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Ali was brave to write this book. It wasn't as interesting or thought-provoking as Infidel and there seemed to be a lot of repetition. Nevertheless her critique of Islam has always stirred up controversy and she is brave for aggressively condemning the radicals and fighting for the liberation of women as a feminist.
What you encounter here is foremost a candid honesty providing the reader with useful insights about the author. Instead of reigning in practices that are demonstrably illegal and punishable within their own legal and punitive systems these governments prop up and support the practices with protective measures and institutional denial. All beyond the collective are less and if not Muslim, they are to be rejected as entirely inferior and fodder only for Hell and if Jewish they are dogs and devils themselves. It is archaic and tribal but is religiously reinforced by the word of Muhammad and the Koran. The culture might catch up in its own time, but whilst we wait for that (likely in vain) there is a failure to act for victims now. Hirsi Ali also points out the fear of the traditionally robust commentator being labelled racist as being one main reason for most remaining silent, it has been an effective muzzle but she correctly argues not one that is a defensible excuse for not speaking out.
She speaks for them just as she did in her interpreter role, because they cannot, it is that simple.She points out the flaws in primarily leftist liberal western government's continued mishandling of Islamic migration. In any normal universe such practices are equivalent to sexual, serious physical abuse and torture but in 21st Century, Holland, The United Kingdom and Australia we have an abominable practice reformed into a culturally permissible act. The culture needs time to grow sure but victims are victims regardless of this and a cultural practice must operate (or not) within the time in which it resides, to perpetually support the insupportable is to enable and perpetrate the act itself. Hirsi Ali knows how to argue her case and we're given background as to her credibility and expertise to emphasis her ability to check the facts from both sides and from various angles. should be Hirsi Ali's next title as she nails the issue so succinctly early on in 'The Caged Virgin' by highlighting the tendency of the left for self blame, they are consumed by it and so hamstrung that prehistoric barbaric practices are understood only in the context of their cultural value to a community for fear of offending it or appearing racist.
It shows us the path she has taken to achieve her most unlikely position, given her beginnings, as a leading defender of the women of Islam and their human right to emancipation and self-determination. She does so whilst crying out for Islam and fellow Muslims to do the same. They belong to a collective, a clan as the core and sole element to be maintained at all costs, the individual is and must remain subservient to it. It does read as a collection of essays and it does contain passionate and personal accounts, we pretty much follow her intellectual enlightenment and the author's pronouncement of her own reformation. Has the torture and mutilation of girls now become an excusable and permissible inevitability in western democracies. The serious failure of the Left is to confuse misogyny and discrimination with a cultural or religiously valuable event. The men being spoilt and totally immutable in their position, control every aspect of the community including resisting any attempts by the host country to integrate the people into the general populace where normally this may occur through schools, work, volunteering, media, social contact, sport, etc.Cries of racism toward any criticism of Islam should be deflected for what they are, a puerile distraction by the ignorant who wish to remain oblivious to the real problems inherent in present day, multi-racial Islam or the convenient ammunition of the knowing Islamic apologist. Hirsi Ali also points out the difference between what we normally think of when we identify culture with religion.
Many existing reviews have pointed to flaws in the construction of 'The Caged Virgin'. It is a bubble of evil with the tick of permission to exist. Hirsi Ali sees the failure of "multiculturalism" to work on Islamic immigrants because of the peculiar nature of these highly separatist and superstitiously religious communities. The hierarchy in place however one might like to romanticise it is that women and children are the possessions of men, with the female residing at the bottom of this structure. Islam is a religion not a culture, it is multi-racial, not mono-racial. Islam is obviously struggling with its own anachronistic existence within a world it continually fails to understand nor wants to participate in or share. Most importantly though the book provides for us an account for the beginning kernels and the full blown development of her thesis whilst showing us the developing clarity of thinking and the natural intellect behind it. Will it ever.
The left is morally and legally not even in a grey area here, it is wrong. Multiple races and cultural operate under the strong control of Islam the religion and significantly under the unassailable word of Muhammad.The problems with leftist liberal governments is. She highlights the intrinsic superstitious nature of the communities, with ill educated women, inward focused gossiping clique driven pecking orders where any transgression opens the door for the devil to enter in and create mischief - literally not merely figurative, they really believe there are demons and devils at work. If it is to survive as Hirsi Ali puts it, it must look inward to discover the reasons why and stop blaming the west for self ascribed problems, it must find the way to "enlightenment" of its own accord, only then can it move forward.
Aayan Hirsi Ali should be read and supported. She is a very well educated lady, talking from experience, defending the rights of muslim women, really defending the rights of all women.
I sincerely wish her the best in future endeavors, and hope that she lives to see the fruit of her work - and words - become widespread.While Ms. Ms.
Various chapters tackle the various issues raised about religion freedom, Islam, tolerance, women, in a clear and concise way. I have already read 'Infidel' before I read this, and this book is not an autobiography, even if she does reveal a bit of her personal life in this.
This is a eye-opener in the relation between the West and the Middle East and of religious fundamentalism itself.She is clear about why we have problems, and what we can do to solve them, simple as that. The fact that Ms.
Ali has received threats, and those of her ilk, only prove that her words are right. Ali is a brave woman to speak forth, knowing that people wish he4r dead for it.
Ali speaks about Islam, this applies to other fundamentalists - whatever religion and sects - and about the consequences of blind tolerance and patronizing attitudes do to hurt everyone - Westerners and Muslims.
Feminism. On July 4th I finished my second book by Ayaan Hirsi Ali, having just completed her memoir, Infidel. Because she won't be silenced. Yes, to be free was as sweet as my American corn on the cob.
Hirsi Ali speaks and writes clearly about the death cult result of Islamic patriarchal fundamentalism that aims to crush the spirit and the bodies of women, the spirit of the divine feminine so well caged under the shadow of a Sola Scriptura styled inerrant interpretations of the Koran. I had just spent painful time in cages built through the centuries by the men of fundamentalist Islam.It is no surprise once again that Time Magazine placed not long ago Hirsi Ali among the most influential thinkers and writers alive today. This woman is an icon of free speech, a true throw back to a time when people used to write and talk and argue about feminism, about the rights and freedoms and responsibilities of women. From the first page The Caged Virgin was for me about the price of freedom. Feel the glory of the wind in your hair outside the cage. She's also spent much of the last decade paying yet another ongoing price of freedom, being forced to live with the reality of body guards and threats on her life.
When she writes of the freedom of being able to choose a beloved, a spouse, a career path, an education or to simply be able to read a book or to leave home for an evening with a girlfriend for coffee and conversation, you feel the tears of millions of caged women around the globe. Sobering is chapter eleven and her ten advice steps for women planning to leave fundamentalism for good.She continues to make Western Europe deal with the failed experiment of the assimilation of 15 million Islamic immigrant workers who don't fit in and don't want to fit in to a democracy the West values so dearly.
Light a sparkler and holler along with William Wallace--Freedom. My backyard BBQ Independence Day celebration with friends this weekend was far more sweet in the context of her books.
After reading her work you want to speak at parties about female genitals being cut from four year old girls during European vacation holidays, young women sewn up tight but for a tiny pee hole so they can be "pure" for some stranger their daddy will pick for them someday as husband, a day she'll be yanked from school, never to read or study again. Anybody remember that movement.
She's lived on the run as a refugee since the age of eight. I am not as much fun at parties after having read Hirsi Ali's books.Take a trip around the world.
Read this book.
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