Infidel by Ayaan Hirsi Ali

[Read, Review & Win]

Through her story of growing up, first in Somalia, then in Saudi Arabia, Aden and Kenya, Ayaan Hirsi Ali opens the reader's eyes to the roots of chaos and violence in postcolonial Somalia, where the clan is the only safety net but is constantly at war with other clans.  Add the strictures and power of the pervading belief in Islam with its devaluing of women, and the picture emerges of a fear-filled society.  It has been her personal suffering of gross traumas related to this society (clitorectomy, separation, persecution, needless deaths) that has given her the strength to fight for the rights of Muslim women, a cause to which she has dedicated her life.

The catalyst for the final break with family and tradition came when her father insisted on her marrying a man of his choosing.  Fleeing to Holland she found work, attended university and studied the Koran more deeply.  While initially impressed by the kindness of Dutch people and government, she began to realise that local Muslim women had become victims of a multiculturalism which was so keen not to offend or to be intolerant, that it did not even register the statistics of honour killings.  (This presents a challenge to us in Australia: how uncritical should our own multiculturalism be?  How much should we tolerate immigrant practices when they seem inhumane?)

Thanks to Hirsi Ali's activism on behalf of her sisters she was elected to the Dutch parliament, where she was soon documenting the injustice and lack of mercy she found in Islamic law, not sparing even the Prophet himself.  This provoked death threats and, perhaps worse, rejection by her much loved father.  After a period of claustrophobic protection, further exile and a campaign against her, she lost her seat but was not deterred.  This book is one way of educating the west about some of the worst abuses of human rights in today's world.

In a word ; riveting.