Infidel by Ayaan Hirsi Ali

Autobiography by Ayaan Hirsi Ali

I have resolved--along with my friend Lea Anne--that I will read each monthly book that our book club selects, regardless of whether I enjoy the selection. This month's read of Infidel was a challenge in many ways, and I struggled to complete it for a variety of reasons.

A brief summary of this autobiography from Wikipedia:

Hirsi Ali writes about her youth in Somalia, Saudi Arabia, Ethiopia and Kenya; about her flight to the Netherlands where she applied for political asylum, her university experience in Leiden, her work for the Labour Party, her transfer to the People's Party for Freedom and Democracy, her election to Parliament, and the murder of Theo van Gogh, with whom she made the film Submission. The book ends with a discussion of the controversy regarding her application for asylum and status of her citizenship.

I have read many autobiographies and I have to say that this was one of least enjoyable. It was a tough read for many reasons:

1. The narrative had little direction and as the reader, I found myself floundering between the author's life torments. It is a basic blow by blow, and the reader is left being dragged from trauma to trauma.

2. There were endless characters and it was tough to keep track of every cousin, aunt, distant relative. It would have been good to have a family tree to keep track.

3. A seemingly endless string of abusive women. Grandmother is a nightmare, mother is no better. Clearly Ali and her sister are abused. (Her brother is no better).

4. Wild generalizations about Muslims and Islam. Ali dismisses all Muslims as either repressed (females) or dominating repressors (males). It's troubling to me that she makes such broad statements and expects the reader to accept these statements as the truth. I found this very troubling, and I hope that other readers also challenge Ali's agenda on this assertion.

5. Ali suggests that the attempt by the West to accommodate Muslims by allowing specialized schools for Muslim children is detrimental to Western ideals.

I gained some insights and raised more questions for me:

1. I found that I questioned my lack of knowledge on this subject. Why have I never learned about any religion?
2. Where do I turn to learn more about Islam and the Muslim way of life, so that I can understand current events more thoroughly?
3. How can we, as a caring and functional society, learn to accommodate a wide variety of religions without dominating or being dominated.
4. Is there a role for middle aged women like me to help build bridges between different religious groups? (I think women must play a central role in this issue).

Those are my thoughts, and maybe because these issues have been raised by Ali's book, I would suggest that it's worth reading.