Globe Trotter
The Astonishing Life Story of Ayaan Hirsi Ali

BOOK REVIEW: By CHRISTOPHER WINDHAM

Ayaan Hirsi Ali is every woman.

She survived brutal beatings and female mutilation from relatives in civil war-torn Somalia. As an immigrant in Saudi Arabia, Ali cooked and cleaned for her extended family, while becoming an even more devout follower of Islam. Living in the predominately Christian Kenya, Ali learned Swahili, while resisting the secular temptation that was prevalent in the poor African nation. Later in Holland, Ali earned a college degree in political science and used her position in the Dutch Parliament to speak out against the oppression of Muslim women.

Before perusing Infidel, I expected to read an interesting account of Ali’s complex life. I didn’t realize, however, that I’d be gaining a first person history lesson on these four unstable, yet culturally-rich countries. Ali delivers memorable visuals through her descriptive rehashing of her life’s events, such as the painful excision she endured as a child, an acceptable practice in Islam designed to keep women “pure” for marriage.

In Infidel, Ali’s childhood anecdotes show the foundation that later led her to help several distraught families cross into Kenya from Somalia during a bloody 1990 coup d'état. Ali’s upbringing and family history also played a role in her journey and agenda in the Dutch parliament.

Her father, Hirsi Magan, was a member of the legendary Osman Mahamud clan in Somalia. He also studied at Columbia University and once ran for parliament in Somalia. “My father was bold, learned, popular and born to rule,” Ali wrote. Magan eventually escaped jail where he was a political prisoner of Soviet-backed Somali dictator Siad Barre, who ruled the country from 1969 to 1991. Ali’s father was a leader in the political movement to overturn Barre’s rule called the Somali Salvation Democratic Front.

In the spirit of her father’s push for reform in Somalia, Ali wrote about her motives for seeking a position in the Dutch Parliament. “First, I wanted Holland to wake up and stop tolerating the oppression of Muslims in its midst,” she wrote. Ali also said she wanted to spark a debate among Muslims about domestic violence and other aspects of Islam that had gone unquestioned. Such a discussion would help Ali achieve another parliament goal: to raise awareness among Muslim women about “just how bad, and how unacceptable, their suffering was,” she wrote.

Ali also recounts in Infidel how she rebelled against her mother’s traditional Islamic beliefs. Her mother, Asha, was once as defiant as Ali. For example, she left an arranged marriage with a much older man in Kuwait to pursue a new life in Somalia. Over the years, her once happy marriage to Ali’s father unraveled, causing great distress to Asha, who began beating Ali and her sister as an angry response to the failing relationship. Her mother was also loyal to traditional Somali customs, which frowned upon women who worked, smoked or even went to the grocery without a male companion.

Ali wrote how she first balked at such a life, taking an interest in Nancy Drew mysteries and Danielle Steele romance novels, which depicted women as equal to men and showed concepts of freedom, struggle and adventure that were new to her. Ali furthered her religious emancipation in the book by explaining in detail her rebellious decisions to flee an arranged marriage, and later, defect from Islam.

Ali’s first encounters with modern society were some of the most interesting aspects of Infidel. After seeking asylum in Holland as a Somali refugee in 1992, Ali writes about the colorful differences in the country’s row houses, describing them as “neat little cakes warm from the oven.” In Nairobi, for comparison, the houses were “garish” and “completely anarchic,” she said. Ali also wrote about her first experiences with garbage recycling trucks, the preciseness of the bus routes, bicycles and the first time she saw a man cry, which was on the Dutch confessions-style television show “I’m Sorry.” “I’m sure none of us had seen a man cry,” she said about her viewing of the show with other Somali refugees. “Then we burst out laughing. This country was so strange to us.”

Ali’s life took a new course with the making of “Submission,” a film she wrote about the relationship of the individual with Allah. “In Islam, unlike in Christianity and Judaism, the relationship of the individual to God is one of total submission, slave to master,” she wrote. “To Muslims, worship of God means total obedience to Allah’s rules and total abstinence from the thoughts and deeds that He has declared forbidden in the Quran.”

In one scene, a woman is repelled by the odor of her husband, who she has been forced to marry and submit to sexually. Another woman in Submission has been raped and impregnated by her uncle, and then is punished for having sex outside the marriage.

The fallout from the film was immense, with Ali needing protection from Secret Service-style bodyguards, who constantly moved her to secret locations to shield her from potential threats. NEXT

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