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

Ayaan Hirsi Ali

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Ayaan Hirsi Ali
Age: 54
Born: 1969
Born: November 13
Activist
Author
Feminist
Journalist
Politician
Scientist
Screenwriter
Xamar
Europe
Elite
Living
Confront
Women
Elites
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Slaves
Like
Noses
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Slave
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Tolerant

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The demand that Islam makes of women is to not attract attention to yourself, and if you are in a secular society, that attire does exactly that, and it is a political symbol, no longer religious.
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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.
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The idea that if people are just friendly and demonstrate they want peace, that will be answered with good will - that is really naive.
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I'd love to go and visit the Mosque in Mecca again, just for the sheer beauty of it, not for God - much the way a non-Catholic might go to Vatican City because of the beauty of the buildings and the artifacts.
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It takes a long time to dissolve the bars of a mental cage.
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In April 2006, a Dutch court ordered that I leave my safe-home that I was renting from the State. The judge concluded that my neighbors had a right to argue that they felt unsafe because of my presence in the building.
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I wanted secular, non-Muslim people to stop kidding themselves that Islam is peace and tolerance.
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What I find daunting always is to stand on a stage and talk to people, whether they agree with me or not.
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In the real world, equal respect for all cultures doesn't translate into a rich mosaic of colorful and proud peoples interacting peacefully while maintaining a delightful diversity of food and craftwork. It translates into closed pockets of oppression, ignorance, and abuse.
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I would like to be judged on the validity of my arguments, not as a victim.
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Islam is not a race...Islam is simply a set of beliefs, and it is not 'Islamophobic' to say Islam is incompatible with liberal democracy.
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I am grateful to my father for sending me to school, and that we moved from Somalia to Kenya, where I learned English.
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Avoiding offense means that we don't accept each other as equals.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali
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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.
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We must reclaim and retake feminism from our fellow idiotic women.
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Muslim leaders should ask themselves what exactly their relationship is to a political movement that encourages young men to kill and maim on religious grounds.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali
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As a woman you are better off in life earning your own money. You couldn't prevent your husband from leaving you or taking another wife, but you could have some of your dignity if you didn't have to beg him for financial support.
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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.
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The West is duly terrified. But it should not be surprised.
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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.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali