2012 Theory

1. Julia Andrews
   July 27th, 2010 - 20:33

   Review by Julia Andrews for Nomad: From Islam to America: A Personal Journey Through the Clash of Civilizations
   Rating:
   Ayaan Hirsi Ali related her physical journey from the Islamic tribal culture, beliefs and traditions in her book “Infidel”. In her newest book she makes a personal and emotional exodus from Islam and describes her culture shock experiences during assimilation into Western Society.

   The memoir is divided into four distinct sections, “A Problem Family”, “Nomad Again”, “Sex, Money, Violence” and “Remedies”.

   In “A Problem Family” she is reunited with her father on his deathbed in London. Ayaan publicly renounced Islam after of the 9-11 bombings causing her entire extended family to disown her, a rift that lasted until June 2008. She reconnects with her mother(one of her father’s 4 wives), brother and cousins after her father’s death. If you have read “Infidel” you know about the violent, dysfunctional planet that made up her childhood. She finds small has changed, describing it as ‘Gender Apartheid’.

   Ayaan recounts her years making the rounds in the lecture circuit in “Nomad Again”. She speaks against female genital hurt, honor killings, and the control of female will through the veil. She notes American naviete disbelieving that these atrocities happen in Muslim communities within the USA. Ayaan counsels against complacency of the rise of Islam in America, believing younger and more impressionable people will be radicalized through polished jihadist tactics. She reminds us the Ft Hood killer was not indoctrinated into radical Muslim beliefs in an Islamic country but in the United States where he was a member of the our services.

   “Sex, Money and Violence” deals with obstacles to right integration of Muslim communities in the West. Western education (critical thinking) is in preside over contrast to Islamic teachings, especially the education of females. This has led to a rise of dedicated Muslim (Quran) schooling. According to Ayaan extremist Islam teaches family violence against infidels (all non-Muslims), especially Jews and the American Satan. Ayaan dares to hope that more affluent Western women, especially American feminists, will form a united front against the current treatment of impovished, abused Muslim women. Why haven’t we, I question myself.

   In the final part Ayaan hopes for formation of an “Enlightenment Project”. She reminds us that, unlike Christianity, there has been no period of “Enlightenment or Reformation” in Islam. Consequently, the Islamic religion has never faced an internal opposition to its core beliefs by its followers. What is more, external opposition to extremist Islamic teachings have been severely constrained through dread of violent Islamic reaction. For example the Danish cartoonist and since this book went to press, “South Park” depicting the prophet Muhammed as a teddy bear.

   Devouring this book in one marathon read I continue to find Ayaan’s personal journey since the publication of “Infidel” fascinating and courageous. Her writing is always heartfelt and thought provoking. As an American woman, it is publication of literature like this that makes me realize just how incredibly lucky I have been.

   Remarkable woman, remarkable read!
2. Steve Summers
   July 27th, 2010 - 20:52

   Review by Steve Summers for Nomad: From Islam to America: A Personal Journey Through the Clash of Civilizations
   Rating:
   Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s 2008 autobiography, “Infidel”, a runaway bestseller, has justifiably become well-known in the two years since it was published. “Nomad” is eloquent continuation of her startlingly eventful life tale and an further elaboration of her thoughts. Together they will doubtless be remembered–for their consequences as much as their passion & intelligence–as the 1845 “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass an American Slave” is remembered today. (Douglass updated his own tale with new books as he campaigned to end slavery.)

   Comparing a religious defection to a physical getting away from from slavery is an inherently specious analogy–or is it? Wouldn’t it be like comparing the body count of Nat Turner’s Uprising to that of suicide bombers and holy assassins? Slavery has a long, hideous history in human affairs, but has at last been eradicated in the modern planet. Its few remaining pockets (and advocates) are virtually all in pre-modern Islamic countries. So maybe between slavery and Islam isn’t such a stretch.

   One common way of distinguishing cults and religions is by the degree they seek to control believers. The word “Islam” itself means submission and as Ayaan’s tales show, submission is the defining feature of Islamic life–escalating exponentially if you’re female. Many Islamic women are de facto slaves. The second most common Muslim name is “Abdullah”, the Slave of God. Mohammed (the ideal Muslim) executed and enslaved his enemies and their families en masse. Blasphemy or leaving the faith is a capital crime. By this “control standard” Islam, despite its billion plus adherents is more a cult than the Branch Davidians; the prophet outdoes Rev. Jim Jones.

   (And so my conclusion: Frederick Douglass’ getting away from from a slave plantation is legitimately comparable to Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s courageous apostasy: at least Douglass didn’t need a permanent entourage of bodyguards.)

   Douglass’ awakening started as a teenager when his (illegal) literacy revealed to him that an abolition movement was then gathering force in America. Ayaan’s revelation started at 21 when she fled to Holland to getting away from an arranged marriage to a man who repelled her. The discovery of freedom was for her every bit as life changing (and may verify as vital) as Douglass’own.

   I’d rather not over-summarize “Nomad”. It was too satisfying and stimulating to learn its contents for myself to burden you with a catalogue of her topics. Her incisive, straight-to-the-top opinions are never dull, hateful, hysterical or poorly informed. Be advised that there may be more negative reviews this time around: she has (for brilliant reasons) criticized prominent feminists’ silence about Islamic misogyny and the terrible (but politically right) thought that all cultures are equal. Any revolutionary thought worth hearing will promptly draw ridicule from orthodox minds. (The uncomplimentary, inaccurate synopsis from Publishers Weekly, above, is such a reaction.)

   I found “Nomad’s” warm, clear prose as wise, honest, and as relevant as “Infidel” was 2 years ago. Ayaan’s penetrating essays on the perverse psychological effects compulsory beliefs and mandatory ignorance on believers of her intimate acquaintance, on the festering problem of unassimilated Muslim ghettos across Europe, and her humanitarian recommendations to be easily worth the price of the book.
3. waterworks
   July 27th, 2010 - 21:25

   Review by waterworks for Nomad: From Islam to America: A Personal Journey Through the Clash of Civilizations
   Rating:
   I don’t want to spoil the book for people who are just checking reviews. But I want to say that I consider Ayaan to have made some very fascinating and unique arguments, and argues viewpoints that may make her unpopular even with liberals and atheists, who normally stand behind her. I reckon this book, as much or more as her other books, makes her stand out as really a courageous, enlightened, and perceptive woman–not to mention incredibly well educated and eloquent. I recommend everyone read her books for a different opinion on the problems of integration of immigrants into Western society, and the dangers of being overly tolerant to the top of simply acquiescing.
4. Michael J Edelman
   July 27th, 2010 - 21:32

   Review by Michael J Edelman for Nomad: From Islam to America: A Personal Journey Through the Clash of Civilizations
   Rating:
   On May 29, 1453, the city of Constantinople, the Eastern capital of the Roman Empire, fell to invading Turks, ending a thousand years of Byzantine rule and beginning a push to conquer the rest of the Roman Empire that lasted over two hundred years. That push finished on 14 July 1683, when the Ottoman armies under the command of Kara Mustafa Pasha were defeated at the Battle of Vienna. For the next 250 years, the Islamic planet gave up its dreams of conquest and twisted inward. Knowledge, history, literature and the arts were neglected in favor of religious study. The Islamic planet that had once counted itself one of the most advanced societies on globe slowly impose a curfew to a halt.

   And then, in 1928, something happened that was to change the course of modern Islamic history. A group of Sunni Egyptians formed what became the Moslem Brotherhood, a group whose central tenet was that the Koran should be the “sole reference top for … ordering the life of the Muslim family, individual, community … and state.” They had a lofty goal: To remake the entire planet in this image. The movement grew, and one of its converts was a scholar by the name of Hirsi Magan Isse- the father of author Ayaan Hirsi Ali.

   Despite her father’s elevated status and education, Ali was treated from the beginning in a way that seems frightening, nearly primeval, to those of us raised in the West. Women in her planet, she tells us, are mere chattel, the property of their fathers or husbands, kept only to bear sons or perform labor, and easily discarded when they no longer serve this purpose, or fall out of favor. Hirsi Ali’s Grandmother was such a women, abandoned by her own husband when she did not produce any sons who lived to maturity. Hirsi Ali did have one benefit over most girls in her family and her village- she was given an education, if a basic one. But she was still chattel, and was promised in marriage to an older cousin when she came of age. And this is where her odyssey started.

   She ran away from her family and became a refugee in The Netherlands, where she managed to promptly integrate herself into Dutch society, becoming not only educated, but a member of the Dutch Shared Services, working with refugees and immigrants from Somalia and other Islamic countries. And it was here that she was radicalized. As she struggled to educate women and their families and integrate them into Dutch society, she became increasingly disgusted with what she saw as cruel and primeval practices that the new immigrants brought with them- practices like genital hurt of young girls, who had their clitorises amputated and their vulvas sewn up, or honor killings, where a family would murder a daughter for such sins as talking to men, disobeying their fathers, or being the victim of rape.

   Increasingly, she found herself believing that the flaw was not with the immigrant community, but with Islam itself- a view that was hardened by when her supporter Theo van Gogh, with who she had collaborated on a movie, was assassinated by a young Dutch Muslim who also made threats against Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Jews, and Western Civilization. Ali went into beating, and started her career as a campaigner against Islam.

   As you might expect, most criticism against Hirsi Ali have come from Muslims, who see her as maligning all Muslim, based on the actions of the most radical. Yet significant criticism has also come from the liberal West, where she is also attacked as an extremist- curiously enough, by many of the same critics, like Nicholas Kristof, who have no difficulty in attacking Western religion in general. But Ali defends herself against these charges by pointing out that when radical Imams endorse killing all Jews, or beating a wife to death, they are not giving their own interpretation, but quoting directly from the Koran. She believes the only way to liberate women from what she sees as their roles as slaves under Islam is to free them from Islam. And she believe the only way to defeat the rising tide of Islamic violence against the West is to confront it head on. Ali has no patience with the cultural relativism and multiculturalism of the West; she believe that the West must either fight for its cultural heritage, or becomes slaves to that of Islamic planet.

   A excellent deal of the material in Nomad is a recap of her first book, Infidel, but the bulk has to do with her search for her identity, her coming to America, and he attempts to reconcile with her family- in particular, her father, with who she does manage to come to some agreement with, and with her grandmother, who, despite her use of a cell phone and her abuse by her own culture, can never bring herself to accept any of Ali’s belief in Western liberal democracy. Nomad is not quite as well organized as is Infidel, and not quite as compelling a narrative, as it skips around a bit from the bestow to Hirsi Ali’s past, but still stands on its own.

   This is a contentious book- as should be clear from the last few paragraphs!- but an vital one in its contribution to the argument on the struggle between radical Islam and the West that belongs alongside such books as Mark Styne’s America Alone: The End of the Planet As We Know It. You may not accept Ali’s critical indictment of all of Islam, but her tale is one that should be heard.
5. Emany Mitton
   July 27th, 2010 - 21:56

   Review by Emany Mitton for Nomad: From Islam to America: A Personal Journey Through the Clash of Civilizations
   Rating:
   After having just heard Ayaan Hirsi Ali with my daughter, I immediately bought and read this book. I did not regret it. It is a commanding testimony to her experience, and is a serious, clear-minded assess critically of radical Islam today: its relationship to Western societies (especially as embedded in them), and its relationship to Muslim women. Nomad is a stimulating revelation to read and I highly recommend it.

Leave a comment

You must be logged in to post a comment.