Ayaan Hirsi Ali

Activist, Author

Ayaan Hirsi Ali is a Somali-born activist and author known for her outspoken views on women's rights and criticism of Islam.

People Believe Islam Thinking Children Religious

Born: November 13, 1969
Quotes: 99
Rank: #5484

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Ayaan Hirsi Ali quotes (page 2 of 5)

99 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali Activist, Author

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"I cannot emphasize enough how wrongheaded this is. Withholding criticism and ignoring differences are racism in its purest form. Yet these cultural experts fail to notice that, through their anxious avoidance of criticizing non-Western countries, they trap the people who represent these cultures in a state of backwardness. The experts may have the best of intentions, but as we all know, the road to hell is paved with good intentions."

Country Differences Racism

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"I wanted secular, non-Muslim people to stop kidding themselves that Islam is peace and tolerance."

People Tolerance Islam

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"I confront the European elite's self-image as tolerant 'while under their noses women are living like slaves."

Women Self Europe

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"What matters is abuse, and how it is anchored in a religion that denies women their rights as humans. What matters is that atrocities against women and children are carried out in Europe. What matters is that governments and societies must stop hiding behind a hollow pretense of tolerance so that they can recognize and deal with the problem."

Children Europe What Matters

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"Most unmarried Somali girls who got pregnant committed suicide. I knew of one girl in Mogadishu who poured a can of gasoline over herself in the living room, with everyone there, and burned herself alive. Of course, if she hadn't done this, her father and brothers would probably have killed her anyway."

Girl Suicide Brother

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"I have had to pay a price for leaving Islam and for speaking out. I have to pay for round-the-clock security because of the death threats against me."

Leaving Islam Pay

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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."

Book Democracy Important

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"I believe that the dysfunctional Muslim family constitutes a real threat to the very fabric of western life. It is in the family that children are groomed to practise, promote and pass on the norms of their parents' culture."

Children Real Believe

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"My first experience in the Netherlands was very pleasant, extremely pleasant. I mean, I got my residence permit, refugee status, within four weeks of arrival. People treated me extremely well."

Mean People Netherlands

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"Of course, the overwhelming majority of Muslims are not terrorists or sympathetic to terrorists. Equating all Muslims with terrorism is stupid and wrong. But acknowledging that there is a link between Islam and terror is appropriate and necessary."

Stupid Islam Majority

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"My friend, the Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh, was murdered in 2004 for having been insufficiently reverent toward Islam."

Islam Dutch Vans

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"I see no difference between Islam and Islamism. Islam is defined as submission to the will of Allah, as it is described in the Koran. Islamism is just Islam in its most pure form."

Differences Islam Submission

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"There can only be one answer to this hideous act of jihad against the staff of Charlie Hebdo. It is the obligation of the Western media and Western leaders, religious and lay, to protect the most basic rights of freedom of expression, whether in satire on any other form. The West must not appease, it must not be silenced. We must send a united message to the terrorists: Your violence cannot destroy our soul."

Religious Media Expression

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"Young people, some of whom are not born into the faith, are being fired up by preachers using basic Islamic scripture and mobilized to wage jihad by radical imams who represent themselves as legitimate Muslim clergymen."

Islamic People Scripture

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"Reality is not easy, but all this make-believe doesn't make it easier."

Believe Reality Easy

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"We have to start with the little babies who are born now, socialize them in freedom and critical thinking. We don't have to throw away their faith. People confuse the two, thinking if you are enlightened that means apostasy. It doesn't."

Baby Mean Thinking

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"When I was with the Labor Party, I'd get into trouble because the party bosses determined that some of what I wrote, or proposed to write about, wasn't conducive to their policies or to electoral success."

Party Writing Boss

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"It is easy to be disgruntled if you are denied rights and freedoms to which you feel entitled. But if you are not coherent, if you cannot put into words what it is that displeases you and why it is unfair and should change, then you are dismissed as an unreasonable whiner. You may be lectured about perseverance and patience, life as a test, the need to accept the higher wisdom of others."

Life Perseverance Rights

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"Liberal capitalism is not perfect, but compared to the other 'isms,' it's far superior."

Perfect Isms Capitalism

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"The Christian take on Hellfire seems less dramatic than the Muslim vision, which I grew up with, but Christian magical thinking appeals to me no more than my mother's angels and djinns."

Christian Mother Angel

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