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Anne Applebaum writes that Dutch anti-Muslim activist Ayaan Hirsi Ali is "possibly the greatest womens' rights activist of our generation." Seriously? Here's Hirsi Ali interviewed by Reason magazine recently:
Hirsi Ali: There is no moderate Islam. There are Muslims who are passive, who don’t all follow the rules of Islam, but there’s really only one Islam, defined as submission to the will of God. There’s nothing moderate about it.Reason: So when even a hard-line critic of Islam such as Daniel Pipes says, “Radical Islam is the problem, but moderate Islam is the solution,” he’s wrong?Hirsi Ali: He’s wrong. Sorry about that.See the full interview for her explanation that we must militarily defeat all of the world's 1.5 billion Muslims. I agreed with Applebaum's original article. Governments should protect their citizens, wherever in the world they may be, if they're under the threat of political violence. But Hirsi Ali, whatever her personal experience, is a dangerous fanatic. She has, it's true, spoken out against the very real oppression of women in many Islamic societies (and suffered it herself) but she has done so in a way that merely alienates the kind of Muslims who stand to do something about the very problem she claims to want to fight. Just because she has the right enemies, she doesn't necessarily have the right ideas. --Sam Boyd
