catholics to say "the Pope has nothing of value to say" and expect that to help reform Catholicism.
Mikeca, as often as I disagree with him on other issues, said it well: do you think you're going to gte America's evangelical Christiand to re-examine what they believe by stating that you are a "Christian atheist?" I'm sorry, but that won't fly for most of them.
Let's have the members of the faith who still believe in God and who still believe in the fundamentals of their faith talk about tolerance and such as part of it. Declaring yourself an atheist is pretty much a way of saying the faith no longer matters to you. Which may be cool for secularists like you and me, but isn't going to get the billion-plus members of the faith to "get with the program." Indeed, they'll look at it as proof that they should renounce liberal values rather than embrace them. And that's not what we want, is it?
As a Jew, I think Jews need to reform some of their values in regards to Torah. I reject God, and the faith of my ancestors, and I think my fellow Jews should do this in order to reform their faith.
As an evangelical Christian, I think Christians need to re-examine their faith. As an atheist Christian, I think Christians should....
As a feminist, I think feminists must embrace the notion that men are inherently superior, and that by doing this they can make feminism more functional...
As an American, I think Americans must accept that their country is fundamentally evil, and if they'll just do that, the world will be a better place...
As a black person, I think we must give up the notion that we are anything but inferior to white people, and if we'd just do that we'd live in a better world...
Get my point?
I admire Hirsi Ali, but by declaring herself a "muslim atheist," she's pretty much just taken herself out of any conversations among faithful muslims, and indeed is sending the message that "reform means surrendering the faith of your fathers and mothers." That's not going to help radical muslims reform themselves. It's just going to provide fuel for the radicals.
No? I'm wrong? Tell me how.
She is of value only to us.
Also who is the misguided soul who suggested she was a hottie?
My god. Get new lenses.
The only quasi-Muslim pinup these days is Bin Laden's niece.
Damn family has a monopoly on both extremes of the religion.
As I said before, I think Hirsi has a lot of good things to say to the West. I don't know what kind of influence she has on the opinions of practicing Muslims because they, like the Iraqis under Saddam, are probably not free to speak their minds if they happen to agree with her.
How many Iraqis were willing to openly and publicly admit that they hated Saddam before we invaded. How many Iraqis admitted that they hated him later? I think we shouldn't discount the influence of the threat of death.
Indeed, they'll look at it as proof that they should renounce liberal values rather than embrace them. And that's not what we want, is it?
I doubt that they would see it that way, but I can't read Muslim minds and neither can you. This is just one example why any western attempts to 'reform' Islam are such an expensive, wearying waste of time. We're just Americans, we're not Gods, we don't have the power to control their minds and their actions, no matter how much money we spend.
However, I'm sure that many enterpreneurs will try to sell us the concept, since there's so much government money floating around. You can't blame them for trying.
If Islam wants to reform, it's up to them. We have no control over the issue, nor should we. If we want to stop terrorism and extremism, we're going to have to find a method that will actually work.
<blockquote>I'll just note for you how incredibly convenient I find it for Christians to dismiss everything bad Christians do as simply ethnic or tribal, or not representative of the faith. But when Muslims do bad things it's conveniently ascribed to the faith itself.</blockquote>
It isn't about convenience. I don't blame Saddam's atrocities on Islam. NOBODY does. But when Muslims say they are killing people in the name of Islam, I do. It is about caring about knowing reality, not about convenience.
I actually asked for links so I would have a place to point people to when I wanted to show them that Christians do the same thing Muslims do. Stop it with defensiveness already.
<blockquote>
Also who is the misguided soul who suggested she was a hottie?
</blockquote>
That was me. I'm just going by the pic in the post.
Just looked up some pics...
I TAKE IT BACK!
Incredibly brave yes- beautiful no. Extremist? Well, you can define it that way, I guess. But I always thought the extreme part meant a willingness to get violent in order to persuade.