Book Description
In this profoundly affecting memoir from the internationally renowned author of The Caged Virgin, Ayaan Hirsi Ali tells her astonishing life story, from her traditional Muslim childhood in Somalia, Saudi Arabia, and Kenya, to her intellectual awakening and activism in the Netherlands, and her current life under armed guard in the West.
One of today's most admired and controversial political figures, Ayaan Hirsi Ali burst into international headlines following an Islamist's murder of her colleague, Theo van Gogh, with whom she made the movie Submission.
Infidel is the eagerly awaited story of the coming of age of this elegant, distinguished -- and sometimes reviled -- political superstar and champion of free speech. With a gimlet eye and measured, often ironic, voice, Hirsi Ali recounts the evolution of her beliefs, her ironclad will, and her extraordinary resolve to fight injustice done in the name of religion. Raised in a strict Muslim family and extended clan, Hirsi Ali survived civil war, female mutilation, brutal beatings, adolescence as a devout believer during the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood, and life in four troubled, unstable countries largely ruled by despots. In her early twenties, she escaped from a forced marriage and sought asylum in the Netherlands, where she earned a college degree in political science, tried to help her tragically depressed sister adjust to the West, and fought for the rights of Muslim immigrant women and the reform of Islam as a member of Parliament. Even though she is under constant threat -- demonized by reactionary Islamists and politicians, disowned by her father, and expelled from her family and clan -- she refuses to be silenced.
Ultimately a celebration of triumph over adversity, Hirsi Ali's story tells how a bright little girl evolved out of dutiful obedience to become an outspoken, pioneering freedom fighter. As Western governments struggle to balance democratic ideals with religious pressures, no story could be timelier or more significant.
Customer Reviews:
An Argument for Illiteracy .......2007-10-16
Ayaan Hirsi Ali's parents should blame themselves for her leaving Islam: they allowed her to learn to read and attend school with nonbelievers. Any first-rate fundamentalist knows the quickest way to open a mind is to expose it to an outside influence--in Ali's case, "trashy" novels brought to school. If her parents had home schooled her, she would have become a mother's, father's, brother's, and husband's dream--a good, submissive (hollow) Somali woman.
Ali beautifully traces her conversion, with all its stops and starts, which is the way it happens with most "thinking" people. It's important to note that she does not want to leave her faith; in fact, she struggles to hold on to it. Her life would have been easier, as in predictable (albeit more painful) if she'd failed.
INFIDEL is an influence that will be hard to shake free of, and I'm glad of it.
One of the Saviors of Civilization!.......2007-10-15
In "Infidel," the brilliant and beautiful freethinker Ayaan Hirsi Ali cuts through the irrational rationalization of the world's most brutal and oppressive ideology: Not "radical Islam," but ISLAM, period. And Hirsi Ali should know, because, as she explains in her autobiography, she was for many years a VERY DEVOUT MUSLIM. As an outward expression of her ardent devotion to Islam and its god Allah - even before it became more "fashionable" where she lived in Africa - Hirsi Ali covered herself from head to toe in a baggy cloak so that her femaleness would not be revealed and endanger her to the ubiquitous perils for women in her culture. As we should already recognize from seeing the abuse with our own eyes, the fervent claim that Islam does NOT oppress women - frequently quite violently - represents one of the biggest deceits in the world today, and those who constantly put forth this palpably false assertion dismissing gender-apartheid within Islam should be loudly denounced. But the highly important work of Hirsi Ali goes much farther than simply denouncing the incredibly hideous treatment of women within Islam, as Ayaan undoubtedly represents one of the greatest voices of reason of all time in a battle for the very existence of human civilization.
Horribly mutilated at the age of five at the harsh hands of her stern grandmother and a local barber with a pair of scissors who cut off her genitals like a slab of meat, Ayaan Hirsi Ali speaks out loudly and clearly that such atrocities in her native Somalia are done not only to virtually EVERY female of a certain age, but also IN THE NAME OF ISLAM. In fact, it was surprising for her to discover that there are claims - many quite frantic and unconvincing - that Islam does NOT call for female genital mutilation or "circumcision," as this despicable "cultural tradition" is euphemistically and flaccidly termed. Of course, not only Muslims practice this heinous savagery, but the majority of women and girls with disfigured genitals - an estimated 140 MILLION worldwide at the time of this writing - ARE Muslims, and such oppressive barbarism goes hand in hand with an ideology that without a doubt considers women as second-class subhumans designed mostly for sexual release, baby making and household slavery.
Needless to say, someone with such intelligence and wisdom as Ayaan Hirsi Ali was not content to spend her precious life merely as a piece of meat and slave. Hirsi Ali escaped this oppressive and dreadful future - and found a liberating and exquisite non-Muslim world that she could barely have imagined, based on the virulent infidel-hating dogma she had been taught since childhood. Although she would likely not opine that the non-Muslim world is perfect by any means, Hirsi Ali's vivid and disturbing descriptions of the contrast between what she left behind and what she discovered must give serious pause to the myriad and often trivial complaints against Western civilization. As she has said in interviews, YOU may spit upon the freedoms you were born with, but she cannot be so unappreciative and disrespectul, because she has literally experienced and witnessed REAL hell on Earth, and she is extremely grateful to have gotten out. By contrast, Western values at this current time seem like paradise - this notion is precisely what Hirsi Ali has attempted to impart over and over again in her writings and interviews. In other words, we've got it not just good but GREAT. And this greatness is well worth fighting for - nay, it is ESSENTIAL we fight for it.
Despite the denials and justifications by those who cannot or will not face the horrible truth, the threat against the very survival of Western civilization is real, large and growing. If we do not wake up to this threat quickly, we will very likely find ourselves living in a world of submission and enslavement that we cannot even conceive. Hirsi Ali knows these facts to be true, as she has already lived through such a nightmare - and SHE DOES NOT WANT TO GO BACK. We who are enlightened cannot blame her at all, as we absolutely do not wish such a future for our own children - a perfectly dreadful thought straight out of our worst fears.
Do yourself and the world a favor - buy this book, read it, digest it, pass it along and support the efforts of the handful of individuals such as Ayaan Hirsi Ali in saving human civilization.
Acharya S
Author, "The Christ Conspiracy: The Greatest Story Ever Sold," "Suns of God: Krishna, Buddha and Christ Unveiled," and "Who Was Jesus? Fingerprints of The Christ"
Fascinating Story--Live.......2007-10-15
I found that when I read this book, I kept on going back to the latest book by Christopher Hitchens _God is not Great_. I'm glad I read his book first, as Ali's book epitomizes what can be so wrong with religious fundamentalism that has gone astray or been misinterpreted.
This book was fascinating from cover to cover. The author's voice was loud and her storytelling was vivid. Each of the sections shed light on different periods and aspects of her life. I was repeatedly struck with how she was able to overcome her circumstances and be so incredibly brave to start her life anew on the run from a mismatched arranged marriage.
I also appreciated her social commentary about her life and the life around her that she witnessed. She wasn't judgemental in a negative or overbearing manner, but she did comment forcefully at times about what she didn't like or didn't fully understand.
This book is worth reading and will help dispel cultural ignorance and eurocentricism. The audience for this is wide--lay audience and academic.
The Muslim world is playing for keeps.......2007-10-14
Don't miss this book!
In today's world a solid understanding of Islam is essential. Many people claim that Islam is a religion of peace and tolerance. Ms. Ali makes it clear that nothing could be farther from the truth. This has always been true in Islam. For more on this, I would suggest the book "Why I Am Not a Muslim" by Ibn Warraq, which describes the miserable fates of both Islamic heretics and non-Muslims in Islamic countries since the time of Muhammad. Why I Am Not a Muslim
In the West we take it for granted that religion is largely a personal matter. This is a relatively recent development, even in Europe. Not too many centuries ago people whether or not you were Catholic or Protestant was a life or death matter in the West. Wars were fought over it, with huge death tolls. The idea of secularism and religious freedom came about not because people wanted religious disunity, but because the wars were inconclusive and people got tired of killing each other over something that could never be proven. No matter how many people you kill, you can never achieve agreement on religion, because the main differences between one religion and another are in the supernatural realm. Is Heaven populated by Catholics? Protestants? Someone else? How can we ever know?
The Muslim world has never made this transition. They really believe that conversion to Islam--by force if necessary--is the best hope for mankind. These people are not playing games. To Islamic countries, the whole concept of tolerance is nothing more than a sign of weakness.
Ms. Ali fails to draw some conclusions that I think are obvious from her story. In my opinion, the Western world needs to think very seriously about blocking further immigration from Islamic countries. This is a matter of some urgency. Many Islamic nations are already falling apart, the result of poor government, exploding populations, and environmental degradation. This trend is likely to accelerate with the passing of Hubbert's oil peak. For Western countries to accept large numbers of Muslim refugees in such times amounts to harboring a fifth column. It is cultural suicide.
phenomenal!.......2007-10-13
I love this book. This amazing lady chronicals a life which is representative of a culture that most Westerners know nothing about and consequently fear. It is an intimate insiders view of what its like to grow up as a girl in the Muslim world. To me it made absolutly clear why militant Muslims are the way they are and how we can have compassion for a group of people who seem to hate us. It may even prompt some of us to scrutinize our own beliefs and prejudices. She is a hero.
Book Description
Brigitte Gabriel lost her childhood to militant Islam. In 1975 she was ten years old and living in Southern Lebanon when militant Muslims from throughout the Middle East poured into her country and declared jihad against the Lebanese Christians. Lebanon was the only Christian influenced country in the Middle East, and the Lebanese Civil War was the first front in what has become the worldwide jihad of fundamentalist Islam against non-Muslim peoples. For seven years, Brigitte and her parents lived in an underground bomb shelter. They had no running water or electricity and very little food; at times they were reduced to boiling grass to survive. Because They Hate is a political wake-up call told through a very personal memoir frame. Brigitte warns that the US is threatened by fundamentalist Islamic theology in the same way Lebanon was- radical Islam will stop at nothing short of domination of all non-Muslim countries. Gabriel saw this mission start in Lebanon, and she refuses to stand silently by while it happens here. Gabriel sees in the West a lack of understanding and a blatant ignorance of the ways and thinking of the Middle East. She also points out mistakes the West has made in consistently underestimating the single-mindedness with which fundamentalist Islam has pursued its goals over the past thirty years. Fiercely articulate and passionately committed, Gabriel tells her own story as well as outlines the history, social movements, and religious divisions that have led to this critical historical conflict.
Customer Reviews:
Glad I Don't Live In A Moslem Country.......2007-10-14
"Because They Hate" is one eye opening book regarding the real agenda of the militant Moslems. The Koran is not now and never was a peaceful book and neither was the Moslem faith ever a peaceful religion.The "militant" Moslems are out to conquor the whole world and make it Moslem. The big Satan (the United States) and the Little Satan (Israel) are first on it's list to destroy.
A women definately doesn't want to live in a radical Moslem country. They can't go anywhere with out their husband's approval. Also, they have to have their whole body covered when in public. Beating your wife black and blue when she disobeys you is endorsed by the clerics or religeous leaders and is often shown on television as a good thing to do. Also, if a women is suspected of not being a virgin, she is to be killed to save the family's honor.
The author, Brigette Gabriel is a Southern Lebonese Christian, who married an American and now lives in the United States. The author lived amongst the Moslems in Lebonon, which makes the book an insider's look at the Moslem agenda. That fact alone made it the best book I have read on the subject of the Moslem religion. The well written readable style of the book added to it's appeal.
Gabriel tells about the horrors of the cival war in Lebonon and how she lived with her parents in a bomb shelter for seven years. She tells how the kind but naive Lebonese tried to help the Palestinian Moslem refugees only to have them go through Christian towns slaughtering Christians and bombing their homes. Finally the Christians had enough and fought back, which stated the Cival War. When Israel came to the aid of the Lebonese Christians and brought an end to the war, most of the world criticised her humanitarian actions.
This book made me to glad to be an American. While we haven't been perfect on the cival rights front, we have had our plantations and still have reservations, which are not to be downplayed, our worst abuses are nothing in comparison to the hate filled brutality of the Moslems who follow the Koran. As the author makes so clear, Americans with our western civilized way of thinking and value system, have a very difficult time understanding the insanely brutal mindset of the militant Moslems. When giving the reason for their brutality, the author explained that it was becuase they are taught to hate from the moment of birth that they are so sadistic. Even though many Moslems claim to be more moderate in their beliefs, they rarely if ever oppose the radical's viewpoints or actions. This is true even of the moderate Moslems who live in American where it would be safe to take stand.
good, impressive story.......2007-10-14
Brigitte makes an outstandig job telling about what happened, to her, her family and the christian communities in South Lebanon. I always knew the story as the christian being the mean and holding the economics, this what we have been told in Italy in the 70's and 80's. There is much more behind all this, Brigitte brings some facts and accounts in such a natural and practical way. What happened in Lebanon in the 70's is the natural birth of the wave of hate and killing that caused the infamous 9/11.
Because They Hate.......2007-10-13
I have read many books trying to understand Islam and the teachings that bring about such acts of violence that our country experienced on 9/11/01. This book is the one I give to people because the author has a first hand experience, and a passion for us to have the knowledge so America will know our enemy. This is done with love and not hate.
Because They Hate: A Survivor of Islamic Terror Warns America .......2007-10-07
Because They Hate: A Survivor of Islamic Terror Warns America
thanks for sending this product so quickly...
Incredibly Riveting and Informative.......2007-10-04
A must read for every American. For the first time, someone is brave enough to stand up and tell it like it is concerning the threat against our nation from Islamic extremists. She puts her very life on the line to get the message out to her adopted country, which she loves with all her heart. Every naturally born American citizen should be ashamed that they don't have the same devotion for this great country in which we live.
Book Description
She charmed America with her smart, likable, down-to-earth personality as she campaigned for her husband, then vice-presidential candidate John Edwards. She inspired millions as she valiantly fought advanced breast cancer after being diagnosed only days before the 2004 election. She touched hundreds of similarly grieving families when her own son, Wade, died tragically at age sixteen in 1996. Now she shares her experiences in Saving Graces, an incandescent memoir of Edwards’ trials, tragedies, and triumphs, and of how various communities celebrated her joys and lent her steady strength and quiet hope in darker times.
Edwards writes about growing up in a military family, where she learned how to make friends easily in dozens of new schools and neighborhoods around the world and came to appreciate the unstinting help and comfort naval families shared. Edwards’ reminiscences of her years as a mother focus on the support she and other parents offered one another, from everyday favors to the ultimate test of her own community’s strength—their compassionate response to the death of the Edwards’ teenage son, Wade, in 1996. Her descriptions of her husband’s campaigns for Senate, president, and vice president offer a fascinating perspective on the groups, great and small, that sustain our democracy. Her fight with breast cancer, which stirred an outpouring of support from women across the country, has once again affirmed Edwards’ belief in the power of community to make our lives better and richer.
Customer Reviews:
saving graces.......2007-09-24
Felt this book artfully expressed loss. It included the gammet of feelings and expressions one might endure while experiencing loss of any type. Hopefully she also found solace in teaching us as well as finding herself. Would recommend to anyone because at some point, we all experience loss. Hopefully not as Elizabeth Edwards did.
My honor to read this life journey of E. Edwards.......2007-09-19
The book is a gift of her use of the English language. The use of words, the integrity of the writer shines through. She uses her gift to share her pain, pain many of us have felt but could not have put into words with the artistry that is just part of her. It is rare for a person to be able to put their soul in paper, but she has. Thank you, Elizabeth. Saving Graces: Finding Solace and Strength from Friends and Strangers
Saving Graces.......2007-09-17
Great book, well written. It makes you realize you can overcome any obstacle in life with family and support from friends.
Excellent........2007-09-14
Eliabeth Edwards writes with painful honesty and hope. She is an extrordinary woman and this glimpse into her soul is a wonderful read.
Wonderful book!.......2007-09-13
I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book. I got a whole new insight into the Edwards family. Elizabeth didn't shy away from the pain caused by the untimely death of their wonderful son, Wade, or her initial experience of her breast cancer treatment. There is also an additional chapter in this paperback book regarding the return of her cancer. Her humor cracked me up several times, and I was so inspired by the whole family. They are certainly a strong family, both Elizabeth and John come from strong stock, and it shows. I for one, given the chance, will vote for John Edwards for President. I think he's the one we need to lead this country ahead and away from our current administration's boggling.
Book Description
Lois Gordon's absorbing biography tells the story of a writer, activist, and cultural icon who embodied the dazzling energy and tumultuous spirit of her age, and whom William Carlos Williams once called "one of the major phenomena of history."
Nancy Cunard (1896-1965) led a life that surpasses Hollywood fantasy. The only child of an English baronet (and heir to the Cunard shipping fortune) and an American beauty, Cunard abandoned the world of a celebrated socialite and Jazz Age icon to pursue a lifelong battle against social injustice as a wartime journalist, humanitarian aid worker, and civil rights champion.
Cunard fought fascism on the battlefields of Spain and reported firsthand on the atrocities of the French concentration camps. Intelligent and beautiful, she romanced the great writers of her era, including three Nobel Prize winners, and was the inspiration for characters in the works of Ezra Pound, T. S. Eliot, Aldous Huxley, Pablo Neruda, Samuel Beckett, and Ernest Hemingway, among others.
Cunard was also a prolific poet, publisher, and translator and, after falling in love with a black American jazz pianist, became deeply committed to fighting for black rights. She edited the controversial anthology Negro, the first comprehensive study of the achievement and plight of blacks around the world. Her contributors included Langston Hughes, W. E. B. Du Bois, and Zora Neale Hurston, among scores of others.
Cunard's personal life was as complex as her public persona. Her involvement with the civil rights movement led her to be ridiculed and rejected by both family and friends. Throughout her life, she was plagued by insecurities and suffered a series of breakdowns, struggling with a sense of guilt over her promiscuous behavior and her ability to survive so much war and tragedy. Yet Cunard's writings also reveal an immense kindness and wit, as well as her renowned, often flamboyant defiance of prejudiced social conventions.
Drawing on diaries, correspondence, historical accounts, and the remembrances of others, Lois Gordon revisits the major movements of the first half of the twentieth century through the life of a truly gifted and extraordinary woman. She also returns Nancy Cunard to her rightful place as a major figure in the historical, social, and artistic events of a critical era.
Customer Reviews:
A Remembered Life.......2007-07-03
If Lois Gordon was writing about a fictional character she could not have told a story of a more exciting person than Nancy Cunard. However, Nancy Cunard was indeed an individual who lived in the early part of last century whose exploits, altruism, and literary talent were extraordinary by any standards. She was a legendary beauty, with a great mind, who was extremely devoted to the disadvantaged people of the world and their struggles. This is an unusual and remarkable combination of qualities that is brilliantly depicted throughout this wonderful book. Simply, I could not put the book down once I had started reading. I can highly recommend it.
Facinating.......2007-05-16
A facinating look at a most interesting woman. Well ahead of her time. Also many insights to a span of recent history often neglected.
Brilliant job, takes your breath away.......2007-05-12
This is a brilliant, sensitive, thoroughly researched biography which is a model example of how such things should be done. The author writes of the First World War experiences in London as if she had personally lived through them. Her understanding of the complex and bizarre Nancy Cunard, of her weird mother, of her strange friends, of her insane promiscuity, of her serial preying upon the creative elite by means of 'genital consumption', of her impossible psychlogy, of the whole phantasmagoria which Nancy Cunard represented, are really a triumph of empathy and insight, as well as of organisation of material. Lois Gordon's ability to master large volumes of action and hysteria without flinching qualify her for a top military command.
A lively, fascinating read from the first chapter..........2007-05-10
I just finished Lois Gordon's deeply moving tale of an unbelievably heroic, remarkable woman about whom I knew very little. I now feel I know the soul of Nancy Cunard, thanks to the author's wonderfully engaging, well-documented presentation. The book's fluent style and breadth of information are impressive. I agree with the majority here who have praised this fascinating biography. Buy this book, settle into your favorite chair, and prepare to meet the caring, complex, flawed, passionate woman that was Nancy Cunard.
Henry Crowder and Nancy Cunard.......2007-05-06
Regrettably, this biography is seriously flawed, frankly a disgrace, in respect of Henry Crowder and throughout. There is hardly a page in the book without demonstrable error of fact, misrepresentation, unfounded speculation or garbled citation. Columbia University Press were twice alerted that there were problems when an advance proof fell into the present writer's hands two or three months before publication. The Press did not respond. Caroline Weber's New York Times review is foolish in the extreme. Anne Chisholm's 1979 biography remains indispensable. While Gordon has uncovered new material (not about Henry Crowder in which she is particularly deficient) she has not been able to make sense of it. The true story of Crowder is told in the book+CD Listening for Henry Crowder scheduled fall 2007.
Although readers must judge for themselves, it is incumbent upon someone or other who has studied some of the particulars to point out the book's shortcomings, which are drastic. The book's flamboyant style may appear to be "a good read". All the more reason to alert the general reader. That Cunard's life was replete with extraordinary events and relationships does not confer upon the biographer the right to play fast and loose. Such treatment may befit an exploitative Hollywood movie but not a literary documentation with academic credentials. It may be that few care. Neverthless . . . In respect of, for example, Crowder, by Cunard's admission the single most important man in her life, a good deal of the information the author needed had been available to her for some years in an exploratory article in a journal, which was also posted online. Either she chose to ignore it or she did not find it, though it was easy to find. Unfortunately, she does not even get the facts right from the sources she does use and her misdemeanors extend far beyond that particular subject. (Crowder does not even figure in a list of Cunard's friends in an interview with the author on the publisher's website, while another, with whom she had no relationship whatsoever, is proposed as a lover.)
In response to a comment on my original brief posting: I have mentioned my forthcoming book on Crowder's life (which will not receive wide distribution or review) and Anne Chisholm's earlier, easily available, elegant, sober, generous, decent biography of Cunard, which is grudgingly noted and casually mistreated by Gordon, in order to give general readers the opportunity to find other takes on Cunard, which they might otherwise miss, and so allow them to judge from a well-informed position.
Customer Reviews:
The problem is.................2007-09-15
Ayaan Hirsi Ali hits the world problem with terrorism today right on the head. The problem is not bin Laden, the problem is Muhammad and Islam. Read the Quran, and its all there. Islam must be changed. It is a "do or die" situation for us "ALL!"Eva-ChristSee this link for somme radical Christianity.
The Caged Virgin is a larger Metaphor than just Moslem Women.......2007-06-13
Now that Ms. Ali has finally arrived at the very gates of the belly of the Western cultural beast, she will begin to understand why America is so much loved on the one hand and at the same time loathed and despised on the other, and especially by the rest of the West. Not surprisingly, and for good reasons, many Americans harbor the same schizophrenic attitude about their own culture, as do outsiders.
The rest of the West too would like to remain forever as culturally crude and backward as we are - racist, anti-intellectual, overly pious, beer-drinking hell raisers -- but they lack the courage to be seen doing so. It takes a lot of gall to talk progressive on the world stage, as America does, while at the same time keeping your feet and sensibilities deeply mired in a brutal and regressive past. Most Western nations just do not have the stomach for, and find it undignified to engage in such openly raw hypocrisy. That is of course what so surprised me about the Dutch.
However, hypocrisy - arguably, the truest of American values -- is precisely the kind of problem that Ms. Ali is best suited to grapple with. "The Caged Virgin" demonstrates this with a flourish and with devastating effect. Ms. Ali's truths about Islamic treatment of women, is a devastatingly critique of Islam, a decidedly inconvenient truth for most Moslems. They squirm and call her names, issue death threats, but they know, as do we all that she is "dead on." Period. You can kill her if you want to, but the truth is out. We have seen the ugly side of the mind of Islam. The cat is out of the bag. This genie cannot be re-bottled whether Ms Ali is dead or alive.
When her honeymoon with America is over (and trust me, it will end). Ms. Ali will represent the same danger to reactionary and regressive forces here as she now does to the "prime movers" of Islam -- and as she eventually did in Holland. Equally, she will also make American liberals squirm as they did in the Netherlands. Bill Maher, America's resident liberal icon, held Ms. Ali at full arms length and was holding his nose at the same time when she appeared recently on his show, "Real Time with Bill Maher." It was uncomfortable for the first time seeing Bill uncomfortable.
As was the case in Holland, Americans also are likely to discover much too late, that, on the complex and intersecting grid of America's favorite chauvinisms, Ms. Ali is going to be a difficult bird to pigeonhole. Truth tellers can indeed be slippery creatures to put in a cage. Like the proverbial pea under the cup in "Three Card Molly:" now you see her, now you don't? Is she Ali or Magan? Is she liberal or conservative? Is she Muslim or Atheist? Is she feminist or just humanist?
The Dutch reaction to her after Theo Van Gogh's murder on the streets of Amsterdam, could easily be made into a bad American movie: First she was "their darling" so long as she was saying aloud what most Dutch were thinking and saying beneath their seething breathe. But then came the Muslim reaction, and Van Gogh's death, and Ayann became a decidedly "hot potato." What did the Dutch do? In classical American-like fashion, they found a technicality to retract her citizenship so as to better be able to deport her. When it was clear that she would move on to the U.S. anyway, they of course then restored it.
Can you belive that the Dutch government actually fell as a result of this self-inflicted nonesense - mostly out of sheer embarrassment, recrimination and hurt feelings in the aftermath of Ms. Ali's departure?
In America, a land where intersecting chauvinisms dictate loyalties and even structure identities, all truths (to parrot Al Gore's phrase) become "inconvenient truths." Before "Islamo-phobic America" starts dancing in the aisles at their good fortune on their new adopted hero, they should be forewarned that Ms. Ali's metaphors, especially that of a "Caged Virgin" has much wider range and application than just the ill-treatment of Moslem women: It can be generalized to include the victims of almost any kind of tyranny and oppression. It can be used as a staging ground against almost any form of tyranny - including racism, Christian fascism, or even reverse sexism. So hold the applause until the full measure of the woman has been taken.
I know that Ms. Ali is acutely aware, that as an Atheist, unlike in Holland, here in "religiously tolerant America," she can't be elected even to the position of dogcatcher, let alone as a Representative to the Congress as she was the case in Holland. However, if she should choose to sprinkle a bit of holy water on herself; dip her head in a bucket of water and mutter "Jesus loves you" five times, with no further qualitfications, she would be a shoo-in in for any office in almost every state in the Union.
Both the power and the beauty of this book as well as that of the metaphor of a "Caged Virgin" lies in the fact that it captures what happens to all victims of culturally sanctioned oppression and tyranny. The Caged Virgin, is indeed a universal metaphor for oppression.
Oppression is, always has been, and probably always will be first a mental game: The cage is always ones own mind. The mind is taught to interiorize the rules of society so that they eventually robotically work against ones own interests in the background. It is working to advance the interests of the oppressor, which are always disguised as an appeal to the larger moral standards of the community.
The bars to the cage are "sanctioned ignorance" fashioned and packaged as cultural, tribal or societal orthodoxy. The handmaiden of most "sanctioned ignorance" in most cultures whether "advanced primitive" or just "primitive," is religion. The purpose of the jail is preventive. It is to protect against, and outlaw even the possibility of future crimes -- as the powerbrokers of society defines them. The bars are thus a protection against "thought crimes" -- that is, against dangerous ideas. Virginity is a form of sexual innocence turned into a crime about sex before the fact. It is foolishness raised to a higher level; virtual nonsense obviously created in a sexually warped and repressed mind. As Christopher Kitchens noted in his book God is not Great, sexual repression and societal brutality always go hand-in-hand. You can't have one without the other.
Like the Dutch, the "head grunts in charge" of America's various chauvinistic cultural enterprises, do not yet know what to do with Ms. Ali: She is an African and thus has black skin; she talks like a white feminist but is avowedly too honest and to anti-racist to be one. She thinks and acts like an Atheist, yet she remains committed to those Moslem principles that still make sense. She lives in America, but cherishes her Dutch citizenship. What kind of bird is this? Can she be trusted on the complexly enforced grid of America chauvinisms? Does our culture have a (identity) jersey for her to wear?
Notice that the feminists - neither black nor white - have rushed up to meet her with a bouquet of roses. A Conservative American Think tank, "The American Enterprise Institute" has hired her, both to get her out of a difficult situation that had already begun to embarrass the Dutch, and to better quarantine her from normal xenophobic Americans. They too, it seems, wanted to get a better scope on what she smells like before fully embracing her.
If America has not figured this out yet, a word of warning; stop sniffing: Ms. Ali is pure Kryptonite. She is dangerous to America's hypocritical health: She has learned how not to deal in lies, neither "little white ones," the standard fare of American culture, nor the larger "dark ones" that the religious Ayatollahs and American politicians are so good at dispensing. Except for her most passionate pursuit, saving, enlightening and empowering Moslem women, her views straddle all of the most sensitive lines of the American political grid - race, sex, and religion -- and in addition to speaking a number of languages, she is also politically bilingual: She speaks liberalism and conservatism with equal fluency. Once the Islamic dragons have all been slain, I have no doubt that American hypocrisy will be next on her agenda.
I guarantee it. This is one woman who will shake the conscience of America.
Welcome, to America, my African sister!
Ten stars.
Greatly informative.......2007-05-13
Much of this I'd read and heard of but this is the best first-person accounting. I'd expected some dubious complaints, found a riveting story of truth and facts and personal acceptances and growth.
an important and moving book.......2007-01-25
Ayaan Hirsi Ali, author of The Caged Virgin, sets out to explain the Islamic religio-cultural mentality of staking a family's and clan's honor on the virginity and chastity of the females. Her book also exposes the numerous brutal and misogynistic practices perpetrated against women in order to keep them submissive and preserve the group's reputation; these practices include female genital mutilation, culturally sanctioned domestic abuse, forced marriages (including child marriages), and honor killings. One of Ayaan Hirsi Ali's key points is that this religio-cultural mentality and these abuses are prevalent in Muslim immigrant communities in the West. Unfortunately, politicians, academics, journalists and law enforcement officials often turn a blind eye on the plight of immigrant women, operate on a double standard that is tacitly permissive of these "cultural differences", or simply do not work efficiently enough at assisting Muslim women who are in danger.
The author herself, born in Somalia, suffered forced genital mutilation as a child and fled an arranged marriage to a stranger; growing up she was also educated to despise infidels, particularly Jews. When she arrived as a refugee in Holland, she took up work as an interpreter among Dutch Muslims and saw firsthand numerous examples of the problems and traumas of Dutch Muslim women and also men. She then became an MP, in the hopes of implementing public policy that would assist immigrants. In her book, and in speeches and interviews that she has given, she criticizes a "multicultural" or "politically correct" approach to the immigrant communities, which allows those communities to operate entirely with their own separate set of values and not assimilate any conception of individual, universal rights and personal freedom. Community leaders are often quick to call any criticism of their cultural practices as "racist" or "intolerant", no matter that in Dutch society - and western society in general - some of these practices are outright criminal. Politically correct, multiculturalist politicians and officials would rather not "offend" these outspoken representatives of the immigrant community, even though by not causing any offense, they are ignoring the suffering of too many Dutch Muslim women and girls, who live on Dutch soil and are entitled to the government's protection from harm and oppression. The same scenario plays out in other European countries, as well, and might be taking root in the US; community spokespeople and heads of ethnic and immigrant organizations will be quick to use the language of western values and multiculturalism in order to direct attention away from the absence of such values in their communities.
All of these issues are discussed in the book, which is not written as a hateful rant or an angry diatribe. The author writes urgently and with feeling; these matters are understandably close to her heart, and should be of utmost importance to the world at large as well. Though in recent years she embraced atheism, she does not prescribe this as a course of action, and she does not write contemptuously of religious Muslims. What she urges is an age of enlightenment for Islam; she wishes for free thought, unhindered expressions of dissent, and a general promotion of the welfare of women, including their active participation as equals in the social sphere. She cites examples of Muslim women and girls in Europe who are yearning not to conform exactly to their families' wishes; they might want something as simple as dressing in a more western style, to choosing whom they wish to marry, what job to hold, how many children to have. The author sees in these women the promise of a reform for how Islam is still widely practiced. She hopes for the predominance of more modern and liberal interpretations of the Koran.
The book includes the script that Ayaan Hirsi Ali wrote for Submission, the film directed by Theo Van Gogh, who was brutally murdered by a jihadist for his audacity to use his personal right of free expression in order to criticize cultural abuses; the film focuses on passages from the Koran that have been used to justify various abusive practices against women. The Caged Virgin also includes an open letter to Muslim women and girls who come from strict, traditionalist families but who are seriously contemplating starting their own life and not conforming to their families' idea of what life for a woman should be like. Again, to make this clear, the author does not lump all Muslims together into one way of thinking or practicing their religion. She also describes her own family honestly and without bitterness; she will quite clearly write about the pain caused by her father's rejection of her, but also notes the times when, growing up, he complimented her intelligence and generally had more of a sense of humor than her mother. Her father was also opposed to female genital mutilation; it was her grandmother who arranged for it to happen, during one of her father's lengthy absences from home. She does not set out to portray all Muslim women as victims; she points out great courage and strength when she has observed those traits, and she also makes the important observation that women themselves police and enforce misogynistic cultural practices. Her concern also extends to how these cultural practices affect men - boys, for instance, who grow up in a household with an uneducated and abused mother, and men who enter marriage with no understanding of women.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali writes with courage, honesty, and clarity; she expresses her personal vision and does not shy from exposing abuse. She knows what is at stake here, from the personal lives of Muslims to the broader issue of peaceful co-existence with the west. She dismantles the arguments of politically correct multiculturalists without viciousness, only with steady persuasiveness. She is a necessary voice in public life and the ongoing struggle for personal freedom and individual values.
Courageous and highly readable .......2007-01-14
In this perceptive work, Ayaan Hirsi Ali explores a major problem of our times with admirable fluency and erudition. In the preface she points out the similarity in attitude towards the Soviets by leftists then and Islamic culture now by the adherents of multiculturalism. Because of the victim culture, those intellectuals refuse to criticize oppressive practices as Muslims are perceived to be victims of the West. For the same reason, Israel is fiercely condemned because it belongs to the West while the Palestinians get a free pass. She considers this wrongheaded and racism in its purest form, the idea of the "other" that must be shielded at all costs.
She asks the advocates of the multicultural society to acquaint themselves with the suffering of women who are treated as chattels. The notion of "group rights" are detrimental to Muslim women, and without emancipation, the socially disadvantageous position of Muslims will persist. She laments the fact that Muslim women are not listened to and calls for self-examination in the culture. Hirsi Ali also deals with the clash of cultures in Europe and examines the triangles of power in the Muslim world itself: the triangle of the strong leader, the clergy and the army, and the triangle of apathy, fundamentalism and refugees/emigration.
The author provides a brief history of her early childhood in Somalia and her personal emancipation when she emigrated to the Netherlands and explains why she had to leave Holland for the USA. There is also an interview with prominent Canadian Muslim reformer Irshad Manji, a chapter on genital mutilation and 10 tips for Muslim women who wish to leave their oppressive circumstances. A full transcript of the documentary film Submission is included, the movie that led to the death of Theo van Gogh. Hirsi Ali claims that instead of empowering Muslim students through research and training, European universities have become activist centers to further the Palestinian cause.
She considers Muslims in Europe and around the world to fall into three broad categories: the terrorists and the fundamentalists that assist them, the tiny group of reformers that embraces the open society and the large number of undecideds who are caught in a mental vise, the painful contradiction between the harsh tenets of an intolerant religion and the values of the open society. She believes that the first victims of Muhammad are the minds of Muslims themselves as they exist in a situation of cognitive dissonance. Western cultural relativists flinch from criticism of Muhammad for fear of offence, preventing western Muslims from reviewing their own moral values.
This insightful work provides first-hand experience and knowledge of the particular worldview and serves as an appeal for clear thinking, enlightenment and individual liberation. Hirsi Ali nails it when she shows how various evils result from a belief based on fear. Although not flawless, The Caged Virgin is a torch of courage and reason in the darkness of oppression and brainwashing. The book concludes with bibliographic notes and an index. I also recommend Now They Call Me Infidel by Nonie Darwish, Because They Hate by Brigitte Gabriel, Menace In Europe by Claire Berlinski, While Europe Slept by Bruce Bawer and The Force Of Reason by the late Orianna Fallaci.
Amazon.com
A biography of the woman who, indirectly, was the catalyst for many of the troubles in the Middle East, including the Gulf War. In 1918, Gertrude Bell drew the region's proposed boundaries on a piece of tracing paper. Her qualifications for doing so were her extensive travel, her fluency in both Persian and Arabic, and her relationships with sheiks and tribal and religious leaders. She also possessed an ability to understand the subtle and indirect politeness of the culture, something many of her colonialist comrades were oblivious to. As a self-made statesman her sex was an asset, enabling her to bypass the ladder of protocol and dive into the business of building an Empire.
Book Description
Turning away from the privileged world of the "eminent Victorians," Gertrude Bell (1868—1926) explored, mapped, and excavated the world of the Arabs. Recruited by British intelligence during World War I, she played a crucial role in obtaining the loyalty of Arab leaders, and her connections and information provided the brains to match T. E. Lawrence's brawn. After the war, she played a major role in creating the modern Middle East and was, at the time, considered the most powerful woman in the British Empire.
In this masterful biography, Janet Wallach shows us the woman behind these achievements–a woman whose passion and defiant independence were at odds wit the confined and custom-bound England she left behind. Too long eclipsed by Lawrence, Gertrude Bell emerges at last in her own right as a vital player on the stage of modern history, and as a woman whose life was both a heartbreaking story and a grand adventure.
Customer Reviews:
Outstanding woman, mediocre biography........2007-08-23
As has been mentioned by others, I too wonder at the literary excesses of this book. "She sensed his profound hunger....". "....her heart pounding, her cheeks burning hot, and as his blue eyes burned with desire, he took her in his arms".
Gertrude Bell, an outstanding woman, deserves a better, a more maturely written biography. Thankfully, they are out there.
This book needed an editor.......2007-08-05
I began to read this book with anticipation. I was a put off by the sort of breathless tone more worthy of a bad romance novel.
About twenty pages in, I was surprised by a reference to the Ottoman Empire expanding since the 13th century from Constantinople. The Ottoman Empire expanded around Constantinople from the 13th to the 15th centuries, until they finally took the city in 1453, and promptly renamed it Istanbul.
I soldiered on, until I was informed that British were fighting Germans in the Boer war in the late 1890s. The Boers, descended from Dutch colonists, would have been surprised to hear themselves described as German.
These two mistakes, obvious to anyone with a decent knowledge of history, ruined my willingness to accept anything else in the book. I put down the book, never knowing if Miss Bell was able to overcome her lost early love.
Gertrude Bell's life seems to be worthy of a good biography. This isn't it.
Insightful Read.......2007-07-04
A book which skilfully interweaves historical facts with the anecdotes and day-to-day life of a woman struggling to find her place in the Middle East.
Was left with a sense of awe from her accomplishments and the beginnings of an inkling as to the political and religious turmoil and troubles of this region based on the history retold by Janet Wallach.
Desert Queen: The extraordinary Lief of Gertrude Bell.......2007-03-09
I only wish George W and Chaney would have read this book before entering into War with Iraq. The history of British rule and their failure to solve the Tribal problems at the establishment of Iraq as a new State after the breakup of the Otterman Empire. This only proves that History can repeat itself.
If Only Washington Leaders Would All Read This Book.......2007-01-23
Yes, I would venture to say that anyone who reads this book as well as Lawrence's "Seven Pillars of Wisdom" would be better qualified to shape US foreign policy in the Middle East than those who are now doing that... When will we ever learn?
Amazon.com
Julia Kristeva's Hannah Arendt brings together two of the best minds in 20th-century philosophy; two who are especially noteworthy because they are visionary women in a field long dominated by men. Appropriately, the book is, in part, a tribute to Arendt, one of a series of looks at female genius. Kristeva brings her considerable scholarly arsenal, which includes linguistics, literary criticism, philosophy, feminism, aesthetics, cultural studies, and psychoanalysis. In particular, her psychoanalytic bent makes for an incisive look at Arendt because she was "gripped from the start by that unique passion in which life and thought are one.... [She] consistently put life--both life itself and life as a concept to be analyzed--at the center of her work."
Arendt is certainly one of the 20th century's brightest intellectual luminaries. Penning The Human Condition and Eichmann in Jerusalem, she wove her accounts of philosophy with a unique penchant for narrative and personal reflection, vivified by her extraordinary life. Throughout this biography, Kristeva plies Arendt's trade, using Arendt's life to illuminate her thought. By turns she examines Arendt's use of narrative, her ratiocinations on Jewish-ness and anti-Semitism, and her political philosophy. Kristeva's insightfulness in this volume will help ensure her a place in the canon alongside Arendt. --Eric de Place
Book Description
Twenty-five years after her death, we are still coming to terms with the controversial figure of Hannah Arendt. Interlacing the life and work of this seminal twentieth-century philosopher, Julia Kristeva provides us with an elegant, sophisticated biography brimming with historical and philosophical insight.
Centering on the theme of female genius, Hannah Arendt emphasizes three features of the philosopher's work. First, by exploring Arendt's critique of Saint Augustine and her biographical essay on Rahel Varnhagen, Kristeva accentuates Arendt's commitment to recounting lives and narration. Second, Kristeva reflects on Arendt's perspective on
Judaism, anti-Semitism, and the "banality of evil." Finally, the biography assesses Arendt's intellectual journey, placing her enthusiasm for observing both social phenomena and political events in the context of her personal life.
Drawing on fragments of Arendt's most intimate correspondence with her longtime lover Martin Heidegger and her husband Heinrich Blucher, excerpts from her mother's "Unser Kind" (a diary tracking Hannah's formative years), and passages from Arendt's philosophical writings, Kristeva presents a luminous story. With a thorough thematic index and bibliographical references, Hannah Arendt is a major breakthrough in the understanding of an essential thinker.
Customer Reviews:
The intellectual overview of a political science genius.......2003-11-07
It has been a long time since I went to a baseball game, but trying to keep track of the intellectual action in the biography of Hannah Arendt by Julia Kristeva reminded me of the game. Eventually, I even thought of a song, "Catfish" by Bob Dylan (Words by Bob Dylan and Jacques Levy) recorded on July 28, 1975, an outtake from the album "Desire" that was finally released in a three-CD package called "The Bootleg Series Volumes 1-3 [rare and unreleased] 1961-1991." There was once a pitcher called Catfish Hunter, million dollar man, and Dylan's chorus said, "Nobody can throw the ball Like Catfish can." I have had the words since "The Songs of Bob Dylan" was released in 1976, but I didn't hear the song until 1991. Having an English translation from 2001 of a feminist biography of a political scientist of the mid-twentieth century captures the intellection activity that interests me about as well as "Catfish" captures the action of a baseball game.
Lazy stadium night, Catfish on the mound,
"Strike three" the umpire said,
Batter have to go back and sit down.
There are three chapters in HANNAH ARENDT, and the third has 219 notes. Basic statistics on how much Julia Kristeva is merely educating herself in public by providing a reading from Arendt's books might be obtained by counting the Ibid.s. Counting backwards, I found 133 Ibid.s in the notes for Chapter 3, including my favorite note:
"99. "Letter to the Romans 7:21, drafted between 54 and 58 a.d., cited in ibid., p. 64." (p. 268).
A lot of the books I read lately keep trying to tell me when the Bible was written, but I never noticed it in a note before. Usually my favorite notes are about Nietzsche, like:
"123. Ibid., p. 165, citing Nietzsche, THE GAY SCIENCE, no. 310"
"126. Concerning the `forgetting' that Nietzsche revives see p. 237; and Paul Ricoeur, paper presented at the Hannah Arendt Conference at the Grande Bibliotheque de France, December 6, 1997."
"128. Ibid., pp. 169-70, citing Nietzsche, THE WILL TO POWER, no. 585 A, pp. 316-19."
`131. LM, "Willing," p. 172, citing Nietzsche, THUS SPOKE ZARATHUSTRA, pt. 3, "Before Sunrise." '
`187. Ibid., citing Nietzsche, "The Use and Abuse of History," pp. 6, 7.'
"189. Ibid., citing Nietzsche, THE GENEALOGY OF MORALS, p. 61"
`192. Ibid., pp. 63, 72-73 ("even in old Kant: the categorical imperative reeks of cruelty").'
Nietzsche wrote such things about Kant, and it is a bit difficult to imagine that Kristeva and Arendt would associate such ideas with the great weight of the past if Nietzsche hadn't made this connection first. Understanding philosophy is a process that can be compared to intellectually building a rehash of old, familiar plays, as if it is about something like a baseball game, which has an umpire who gets to decide when an easy pop fly is an infield fly rule call that makes the batter out, but the umpire does not have time to say anything until after it is all over when a triple play picks off the runners before they have a chance to tag up if the pitcher ducks under a line drive that gets caught right on second base before anyone has time to react, but a quick shortstop snagged the ball out of the air and flipped it to first in the only instant in which that could happen. Kristeva is capable of interpreting political science as an activity best understood in terms of the philosophy of Nietzsche:
"To the `identical will' that forges the solidarity of a group, Arendt contrasts the way men who are connected to one another through a mutual promise `act in concert.' These men dispose of the future as though it were the present, and they live together in the miraculous enlargement of what Nietzsche called the `memory of the Will,' which is what distinguishes human life from animal life. As Arendt evokes Nietzsche's concept, she hears only the joyful touches of the superman and denotes not a trace of Nietzsche's disdainful tone." (p. 236).
Still counting backward, I find 102 Ibid.s in the notes for Chapter 2 and only 52 Ibid.s in the notes for Chapter 1. The Introduction only had two notes, on a wide variety of topics, but both related to the nature of "genius." When political opinion surveys offer a few sample views to encompass the political orientation of the great mass of the population, only a genius could be expected to have a ready answer to questions like "Will mothers become our only safeguard against the wholesale automation of human beings?" (p. xiii). The Introduction actually seems more suited for a triple biography, as "The three women who are the subject of this work" on page xv includes two women who are hardly mentioned in the three main chapters of HANNAH ARENDT. It does not add much to understanding this book to also learn "that Melanie Klein devoted herself to studying decompensation." (p. xvii). But in considering who else has been brilliant, it pays to have some comic relief. Among the French, who must understand comedy as well as any people anywhere, it might even be popular to declare:
"Colette's only real rival would prove to be Proust, whose narrative search has a social and metaphysical complexity that goes well beyond the adventures of Claudine and her counterparts. And yet Colette far surpasses Proust in the art of capturing pleasures that have never been lost." (pp. xviii-xix).
Amazon.com
From the author of How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents comes this tale of courage and sisterhood set in the Dominican Republic during the rise of the Trujillo dictatorship. A skillful blend of fact and fiction, In the Time of the Butterflies is inspired by the true story of the three Mirabal sisters who, in 1960, were murdered for their part in an underground plot to overthrow the government. Alvarez breathes life into these historical figures--known as "las mariposas," or "the butterflies," in the underground--as she imagines their teenage years, their gradual involvement with the revolution, and their terror as their dissentience is uncovered.
Alvarez's controlled writing perfectly captures the mounting tension as "the butterflies" near their horrific end. The novel begins with the recollections of Dede, the fourth and surviving sister, who fears abandoning her routines and her husband to join the movement. Alvarez also offers the perspectives of the other sisters: brave and outspoken Minerva, the family's political ringleader; pious Patria, who forsakes her faith to join her sisters after witnessing the atrocities of the tyranny; and the baby sister, sensitive Maria Teresa, who, in a series of diaries, chronicles her allegiance to Minerva and the physical and spiritual anguish of prison life.
In the Time of the Butterflies is an American Library Association Notable Book and a 1995 National Book Critics Circle Award nominee.
Customer Reviews:
Very Moving.......2007-10-09
A well written fictionalized account of the revolutionary struggles against Trujillo by three of four sisters in the Dominican Replublic. Memorable. The trouble with fictionalized history for me is that after awhile the lines between fact and fiction blur and I don't remember fact from fiction. I tend to stay away from books like this because of my eventual confusion. But, this book is worth it.
After the book and the film.......2007-04-05
The story of the Mirabal sisters is alive and well today in the Dominican Republic. Still the generation that survived the Dicatorship of General Trujillo seats on elite ground in the Island of the Hispaniola.
Comparing the book , the film and the history we can see gaps, hits and misses. The true story of the island is still covered under a veil of mystery, still to this date most of the characters of the book; maybe even their killers walk freely and with no remorse.
The island in itself is a beautiful set, the human casualties of the Trujillo era has been uncovered ever so gently . Until just recently the horrors of the era were exposed and freely written by authors like Balaguer, in "La isla al revez", by Mario Vargas Llosa" La muerte del Chivo", and Julia Alvarez is brilliant in her descriptions.
She teaches in Middlebury College,VT; I personally love her writing style and descriptive style of colors,enviornments and characters.
Fantastic!.......2007-03-28
This books is absolutely fantastic. I personally really enjoy books that cover the same story from several points-of-view so I didn't find it confusing at all. The story is so moving, especially because it is based on real events. Even though I knew what was coming, by the end I broke down into sobs. Beautiful.
confusing.......2007-03-11
I found this book to be very confusing because of all the spanish names and words. It is really hard to keep track of all the characters also. Each chapter is a different sister. All the sisters are married or going out w/someone and then there are their children and on top of that are all the government officials. I was just lost throughout the whole book.
Las Mariposas.......2006-07-08
This book is really good because it is realistic and it shows the struggle of four young girls growing up in the Dominican Republic during the rise of the Trujillo dictatorship. The way it is written is a little bit odd since it shifts narrators between the four girls and they each talk about a different time period, but it is still very informative and hard to put down. And not only do I recommend this book, but the movie is also terrific and possibly a little easier to follow since it runs straight through without switching points of view.
Book Description
One womanÂ's story of why she left the culture of Islamic Jihad to support American liberty and tolerance
Why are so many Muslims embracing jihad and cheering for al-Qaeda and Hamas? Why are even the modern, secularized Arab states such as Egypt producing a generation of angry young extremists?
Nonie Darwish knows why. When she was eight, her father died while leading Fedayeen raids into Israel. Her family moved from Gaza back to Cairo, where they were honored as survivors of a “shahid”—a martyr for jihad. She grew up learning the same lessons as millions of Muslim children: to hate Jews, destroy Israel, oppose America, and submit to dictatorship.
But Darwish became increasingly appalled by the anger and hatred in her culture, and in 1978 she emigrated to America. Since 9/11 she has been lecturing and writing on behalf of moderate Arabs and Arab-Americans. Extremists have denounced her as an infidel and threatened her life.
In this fascinating book, she speaks out against the dark side of her native culture—women abused by Islamic traditions; the poor and uneducated mistreated by the elites; bribery and corruption as a way of life. Her former friends and neighbors blamed all the their troubles on Jews and Americans, but Darwish rejects their bigotry and calls for the Arab world to make peace with the West.
The only hope for the future, she writes, is for America to continue waging its War on Terror, seeding the Middle East with the values of democracy, respect for women, and tolerance for all religions.
Customer Reviews:
An Informative Perspective.......2007-09-15
If you're like me, you might know very little about Mideastern culture and life. This book is a highly readable and personal account of one woman's life, experiences and views on Muslim culture. I'm enjoying it; she puts a "human face" on this part of the world and it's issues.
Eye-opening insights into the causes of Islamic extremism........2007-09-11
The author grew up in Egypt under Nasser's dictatorship, but later moved to America. Her father was an Egyptian military officer killed in Gaza by Israel because he organized raids to cause mayhem inside Israel. She reports on the problems in Egypt and Gaza, and on the government and religious propaganda which is polarizing the Islamic world to the point of Jihad. This is an eye-opening read, and it gives insight into how difficult it will be to ever correct this problem.
EXCELLENT BOOK.......2007-09-01
THIS BOOK IS A MUST READ FOR ANYONE WHO WANTS TO TRULY UNDERSTAND HOW THE MIDDLE EAST FEALS ABOUT AMERICA AND WHY. NONIE DARWISH IS A VERY BRAVE WOMAN AND I THANK GOD SHE HAD THE GUTS TO WRITE THE TRUTH.
Now They Call Me Infidel: Why I renounced Jihad for America, Israel and the War on Terror.......2007-08-25
This is an excellen book for those seeking to understand Arab Muslim perspectives. The culture is based on a background, history and value system entirely foreign to our way of thinking. The author relates her life from early childhood, through her school years and early adulthood living first in Gaza then Cairo. She is from the upper middle class, the daughter of a high ranking military officer who is martyred. She describes what it is like to be a woman in the arab muslim world. She raises the issuesleading to a lack of trust both within the society and in relation to other societies. She discusses the inner thinking and the daily propaganda regarding Israel. She also gives important information on the Arab view of Palestines role in the conflict. She distinguishes between the radical Islamic movements and moderate Islam. She notes the purpose and intent of fundalmentalist Islam is the eventual overtaking the world. She discusses how this is being taken to countries throughout the world to bring about this change. We need to understand those with whom we are dealing. This is a book that is easy to read, direct and highly informative.
Demonstrating the Power of Love.......2007-08-15
Now They Call me Infidel: Why I Renounced Jihad for America,
Israel, and the War on Terror, by Nonie Darwish.
Sentinel, Penguin Books, 2006, 258 pp
From our first encounter with Nonie Darwish, through her articles and first web site, we felt that she was someone special. We were attracted by her open and obvious love for America. That web site disappeared, only to reappear as [..] , with this unique opening statement:
To Muslims and Arabs across the globe: Reject hate, embrace love. Bring out the best in Islam by showing your compassion, gratitude and forgiveness. Make the holy land truly holy by giving Israel and the Jewish people the respect they deserve in their tiny little country. This is not a crisis over land. It is a crisis of the soul; a crisis in our faith, judgement and self confidence. Israel should not be regarded as an enemy, but as a blessing to our neighborhood. We need not fear peace, but embrace it.
These are remarkable words to be coming from the daughter of a "shahid" (a martyr for jihad) who was assassinated while serving as a high-ranking Egyptian military officer stationed in Gaza specifically to be of assistance to the Palestinians.
The September 2001 attack on the twin towers in New York was life-changing for many people. From that moment on Nonie Darwish felt compelled to take a stand. It led her to write her life story "Now They Call Me Infidel" which is a pure gift to all of us. She also stepped out into public life with all its demands of speaking engagements, and the disapproval she was bound to experience.
After reading her book with eagerness, I would suggest that it is the perfect book for supplemental reading by all High School students. Let them hear about Islam from someone who has experienced it fully from birth and has turned to Christianity and America for a better life. Let them sense her loyalty and love for her new country. As she describes it--"Many immigrants come to this great nation in search of material gain, which is fine; however, the biggest prize I gained was my religious freedom and learning to love. For me it was nothing short of cataclysmic. I had turned from a culture of hatred to one of love."
In her book she describes her impressions of America. We Americans need to see our country through someone else's eyes, so that we can withstand the propaganda that insinuates that we are the culprit and instigator of all the troubles of the world. It is eye-opening to read through the chapter "A New Beginning in America" and find out why the following words are in italics; and learn just how much our culture differs from the Muslim culture in Egypt. This is specially applicable to the difficult life programmed for women. She considers "friendliness and helpfulness"," courtesy", "diversity and multiculturalism", "self-sufficiency, pride in labor", "generous, honest, and open", "informality", "women's relationships", and "child rearing".
Gradually, to Ms. Darwish's horror, she discovers that her beloved land of refuge, her America which means so much to her, is being attacked from within. She is painfully aware of those old patterns of hatred, as they eminate from mosque after mosque.
She lashes out at terrorists who are invading the Western countries: "America's Islamic enemies and critics--even those who love living in the United States - are nothing more than pirates. That's what Islamic terrorists are - pirates. Instead of building their own society as a model of what Islam should be, they leave it in ruins and look to conquer hard-working successful lands.....They cannot stand to live in a Muslim culture, and they have their eyes set on beautiful and welcoming democracies, not to blend in, but to rob those democracies of their soul and ruin the value system and culture that made them great...." p. 185. You need to get hold of this book and sense the depth of Ms. Darwish's feeling as she begs you to save our precious country from the onslaught she sees coming.
She describes her shock at the Arab world's response to 9/11. They dared to rejoice over the tragedy. When she phoned family members and close friends, whose opinions she had formerly trusted, she could not believe that many thought America deserved to suffer.
The last chapter is "Jihad Comes to America". Nonie dismisses the popular and over-used definition of jihad as merely spiritual pursuit: "there is only one meaning for jihad, and that is: a religious holy war against infidels." p. 201. She remarks that she is shocked by the radicalism she encounters on the American campus. "I am stunned to see them choose to revive the worst of Islamic culture in America rather than be part of America and demonstrate the best of Islamic culture."
On page 159 there is a moving description of Nonie's introduction to Christian worship when she and her husband and family attended a church and "listened to a message of compassion, love, acceptance, tolerance, and prayer for all humanity." There had been some violence in the Middle East and the pastor prayed for everyone--"Muslims, Jews, and Christians. It was very different message from the prayers to `destroy the infidels' that I grew up with....I learned the most important command in scripture was `Love your neighbor as yourself.'" Nonie had found what she was hungering for: "In this church, that day, my soul was revived and nourished with the love of a tolerant and forgiving God." Knowingly she was willing to be called an infidel.
After a remarkable experience of visiting Israel Nonie explains: "I now fully understand why the United States supports Israel and rightfully so. My love of America now extends to Israel." Hence the name of her new web site!
We salute another brave woman, and heartily recommend that you read this extremely important book.
Amazon.com
At the age of 5, Malika Oufkir, eldest daughter of General Oufkir, was adopted by King Muhammad V of Morocco and sent to live in the palace as part of the royal court. There she led a life of unimaginable privilege and luxury alongside the king's own daughter. King Hassan II ascended the throne following Muhammad V's death, and in 1972 General Oufkir was found guilty of treason after staging a coup against the new regime, and was summarily executed. Immediately afterward, Malika, her mother, and her five siblings were arrested and imprisoned, despite having no prior knowledge of the coup attempt.
They were first held in an abandoned fort, where they ate moderately well and were allowed to keep some of their fine clothing and books. Conditions steadily deteriorated, and the family was eventually transferred to a remote desert prison, where they suffered a decade of solitary confinement, torture, starvation, and the complete absence of sunlight. Oufkir's horrifying descriptions of the conditions are mesmerizing, particularly when contrasted with her earlier life in the royal court, and many graphic images will long haunt readers. Finally, teetering on the edge of madness and aware that they had been left to die, Oufkir and her siblings managed to tunnel out using their bare hands and teaspoons, only to be caught days later. Her account of their final flight to freedom makes for breathtaking reading. Stolen Lives is a remarkable book of unfathomable deprivation and the power of the human will to survive.
Book Description
A gripping memoir that reads like a political thriller--the story of Malika Oufkir's turbulent and remarkable life. Born in 1953, Malika Oufkir was the eldest daughter of General Oufkir, the King of Morocco's closest aide. Adopted by the king at the age of five, Malika spent most of her childhood and adolescence in the seclusion of the court harem, one of the most eligible heiresses in the kingdom, surrounded by luxury and extraordinary privilege.
Then, on August 16, 1972, her father was arrested and executed after an attempt to assassinate the king. Malika, her five younger brothers and sisters. and her mother were immediately imprisoned in a desert penal colony. After fifteen years, the last ten of which they spent locked up in solitary cells, the Oufkir children managed to dig a tunnel with their bare hands and make an audacious escape. Recaptured after five days, Malika was finally able to leave Morocco and begin a new life in exile in 1996.
A heartrending account in the face of extreme deprivation and the courage with which one family faced its fate, Stolen Lives is an unforgettable story of one woman's journey to freedom.
Customer Reviews:
Incredible Story - Deserved Better Editor.......2007-09-10
I am very disappointed in some of the reviews that I have read about this book; thank goodness they are the minority. Yes, I agree that it was poorly edited, and the story that was being relayed really could have been told better. It disturbs me that some of the reviewers almost appeared to attack the author. This lady is not an author/writer; she's no Stephen King or Dan Brown. Those authors have the advantage of fiction on their respective sides. Malika Oufkir had no such advantage. She is a survivor who had to actually live the hell that she describes in her book.
Imagine being a political prisoner - your only crime being that you were related to someone who either did something terrible against the country or "allegedly" did so - you are living in conditions of squalor. Your captors want you to die, but don't want to necessarily pull the trigger. You are starved, not allowed outside, not allowed to see or feel the sun, and deprived of the most basic information such as the date and time. You watch your sister pick the rat droppings from pieces of stale bread before "happily" consuming it. You watch your three-year old brother's life as a political prisoner. That's what you lived for most of two decades. Finally, years after being released, you get the courage to tell your story so that the world has a chance to know what you have been through, and that political imprisonment is not the cake walk or country club behind bars that it has been touted through the years. For months, you fight through the tears and the recollections of the circumstances and events that above all, you mostly want to forget. Then, proud that you were able to clear that final hurdle, you read the book reviews on Amazon only to find that one reader finds the book "difficult to believe" and even "boring." The nerve of some people to sit in their air conditioned homes with their refrigerator and freezer full, to sit at their computer with access to the world, to not be able to look past the flaws of the book to see the real story. If this was fiction, I could see the criticism, but given the storyline and the simple fact that it was fact, I simply cannot justify attacking the author about the quality of the book. Her experience has forever changed her and her reaction to life itself.
Bottom line - this was a riveting story that could have been a riveting book. I give the story itself 5+ stars. I hope Ms. Oufkir and her family are proud that they survived such an incredulous nightmare. I was left wanting more information, but I personally feel fortunate to have received what information I got; Ms. Oufkir didn't have to put her ordeal in writing. The editing gets one star. The editor and publisher failed Ms. Oufkir and should be ashamed that her story was not given the very best attention to detail. It almost seems as though the book was rushed to go to print, and Ms. Oufkir's story suffered the consequences. And that is a real travesty.
Survival Story.......2007-08-30
Because of her father's treachery in attempting to assassinate the king of Morocco, Malika, her mother, her siblings and two family friends are imprisoned in the desert. For years they live in tiny cells infested with bugs and mice who battle them for their near-starvation rations. Finally they make a desperate move to tunnel out of their prison and alert the international news media of their imprisonment, which puts sufficient pressure on the king to free them.
Malika's life wasn't always so bad, though. In fact, when she was five, the king adopted her to live in the palace as a companion to his daughter. Although she missed her family and felt trapped in her life as royalty, Malika was well fed and well brought up and had all of the luxuries life could hand out to a child. This makes her subsequent imprisonment all the more shocking, especially as it is at the hands of her adopted family.
I found this book a bit scattered. The author would state in passing something she would then address later, which gave me the feeling of a great deal of jumping around. She also tries a bit too hard to make a connection between life in the palace and life in prison, which I thought was more than a small stretch. Although the author argues that she was never really "free" to do what she wanted while living with the royals, what child ever is free to do what he or she wants? There were few incidents of her being treated cruelly while growing up, and she wanted for nothing, yet she tried to paint herself as a poor sad little child. This tended to make me feel less sorry for her, rather than more.
The part of the book dealing with the family's prison life was horrifying almost beyond belief, yet was dealt with in such a casual tone of voice that I found it hard to get as outraged and sad as I felt I should have been. Something about the tone of the book just didn't strike the right note with me.
General
| Biographies & Memoirs
| Subjects
| Books
A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier
A Thousand Splendid Suns
The Caged Virgin: An Emancipation Proclamation for Women and Islam
The Truth About Muhammad: Founder of the World's Most Intolerant Religion
While Europe Slept: How Radical Islam is Destroying the West from Within
