Infidel by Ayaan Hirsi Ali

Published in 2007. 353 pages.


I found the writing to be somewhat uneven - which is sometimes the case in a memoir - but the content of Ayaan Hirsi Ali's Infidel is such an important one! That the basic human rights of women and female children can be violated with such little thought and/or in the name of religiosity is tragic, and we all need to be a little more aware of the problem so that we can find a solution.

Here are a few quotes:

Holland's multiculturalism - its respect for Muslims' way of doing things - wasn't working. It was depriving many women and children of their rights. Holland was trying to be tolerant for the sake of consensus, but the consensus was empty. The immigrants' culture was being preserved at the expense of their women and children ... [page 246]

The message of this book, if it must have a message, is that we in the West would be wrong to prolong the pain of that transition unnecessarily, by elevating cultures full of bigotry and hatred tworad women to the stature of respectable alternative ways of life. [page 348]

It is possible to free oneself - to adapt one's faith, to examine it critically, and to think about the degree to which that faith is itself at the root of oppression. [page 350]

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