Ayaan's all over the place
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Ayaan Hirsi Magan's been all over the media like a rash this past week, with a series of adulatory articles and soft interviews. Nobody seems to be willing to take her up on her ludicrous claims that, for example, "the 74 per cent of Muslims under 24 who said in a survey that women should wear the veil and want Sharia law to be introduced have gone for the consistency that Bin Laden offers", which appears in this Metro interview today. Another example is in yesterday's Observer, with an accompanying piece here at Comment Is Free, and this inteview on the Radio 4 Woman's Hour (MP3 - may not be available after this week).
Quite apart from the ludicrous claim I quote above, Ayaan Hirsi Ali is far from the only woman in the world to have experienced FGM and witnessed or experienced domestic violence; not all of them, by any means, have renounced Islam and then used these experiences as ammunition. Why has nobody put this to her? The verses she claims Osama bin Laden uses to justify his terrorist campaign do not, in the mainstream Islamic understanding, justify such behaviour at all. Why has nobody put this to her? No doubt she would not agree to be interviewed by a Muslim lest he or she produce a weapon of some sort (as if we all carry weapons when most of us live in countries where it is illegal to do so), but surely someone could take this woman up on her plainly ludicrous, specious claims about Islam and her fatuous comparisons?
Comments
Yusuf she's a woman.
The intelligence of what she says doesn't matter. It's how loud she says it that counts.
Posted by: Shamil | February 5, 2007 10:46 PM
They had her on National Public Radio here in the US today and I called and was planning on asking a few tough questions but of course I was put in the queue and they never put me on. She made SO many completely outrageous statements it would have been laughable if it weren't that people weren't taking her seriously! One of the worst was her claim that "only whites" were really fighting against slavery and apartheid and that "the only countries in the world where slavery is practiced are in the Arab Islamic world". (She used that phrase "Arab Islamic world" ad nauseum and even used it when describing Somalia and Pakistan ROFLMHO!) The host did ask her why she said "we Muslims" at one point and asked her "do you still consider yourself a Muslim" and she gave a ridiculous answer-- she said she doesn't believe in God, the Prophets, the Qur'an or the Angels but she was "raised Muslim and I am part of that history and tradition". Later in the show when the host asked her how she felt about living under a death threat she said "I don't believe in an afterlife so I just enjoy things as much as I can now." One ignorant caller asked her what Muslim feminist writers "who write in Arabic" does she "gain inspiration from" and she gave a half-answer and didn't even have the guts to correct the caller and acknowledge that she does not speak or read Arabic! Ooh, I could go on, but I've gone on already haven't I? Okay, last one is that NO mention was made during the entire show that she was stripped of her citizenship for lying about her past in the first place which gives the reader NO confidence in any story she tells in her book. I can't believe this stuff is being done in serious news outlets.
Posted by: UmmZaynab | February 6, 2007 4:39 AM
She also appeared on Voice of America a few days ago. This woman is extremely uneducated in Islam though she presents herself as an expert. I commented on some of her statements here: http://gaymuslims.wordpress.com/2007/02/03/hirsi-ali-the-arrogant-ignoramus/
Posted by: Taleb Haqq | February 6, 2007 10:44 AM
Hard to believe they are still peddling the lies of a forced marriage, Hirsi Ali was never in a forced marriage, she chose the man she married and later "ran away" from who until very recently was still visiting her in the Hague, from Canada. But even the Guardian chooses to repeat such lies.
Hirsi Ali also has not had a nomadic rural experience in Somalia, this has only happened to her in her sick head.
She comes from an elitist family who were always active in Somali politics and helped to destroy Somalia and, if Europeans and Americans don't stop listening to her divisive politics she'll only bring the troubles of Somalia to the West.
I wonder what great hardships she could have suffered in Africa when she attended a private school in Nairobi, Kenya (not Somalia) and her father went to an ivy league college -Columbia University, no less.
Trouble is, no one can confront her on TV/Radio to put a stop to all her lies because of course such people will not be allowed to do so.
Posted by: Saggal | February 6, 2007 2:53 PM
Assalaamu alaikum,
I've been travelling for the last couple of weeks and haven't heard much news, but I saw part of an interview with her on the BBC's HardTalk a few days ago. I didn't realize she was all over the media.
Steven Sackur asked her some tough questions - not as tough as I would have liked, though. He made it clear that she considered herself an atheist, but I don't think he ever mentioned the lying about her past. (I wasn't paying full attention the whole time.)
The one thing that struck me was that she really wasn't very impressive at all. The people who support her do so simply because she attacks Islam. Over and over again... and not by saying anything very intelligent or interesting...
Posted by: ummabdulla | February 8, 2007 10:14 AM
The woman is a genius, she used the underlying islamaphobic attitudes that we all know are present in western society to propel her career. She lied her way into Holland by claiming to be an asylum seeker, gained an education and joined the Dutch parliament, once she was exposed she left Holland for America to Join the Right wing AEI think tank whom im sure she will drop once she gets permenant US residency.
She bashes Islam because that is what her audience wants to hear, I am sure if this were 1930's her attack would be on jews.
I suggest Muslims ignore her, every time she makes a statement the media looks for the muslims response, why should muslims help feed hercelebrity lust. Its time to stop helping her and the other Islam-haters by simply saying "Thats your view and your welcome to it".
Posted by: SalaamALL | February 8, 2007 3:25 PM
"Ayaan Hirsi Ali is not the first person to use false pretences to try to find a better life in the West, nor will she be the last. But the muddy account given in this book of her so-called forced marriage becomes more troubling when one considers that Ms Hirsi Ali has built a career out of portraying herself as the lifelong victim of fanatical Muslims.
...
"Mental illness, abortion, failed marriages, illicit affairs and differing interpretations of religion: much as she tries, the kind of problems that Ms Hirsi Ali describes in “Infidel” are all too human to be blamed entirely on Islam. Her book shows that her life, like those of other Muslims, is more complex than many people in the West may have realised. But the West's tendency to seek simplistic explanations is a weakness that Ms Hirsi Ali also shows she has been happy to exploit." -- The Economist: Dark Secrets
Posted by: JD
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February 10, 2007 5:41 AM
The one thing that struck me was that she really wasn't very impressive at all. The people who support her do so simply because she attacks Islam. Over and over again... and not by saying anything very intelligent or interesting...
You seem surprised.
Posted by: anonymous | February 10, 2007 4:14 PM
Assalaamu alaikum,
"You seem surprised."
Well, I knew that's what she did, but I'd never actually seen an interview with her, and I guess I expected her to at least seem intelligent or something...
Ann (I changed my typekey ID or forgot the other one or something...)
Posted by: ummabdulla | February 10, 2007 6:26 PM
In all the interviews she's done, no one's ever asked her how come a woman hating society sent their daughter to a private school. You'd think that would derail her gravy train once and for all.
And when I say she went to a private school in Nairobi, am not repeating rumours, I know for a fact that she did because my sister went to the same school.
Posted by: Saggal | February 11, 2007 1:22 PM