I think this op-ed in the NYT hits the question of Hirsi Ali’s deportation right on the head. She wasn’t ejected because she professed her hatred for Islam (not the Muslims who brought her to her state), she’d been doing that for several years. She was ejected because she hates herself, therefore she was unable to look at the situation of refugees and asylum seekers with compassion and understanding. By creating the wall of legal misanthropy, so well-crafted against her own situation, she had to know she had to go.
Update: If you are not already in love with the MoorishGirl (or at least her writing) you should be. Here’s her take on Ms. Ali and Ms. Manji.
Technorati Tags: Ayaan Hirsi Ali
I was unimpressed with Moorish Girl’s criticism and thought some of it was entirely misplaced. Hirsi Ali’s and Manji’s books aren’t “scholarship” (I’m actually a little flabbergasted that Manji is a visiting “fellow” at Yale, but then again, they are the same blockheads that took in the Talib Yalie) but a polemic, a diatribe, based on their personal experiences. And like all diatribes, it’s overstated and exaggerated. I don’t think anyone is expected to take their work as the last word on Islam or the condition of Muslims. For example, I had a hard time recognizing the Islam that Hirsi Ali describes, but that’s been all too common for me lately. However, that does not discount what I’m inclined to believe was a miserable experience in religion for her and others like her. I also particularly resented Moorish Girl’s suggestion that one can’t have something useful to say on Islam unless one is fluent in Arabic — a tellingly snide comment that reflects that ol’ A-rab superiority in matters of religion.