Infidel By Ayaan Hirsi Ali Character Analysis

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In Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s, Infidel, Ali narrates her life as a woman in the Muslim world and details her perpetual conflict of religion vs. modernity. Hirsi Ali’s oppressive upbringing under Islamic values has fueled her protests against Islam describing it as a backwards and abusive religion. However, Ali’s transition from a society dominated by religion to one of freedom and individual autonomy presented new and unexpected obstacles. In Holland, Hirsi Ali finds that although Dutch liberalism has created a peaceful and functioning society it has also created problems within Muslim immigrant community. Within the Muslim immigrant community Hirsi Ali finds that many of the challenges she faced while in Somalia, Kenya, Ethiopia, and Saudi Arabia are …show more content…

Hirsi Ali states, “When I tried to find out about honor killings, for instance – how many girls were killed every year in Holland by their fathers and brothers because of their precious family honor – civil servants at the Ministry of Justice would tell me, ‘We don’t register murders based on that category of motivation. It would stigmatize one group in society…because no Dutch official wanted to recognize this kind of murder happened on a regular basis.” (295) The Dutch’s desire to not “stigmatize one group in society” illustrates a greater sentiment within Holland being their respect for each culture’s individual autonomy. However, what Dutch society fails to comprehend is that these same values are not present within the Muslim immigrant community. By allowing the Muslim immigrant community autonomy without the reciprocation of this policy within their own community establishes the conditions for abuse and radicalization to continue. Additionally, the Dutch’s obliviousness to honor killings and the frequency at which they occurred in Holland depicts the disconnect between Dutch and Muslim society. Although each pillar of Dutch society has been able to successfully coexist on the premise of autonomy the Muslim community hasn’t adopted these same values. Hirsi Ali believes the Dutch’s inability to identify this disparity in values has allowed for the preservation of an archaic ideology. Additionally, Ali’s belief that “no Dutch official wanted to recognize this kind of murder happened on a regular basis.” further illustrates Dutch blindness to the Muslim condition. Hirsi Ali believes this evasion of the injustice occurring within the Muslim community due to their ignorance and belief in commonplaces that no longer apply has had severe

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