Ayaan Hirsi Ali

Yesterday, I attended a book reading/signing by Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a woman who I have come to greatly admire in the last year. When I found out she was speaking at the Coop in the afternoon and appearing at Harvard at night, I knew I had to go. (Unfortunately, when I arrived for the Harvard appearance there was no more space, although I was five minutes late!) But here are some recollections and thoughts from the afternoon.

At first when I arrived at the Coop I thought I confused the time and date. There were no signs of the reading but tucked away on the third floor there was a small group of people were gathered. It was a bit surprising being in such an intimate setting with a person I read and heard so much about. I was curious if there was going to be any antagonistic people in the crowd, but most proved to be extremely enthusiastic of the author.



The crowd was quite diverse, I saw a few men with kippas on and the woman in front of me was wearing a hijab, and there were old and young people in the audience. I also spotted John Malkovich sitting to the far right of me. I was curious to see if he was there as a fan and was happy to see him shaking his head in approval a few times, when Ms. Hirsi Ali spoke. (Of course there were multiple number of security personnel, with their ear pieces.)



I ended nodding my head quite a lot too. She's a captivating speaker, due to both her style and content. Ms. Ali Hirsi although soft spoken never gave the impression of being meek, instead she came off as knowlegeable, courageous, fiercely intelligent, and a strong believer in her message. (If I can figure how to upload audio, I made a short recording of her answering about Islam's relationship to Jews).

I'll write more on what she said in a later post (My notebook with notes is not with me at the moment.) The questions mostly focused on her interpretations of Islam. I wanted to ask her about any developments on her living situation but there wasn't enought time. (She spoke for almost an hour.)

One simple point that struck me as extremely obvious was about the Palestinian argument against "democracy." The gentlemen (in the lower left corner of the above photo) asked her if she saw democracy as problematic in fundamentalist societies, since minority rights and women rights would probably be repressed? In response she made the distinction between "majority rule" and the Western ideals of "democracy" in which individual rights are protected no matter who you are. The Palestinians, in electing Hamas, did not so much practice democracy as superficial democracy. The citizens who elected Hamas are not free to criticize openly Hamas and exercise other rights that are basic in a Western society.

Here's a photo of an elderly women getting her book signed and telling the author how "lovely" and "beautiful" she is. I found the moment charming.

PS, I started reading her book The Caged Virgin and it's as lucid and compelling as her speaking style. I highly recommend it.