Mick Hartley

Ayaan Hirsi Ali interviewed by Guernica magazine (via AL Daily):

Guernica: In your book, you write: “When people say that the values of Islam are compassion and tolerance and freedom, I look at reality, at real cultures and governments, and I see that it simply isn’t so. People in the West swallow this sort of thing because they have learned not to examine the religions or cultures of minorities too critically, for fear of being called racist. It fascinates them that I am not afraid to do so.”

Ayaan Hirsi Ali: Ok, I can support this assertion with facts. And it’s not only me—for four years now the Arab Human Development Report was being published year in and year out. And the Arab Human Development Report does not take into account research on non-Arab countries such as Iran, Pakistan and Indonesia. They only look at the 22 so-called Arab countries.

And the three deficits they point to in all of these states—including Iran—there is the lack of freedom, lack of knowledge, and the subjugation of women. And all of the [deficits], all are being supported in the name of Islam. Even an atheist like Saddam Hussein, who in the first decade of his reign was anti-religion, later on when the Americans came in he put [Islamic phrases] on the flag, and he started to just continue oppressing his own people, but this time in the name of Islam.

I tried to explain in the book that I used to be a member of the [Muslim] Brotherhood movement. And listening to bin Laden, and listening to al Qaeda, listening to all these [extremists] the only reason these people win from the moderates is because what they are saying is in the Qu’ran and what the prophet wanted and how they are acting is all consistent.

So the only way to preserve Islam on the one hand and counter them as moderate Muslims is to say “Well you guys are right. All this stuff is in the Qu’ran. The Qu’ran is written by human beings. And as human beings, endowed with reason, we can change this because we don’t think that it’s beneficial. Or even if we are not going to change it, we are going to believe that in its context, because the Qu’ran was written in a different time, in a different context, in a different age. We’re going to move on; we’re going to take from the Qu’ran those things that we think are compatible with human hearts.” But the minute you start doing that, that’s when hell comes in, and the radicals will say “Oh, but then you are not a believer because you are refuting what God says.” […]

I think Islam is a superstition like every other superstition. But now because it’s a superstition, unlike Christianity, that hasn’t been tested and hasn’t gone through a process of enlightenment, I think it’s a dangerous superstition.