PDA

Bekijk Volledige Versie : Ayaan Hersi: A good case, a bad argument (FUN READ)



Lost_lady
27-06-06, 19:10
Rebecca Seal has difficulty fully accepting all the evidence in Ayaan Hirsi Ali's The Caged Virgin: A Muslim Woman's Cry for Reason

The Observer

The Caged Virgin: A Muslim Woman's Cry for Reason
by Ayaan Hirsi Ali

Ayaan HirsiI Ali is either a very brave woman or one living in a fools' paradise. Two of her friends and colleagues in the Netherlands have already been murdered for their outspoken views (Pim Fortuyn by an animal rights activist and Theo van Gogh by a Muslim fundamentalist). Yet, having rejected Islam, she continues to campaign against the religion - in spite of receiving death threats herself and needing to live under armed guard - through her part in Dutch politics, the film Submission, which she made with van Gogh and because of which he was killed, and now this book.


The Caged Virgin is intensely felt, and filled with anger. Page follows page of fury and vitriol directed against the Islamic world as a whole and, more specifically, at how Ali feels Muslim women are treated by their communities. It's a book that I was nervous about reading on public transport since it is intended as an indictment of Muslims in the West as much as anywhere else.

Looking around a London bus did cause me to question some of Ali's all-inclusive pronouncements. In her view, the entire Muslim world is fatally flawed, particularly so when it comes to women. When talking about the consummation of marriage, she writes: 'This compulsory coupling is, in fact, a socially sanctioned rape.' On domestic abuse, she says: 'Most Muslim families regard violence against women as something that women themselves provoke because they don't follow the rules. The family and social environment do not disapprove of it.'

Can this really be true? It is undeniable that certain sections of the Muslim community are hotbeds of fundamentalism and misogyny, perhaps to a greater extent than any other modern religion. However, to state that every single Muslim man 'has no reason to learn to control himself. He doesn't need to and isn't taught to. Sexual morality is aimed exclusively at women, who are always blamed for any lapse' is a major assertion and,like her other claims, requires more evidence than Ali gives to back it up.
What could be a careful discussion becomes a howl of rage and the valuable points she makes will be lost in the rest of what she says. Essentially, this book is a call for what she terms a 'Muslim enlightenment', which she believes is imminent. That she was accused last month of lying about fleeing Somalia to get asylum in the Netherlands will not help her claims.
Some of the stories of abuse that Ali tells should be heard, and horrors like female circumcision do need to be addressed, but it's hard to see how a book like this could help.

Source: Guardian

Olive Yao
28-06-06, 20:41
Geplaatst door Lost_lady
A good case, a bad argument
Waarschijnlijk zonder het te bedoelen, geef je AHA met deze zin al heel veel toe.