Quote

As soon as something like Monty Python's 'The Life of Brian' appears with a Muhammad figure as the main lead, directed by an Arabic Theo van Gogh, the controversial late Dutch filmmaker, we will have taken an enormous step forward.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Ayaan Hirsi Ali
Age: 55
Born: 1969
Born: November 13
Activist
Author
Feminist
Journalist
Politician
Scientist
Screenwriter
Xamar
Dutch
Steps
Main
Brian
Roles
Enormous
Vans
Huge
Figure
Muhammad
Theo
Taken
Forward
Controversial
Monty
Something
Soon
Gogh
Life
Step
Directed
Arabic
Like
Lead
Appears
Python
Late
Filmmaker

More quotes by Ayaan Hirsi Ali

Image
There is one Islam, unreformed, but three sets of Muslims. Medina, Mecca, and. Dissidents, reformers, whatever you want to call them. The first group are the extremists and fundamentalists, the second the great mass of Muslims who just want to live their lives in peace, and the third are reformers.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali
Image
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.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali
Image
In a sense, my grandmother was living in the Iron Age. There was no system of writing among the nomads. Metal artifacts were rare and precious.... The first time she saw a white person my grandmother was in her thirties: she thought this person's skin had burned off.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali
Image
There are some mosques with facilities for women it's usually a back room with a back-door entrance.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali
Image
What I find daunting always is to stand on a stage and talk to people, whether they agree with me or not.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali
Image
Women covering their heads is traditional, but now we're seeing more and more women covering themselves from head to toe. This is said to be for religious reasons but it's actually the conflation of religion and politics - every political movement has its slogans, flags and dress.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali
Image
I call myself a liberal - a classical liberal as in John Stuart Mill.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali
Image
Reality is not easy, but all this make-believe doesn't make it easier.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali
Image
I would rather clean than beg.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali
Image
Many people in Europe and the U.S. dispute the thesis that we are living through a clash of civilisations between Islam and the west. But a radical minority of Muslims firmly believes that Islam is under siege, and is committed to winning the holy war it has declared against the West.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali
Image
The people who believe themselves to be on the left, and who defend the agents of Islam in the name of tolerance and culture, are being rightwing. Not just rightwing. Extreme rightwing. I don't understand how you can be so upset about the Christian right and just ignore the Islamic right. I'm talking about equality.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali
Image
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.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali
Image
The liberal psyche wants to protect minorities, to apologize for imperialism, colonialism, slavery, and the appalling treatment of black people during the civil rights movement. At the same time, they want to continue to defend the rights of individuals.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali
Image
Drinking wine and wearing trousers were nothing compared to reading the history of ideas.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali
Image
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.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali
Image
I wanted secular, non-Muslim people to stop kidding themselves that Islam is peace and tolerance.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali
Image
But without doubts, without a standpoint reached through questionings, human beings can't acquire knowledge.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali
Image
My brother thinks it is very, very bad that I left Islam. My half-sister wants to convert me back I want to convert her to Western values. My mum is terrified that when I die, and we all go to God, I will be burned.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali
Image
I confront the European elite's self-image as tolerant 'while under their noses women are living like slaves.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali
Image
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.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali