Comments on: Review: Golia on Hirsi Ali and Afzal-Khan

By: Dear Kitty. Some blog :: Big Oil paying global warming negationist junk scientists :: February :: 2007

Sun, 04 Mar 2007 10:55:58 +0000

[...] of Ms ‘Ali’ was voiced in the Times Literary Supplement by Maria [...]

By: PG

PG — Wed, 14 Feb 2007 05:50:18 +0000

Helena,

By MGM do you mean “male genital mutilation,” and by that do you mean circumcision? I must say that I’m shocked to hear a woman equate cutting up the clitoris, labia and/ or vaginal opening such that sex is painful, with a small cut made on infant boys with the intent (among non-Jews and non-Muslims) of making clean genitalia easier and with no pain thereby caused except that occurring immediately during the procedure.

Certainly one should call out the West on its hypocrisies, but please do not minimize FGM, or make a mountain of MGM, in order to do so.

By: SP

SP — Fri, 09 Feb 2007 12:28:35 +0000

Hirsi Ali’s autobiography, just released in English, is reviewed by the Economist here , if anyone is interested.

By: YL

YL — Tue, 06 Feb 2007 21:49:49 +0000

Bravo on an informed and articulate dressing down. Shame on Ms Ali: reinforcing stereotype, fueling isolationism, providing Islamophobes with ammo. tsk, tsk.

Golia puts Ali’s reactionary, self-loathing ass in place and gives her a temperate spanking. If it burns, it burns as only ice can… (as baudelaire says of Dangerous Laisons). Not an easy position to adopt, Golia’s, but compassion and subtlety are precisely what are needed in these incendiary times

By: YL

YL — Tue, 06 Feb 2007 21:48:53 +0000

Bravo on an informed and articulate dressing down. Shame on Ms Ali: reinforcing stereotype, fueling isolationism, providing Islamophobes with ammo. tsk, tsk.

Golia puts Ali’s reactionary, self-loathing ass in place and gives her a temperate spanking. If it burns, it burns as only ice can… (as baudelaire says of Dangerous Laisons). Not an easy position to adopt (Golia’s) but compassion and subtlety are precisely what are needed in these incendiary times

By: Helena

Helena — Sun, 04 Feb 2007 10:30:19 +0000

Issandr, thanks for posting this excellent review.

It’s interesting if Ms. HA is so reliant on David Pryce-Jones. Gosh, what a tired old propagandist he is. Going back to his late-1960s work on the Palestinians titled something like “The face of defeat”, his main goal seems to have been to attempt the systematic psychological belittlement of Arabs and Muslims. And he and B. Lewis are the “best” sources this ill-educated woman can come up with?

Also, I think we should all talk more about the African cultural practice of FGM sometime. How come rich westerners love to beat up on that but not on the far more widespread practice of MGM? Oh, perhaps because so many of them practice it themselves (and endlessly seek justifications for doing so)….

By: SP

SP — Sun, 04 Feb 2007 09:23:43 +0000

Check out this profile/long review of Hirsi Ali’s new autobiography (which cites Maria’s article, btw) in the Observer:

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,,2005258,00.html

By: issandr

issandr — Sun, 04 Feb 2007 09:13:17 +0000

We linked to Laila’s review here:

http://arabist.net/archives/2006/06/03/the-missionary-position/

By: sanaa

sanaa — Sun, 04 Feb 2007 03:51:06 +0000

There was also a couple of months ago a very good review of Hirsi Ali’s book (and Irshad Manji’s) in the Nation by Moroccan writer Laila Lalami. One day, there will be an interesting scholarly study of Western Muslims’ books after 9/11, and how they played the game - I am not a terrorist, and something went wrong with Islam, and Islamic countries need to become just like Ohio. There had been tons of those lately. I expect the market to be saturated pretty soon. In the meantime, some nice careers are being made. It’s a job, someone has to do it.

By: SPNY

SPNY — Sat, 03 Feb 2007 18:18:45 +0000

The NYT interviewed her — doesn’t sound like she’s a genius of any sort

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/04/weekinreview/04goodstein.html

By: zazou

zazou — Sat, 03 Feb 2007 17:12:47 +0000

This is a very interesting review of Hirsi. Although she is well-spoken, I particularly dislike her precisely because she seems devoid of nuance. She is also very clever- having developed an unerring sense of which buttons make parts of the West sit up in horror. Her points that FGM is a horrific practice are well-taken but the book and the documentary Warrior Marks made the point long ago that FGM is practiced in many places as a cultural practice thinly covered by religion. Hirsi cannot not be aware of this.
In addition, I find her position on immigration and assimilation to be especially devisive and detrimental. My sister-in-law lives in Holland and as a single mother and immigrant learned a fourth language, earned an MA and works very hard. I doubt she is an exception. Hirsi’s position is very similar to that of Nativists and others in the US who protest immigration and fail to realize that assimilation does not occur the moment ones becomes a resident.

By: demerdash

demerdash — Sat, 03 Feb 2007 16:18:53 +0000

I must say i dont like this “generalization” criticism by saying that not all muslims are the same. Noone disagrees with generqalizations as Arabs are hospitable, lively people, Japanese are devouted to work, Germans are punctualist, Europeans are individualists. Than we should not label negative generalizations as unfair. The problem is, that Hirsi Ali has completely different values than average muslim. I beleive she also has good muslim friends, but that fact still does not mean she can not generalize. im not surprised at all that muslims dont understand that criticism, because it is visible only from outside. if someone is identified with what he does,he would never realie it is wrong.

By: Alienkain

Alienkain — Sat, 03 Feb 2007 15:15:14 +0000

Hirsi is basically uneducated & ignorant with islamic teachings. She took what scholars said without any further search or thought. She is no different than the vile scholars who twist religion for their own benefit.

By: SP

SP — Sat, 03 Feb 2007 10:44:29 +0000

This is the best-written and most incisive review of Hirsi Ali I’ve read. Wow.