Ayaan Hirsi Ali

Elsewhere, I have expressed my contempt for religion, particularly Western religion
( http://www.untamedlife.com/book/chapter6.php ), as being an integral agent of human domestication dedicated to instilling fear, stupidity, and obedience.

The destructiveness of Judeo-Christian-Muslim philosophy has in large part led to the tragic state of the modern human animal.

The anti-life, anti-nature, anti-reason impact of the Abrahamic world view has been most forcefully felt by the female half of our species, since the domesticators have long understood that controlling females and especially female sexuality is not only the key to human domestication but in many respects its driving force (as I have also expanded upon previously http://www.untamedlife.com/articles/bonobo1.php , http://www.untamedlife.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=311 ).

I was pleased, then, when I recently became aware of a Somali woman, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, who has forcefully spoken out against the repression, immorality, and violence against women perpetrated by Islam (the word ‘Islam’ literally means ‘submission’).

She wrote the screenplay for the short film ‘Submission’ which decried Islamic abuse of women. Its film-maker, Theo van Gogh, was murdered in Holland by an Islamic fundamentalist and a death threat against Ms. Ali was attached to a knife affixed to van Gogh’s dead body.

She has written ‘The Caged Virgin: An Emancipation Proclamation for Women and Islam’, a collection of essays and lectures on this theme, as well as ‘Infidel’, her autobiography.

Having grown up in the suffocating environment of fundamentalist Islam, she has not yet come to recognize the degree of dysfunction within the relatively free Judeo-Christian world that she now enjoys living within.

Nonetheless, her perspectives and remarkable evolution are worth attending to. She has journeyed very far from her state of extreme initial enslavement and she is to be much admired for her courage and determination.

In order to see the film ‘Submission’ please see
http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=submission&sitesearch=#sitesearch=&q=submission .

For more on Ayaan Hirsi Ali please see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ayaan_Hirsi_Ali .

An excellent talk put on by her to an Atheist Alliance International meeting can be seen at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HuaMHiMsRuY and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=COn4Kb-GE9w .

A brief interview with her about ‘The Caged Virgin’ can be heard at http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5382547 .