Islamic or Western culture—which is more tolerant?
By Alan Jones

There's not been a lot of coverage with the wider Australian community of the visit to our country in the past week by Ayaan Hirsi Ali.
I interviewed this lady yesterday morning on my radio programme. It is by any measure an extraordinary story. And an extraordinary woman.
Born a Muslim in Somalia she now argues that "Western culture is superior to Islamic culture" and that "Islam as a body of ideas is not compatible with human rights or with the idea of modern democracy." She's 37 years of age.
She left Somalia, went to the Netherlands, became a Member of Parliament there but now lives in the United States.
She was a friend of the Dutch film-maker Theo Van Gogh with whom she collaborated on a film that explored the oppression of Muslim women. Van Gogh was murdered, gunned down while bicycling to work in Amsterdam in November 2004. The killer is behind bars, but he left a five page letter pinned to Van Gogh's chest with a knife and the note was a death threat addressed to Hirsi Ali. It has failed to silence her.
When asked why she calls herself a Muslim she says "I'm not, I've become an infidel", and that's the title of her book.
In the introduction to it she says "People ask me if I have some kind of death wish to keep saying the things I do. The answer is no, I'd like to keep living. However some things must be said and there are times when silence becomes an accomplice to injustice."
While in Australia she questioned the need for Islamic schools. She argued that young people should be groomed to be Australians first, to receive their nationality first, not religion.
She's aware that as an infidel the price many Muslims would want her to pay is death.
But she's quite specific when she says Islam is an inferior culture.
That Islam as a body of ideas is not compatible with human rights.
She's calling for an Islamic reformation similar to the one in which the West escaped medieval religious oppression.
She said she was surprised that people asked what it was like to live with death threats. She said that people who ask such questions have grown up in rich countries after the Second World War and they've taken life for granted.
She said "Where I grew up death is a constant visitor, a virus, a bacteria, a parasite, a drought or a famine. Soldiers and torturers could bring it to anyone at any time."
She called for Australia to re-evaluate the tolerance of multiculturalism and said we need a new framework in which immigrants have to adapt to the values and principles of their adopted country.
She said the terrorist attacks on the London Underground in July 2005 didn't surprise her.
They shocked her, but didn't surprise her.
She said "If one country has appeased and accommodated Islam and taken multiculturalism to its most absurd end, it's the UK."
(Ms Ali also warned Australia not to repeat the mistakes of European countries when it comes to Muslim immigration. She says the experience of massive Muslim immigration in the Netherlands should serve as a lesson to other nations. “Do not repeat the mistakes we made in Europe,” Ms Ali said)
When Islam says that its values are compassion, tolerance and freedom, Hirsi Ali says "Look at reality, at real cultures and Governments and I see that simply isn't so."
She said "People in the West swallow this sort of thing because they've learned not to examine the religions or cultures of minorities too critically for fear of being called racist. It fascinates them that I'm not afraid to do so."
She said the best way to shut people up in this modern debate is to call them racist.
Well, a remarkable woman by any reckoning, Ayaan Hirsi Ali calls herself an infidel, and that's the title of her new book.
Perhaps it hasn't received the attention it deserves in our country because Hirsi Ali is right "People in the West ... have learned not to examine the religions or cultures of minorities too critically for fear of being called racist ...".

(Alan Jones' Today Show Editorial—Ayaan Hirsi Ali - 6 June 2007)

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Islamic or Western culture—which is more tolerant? By Alan Jones

Islamic or Western culture—which is more tolerant?
By Alan Jones