Infidel
I just read "Infidel" by Ayaan Hirsi Ali and I am completely awestruck by her experience. She travelled from being mentally enslaved to freedom and she describes in detail her experience. She grew up Muslim in Somalia, Saudi Arabia, Ethiopia, and Kenya and later came to escape the life she knew and liberated and educated herself in Holland where she became a controversial member of parliament. I wish I had known more about her sooner. The questions she raises publically about Islam and her discussion if her own journey to Atheism is fascinating and so bold. It was she that made the film with Theo vanGogh entitled "submission" that ended up being the death of Theo vanGogh. From reading her book, I think she is an example of the discussion I was having in my last blog entry, entitled Change. She calls for an end to the tolerance of repressive religious and culture in the name of multiculturalism, and the repression of women in islamic society.
The abuse and repression she grew up in was frightening, and I love how she tells her opinion how it is. This isn't some white armchair mumbler going on about Islam and repression. This is a woman who lived it, was devout, and escaped to build a free life or herself and to make a mission to change the lives of others opressed by the religion. She boldly quotes various verses in the Quran which I myself had read and found extremely divisive and repressive for the same reasons. I really recommend this book to anyone who has this misconception that this religion is at all peaceful at it's core roots.
I am now onto reading "Nomad" and will surely have a blog entry about it too.
I think I have found a new hero!
The abuse and repression she grew up in was frightening, and I love how she tells her opinion how it is. This isn't some white armchair mumbler going on about Islam and repression. This is a woman who lived it, was devout, and escaped to build a free life or herself and to make a mission to change the lives of others opressed by the religion. She boldly quotes various verses in the Quran which I myself had read and found extremely divisive and repressive for the same reasons. I really recommend this book to anyone who has this misconception that this religion is at all peaceful at it's core roots.
I am now onto reading "Nomad" and will surely have a blog entry about it too.
I think I have found a new hero!