So now, ladies and gentlemen, live from Somalia and the Netherlands! Give it up for new-to-Washington Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Muslim heretic, self-proclaimed "Infidel," whose memoir by that name is at No. 7 on the New York Times bestseller list!
It's a popping good story, fascinating, with lots of forward lean to the narrative. She's got guts, brains, looks, talent. She's called the prophet Muhammad a pervert. She says, "Islam is a culture that has been outlived." She has lost her faith, ditched two husbands and been disowned by her family.
She was elected to the Dutch parliament, but resigned in a scandal that brought down the ruling party. She scripted an 11-minute film about the Koran and domestic abuse of women that resulted in the throat-slitting assassination of its director, Theo van Gogh, by a Muslim fanatic. The killer stabbed a note into the dying man's chest. It was addressed to her. It promised death.
If you're having lunch with her -- say, at Zaytinya downtown -- a bodyguard employed by the Dutch government will call you a few minutes beforehand, saying, "I have a person to deliver to you."
She's adored by many on either side of the political seesaw: Western feminists, defenders of free speech and the American Enterprise Institute, the neoconservative Washington think tank that now employs her. Washington Post
"The Somali-Dutch dissident’s critique of Islam resonates with KA Dilday’s experience of fundamentalist Christianity in the American south. But their distance lies also in the journey beyond" on OpenDemocracy.net or see a list of right-wing friends (Scholars & Fellows) of the American Enterprise Institute or the Ayaan Hirsi Ali entry in Wikipedia or the Infidel Bloggers Alliance