Ayaan Hirsi Ali | Infidel, Nomad, Heretic

[Music] [Music] moving when a star is at all ladies and gentlemen welcome to this tenth edition or the not Amidala it's been four years now for that we carrying out activities sharing the most interesting visions on different issues of our times thanks to you and to your for your enthusiasm receptivity and interest is be possible to have here on this stage brilliant and excellent minds intellectuals and leaders who have made us think reflect and of course to see things from another point of view the view now dream in our brought some fresh new airs to the discussions of public interest to know about the intellectual traps where we may fall to exit from common places to appreciate dilemmas to understand for example that we should not expect much from the state itself or the government to recognize that from the civil society we can do much to face the most complex issues even and to find a profound sense to that effort so what have we learnt from our different guests I remember well the presentation by jonathan height and it's put his ideas on that man was not designed to to listen to reason if not it hears its own his own feelings and that his beliefs are nurtured beyond these feelings than from evidence that come from knowledge I say it's a different perturbing as an idea because we are enlightened we illusion with this idea that this would triumph over the beliefs whether it is unknown or denied but it has not been as such Jonathan Hite told us with eloquence that emotions can be stronger than reasons derived from knowledge that intuition is first and reason comes after one of them are most renowned guest was Neil Ferguson who he reminds us on the on the contribution of the founding fathers we consider these truths as evident to that men are created as equal that they have been endowed by the creator of certain unalienable rights that these rights are life freedom and the search of happiness but this true these evident truths do not have much acceptance in many parts of the world nor even is it sure that amongst ourselves we here today attending this event are ideas which are totally known understood or accepted the think on writer Mario Vargas your sir visited us last year and were I went one step further he affirms that the freedom is the law the best thing that has happened to a human being nevertheless the the best thing for a man is scarce in many parts of the world paradoxically freedom is a scarce good and only a few can truly enjoy it Deirdre McCloskey when she came over here she said further asleep at for her as also for Adam Smith development is the consequence of freedom john Tomasi John's here with us today this afternoon who also we had as a guest on lauter Amidala he showed us how free market is not necessarily a place where selfishness and lowest passions occur if not it's possible to prosper with freedom liberty dignity and justice I am sure that Philippe Philippe equally yours if we had had him here in one of our events of loud Romina de fate wanted something else nevertheless his ideas and his works still persist amongst ourselves Philippe used to say I am convinced that the defeat of freedom is not due to the force of its power of its enemies if not the weakness of its defenders how right was he on this thought what we wish for is to contribute to the to critical thinking which is substantial - for the exercise of freedom ideas uncomfortable ideas sometimes that take us from our take us out from our comfort zones we ask questions we mistrust the order which has been taught to earth to us and we accept very comfort because it's easy it's easy to accept this this even goes with our religious beliefs as well we have wanted to contribute to the space in fact of questioning more than a safe Asylum of our certainties nevertheless the labyrinth in which one the society finds itself is complex enough to trust ourselves and the easy answers which come from populism of Fannett political fanaticism or religious fanaticism as well I am the path the truth and life the story of humanity is also the story of belief of human beings despite looking for scent a sort of sense is the history of religions and faiths how many prophets and wise men or wise women could we name starting off bar with Abraham Jesus and Mohammed religions have accompanied us because it has they have give us certain guidelines values and promises even they have helped us to fill the uncertainties of reason and with this or on behalf of or in the name of all the different weird divinities we have made policies exercise power and even declared war the sixteenth chapel is the Magnificent expression of that religious truth that we believe in even though you cannot be seen easily hell it is represented in this fresco by Michelangelo as a huge threat or from here we go to the Spanish Inquisition and the witch hunt to violence or restrictions of freedom on behalf or in the name of the religion in the case that we see here in this image of christianism I asked you all to observe this image on the screen please raise your hand those who of you who can recognize this image there's a very silly question maybe no we all obviously recognize us well I assure you that each of us remember exactly where we were and what we were doing on September 11th 2001 the same moment when these attacks the terrorist attacks to the Twin Towers caracal were carried out I remember however terrorism has always existed is it terror is terror the works of those who have kidnapped faith and abused it and when they to exert it from the principles of a religion the surgeon saw radical movements and Paulo Paulo politics not necessarily those violent ones have a certain argument or certain foundations which is similar five hundred years ago Martin Luther asked many uncomfortable questions and their answers gave origin to a reform of huge proportions one of the greatest reforms of human history has opened incipient spaces for freedom one question that we always ask ourselves as a following why be free this ideal of freedom is so difficult to create one of these answers by our guest is because it's much more easier to accept the rules imposed upon us it's easier to be not to be different on purpose of the photograph that you see here it has been now only merely 30 years since the collapse of the Berlin Wall yes your freedom is that we do not defend it we do not know why we have to defend it and it ends up being more comfortable just to submerge ourselves under an order imposed on us I will not expend myself on these issues nevertheless I conserve them and in order to in introduce what we're going to talk about today a crucial challenge and global challenge for these times for democracy the state of law freedom and free institutions rule of law and not just for the west where these institutions have achieved up to now to prevail we will not reach here in Santiago today to a final answer this is merely another chapter of a long very long discussion which we wanted to open with you through loud that Amidala making you participants of these questions ask guests of today is ideal to maintain this conversation alive she was born in Somalia a country which for the majority of us is pretty much unknown far we don't know hardly anything of this territory which is located in the eastern part of Africa from here we have our special guest a yawn he'll see Ali she is part of a critical and very brave cause which is Moving's Western and Muslim societies are four switches wishes change defending human rights which is struggling for freedom in fact she herself chose against all difficulties and all challenges as she chose freedom women should be free to dress how they want in certain countries they can drive it they can study it's possible to question - even to abandon religion without suffering consequences even fatal consequences ayan has now started off an impossible journey a reform for Islam I'm not going to enter into details because surely she will share with us more details I just wanted to say nevertheless that she is a woman offered at most incredible intelligence and strength have earned however her accused by her enemies as offensive or promoter of hate Inc in fact that's why we have so much security never never ever happening before in this sort of event in this place in this facility she's author of many books like the Caged virgin infidel and Nomad one of the last is heretic which has been published in Spanish as let's reform Islam in Spanish I can he see Ali as a woman of action also she carries out initiative to to struggle against problems which affect women in different societies like mute genital mutilation fixed marriage or where weddings honor crimes of Honor and child weddings and she promotes in university campuses it's critical thinking also and free discussion so what better to invite her now to the stage and give the floor so she can serve as a inspiration so we educate us in the exercise which is much more profound er of freedom thank you very much [Applause] [Music] [Laughter] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] ladies and gentlemen thank you very much I want to start by saying what an incredibly great privilege it is a pleasure an honor to be here I want to thank Nikolas a family man a patriot a cosmopolitan an entrepreneur a philanthropist a feminist and a champion of chivalry for everything that he has done for Chile for Humanity I would say and most specifically for making the work of academics on the right just a touch more glamorous than it usually is I also want to express her thrilled I am to see my friend and inspire Richard Dawkins I'm so humbled to be here and Richard thank you very much for making this appearance you know a poor little girl from Somalia as you could see having to be in your presence it's just absolutely thrilling absolutely thrilling thank you for your work please excuse me I have a cold I have been asked and I must over and over again to speak to audiences like yourselves about why I speak and tonight my prepared remarks before the question and answer session will be to try and explain that you are fascinated by my life I'm told but sadly I am NOT there are parts that I would rather forget there are painful parts there are parts of my life that are so dull I don't want to think about them there are parts that I have completely forgotten I'm 49 years old I'm going to turn 50 this year that is half a century you've just been watching pictures of Somalia I don't know if the life expectancy in Somalia these days gets down to 50 that is how lucky I am there are parts that embarrass me and yes while there may be some parts of my life that are useful to illustrate for my speaking engagements I think I've told them too often you hear that ayaan Hirsi Ali speaks because of her courage but nothing could be farther from the truth in facts I am the biggest coward that ever was I squeal when I see a bug I jump when I hear loud noises and in my personal life I am terrified of disagreements and dislike of them I hide from confrontation until it finds me in short I am NOT brave I survived the childhood of a girl growing up in Africa the childhood of a Muslim child a Muslim girl I was subjected to female genital mutilation in Somalia but I am NOT an exception 97 percent of the girls in Somalia according to the United Nations are subjected to female genital mutilations and the same applies to girls in Sudan in Egypt and in it Eritrea nothing exceptional there I witnessed and I survived the misery of dependence dependence for my existence and others and not just for my existence but for my subsistence I watched my mother humiliated I carry on my skin the scars of her rage as she tried to balance her work life and her work was to beg the relatives of the man who abandoned her for money to feed and to clothe and to house my siblings and me her life was harsh it was brutal it was bare and that she did for my siblings and me and again this was not an exception there were millions and still are of Africans who are in fact poorer by the time I was 18 I was burning with the desire to be independent independence for me at that point was not some high-flying cosmic narrative I just wanted to live my life in a way that was different from my mother's that was different from the lives of my classmates from my cousins and the other women who toiled who complied who suffered and then paradoxically past the customs their beliefs and the practices that were at the root of their suffering on to their daughters I survived my childhood not because I was brave gifted glamorous exceptional in any way I was lucky I was lucky more often than not I give you three examples the first example it was my father's decision to send me to school that is something that I cannot take credit for the second example it was the Saudi government's decision to deport my family in 1978 when I was only 8 years old it's something that I cannot take credit for and that was seen by my mother as extremely negative but imagine if we had remained in Saudi Arabia imagine if I had grown up there I am of course infinitely grateful to the Saudi government for deporting my family the third example is the coincidence of my travel I did obey my inner impulse to run away from life that my father the life that my father intended for me this was in 1992 I was in Germany on my way to Canada to join the man that he had chosen for me and I changed my mind said of going to Canada I took a train from Germany to Holland I do that because of the Schengen treaty named for a place in Luxembourg that allowed for the free movement of people between a number of European countries and because of the asylum laws I cannot take credit for the Schengen treaty or the asylum Asylum laws but it did work to my advantage luckiiy which is what my name I am means had more to do with my survival and my thriving than some innate gift or courage on my part in the 1990s I found my independence in Holland I learned to speak Dutch I took cleaning jobs and worked in a factory that is something that I still say to young people I'm at Stanford today and when they come to me and say what should I be doing I wanted to change the world I tell them go and work in factories and take cleaning jobs it teaches you so much I made friends and I gradually made a living as an interpreter and translator for abused immigrant women I signed up for a degree in the University of Leiden you know what political science why because I wanted to understand what it was that made a Holland so peaceful so prosperous so humane so free my focus in my studies was political philosophy and this the exposure to the world of ideas and in particular the ideas of the Enlightenment that had a powerful influence on me by the time I was thirty I led the life of a middle-class European woman a life that could not be more different from my mother's I now had the means the education and an interesting satisfying exciting job to go to every morning in terms of my politics there was nothing interesting original or different from most of the other people that I associated with I became a member of the Social Democratic Party it's like eating cheesecake that is because everyone did that all my professors my fellow graduates my neighbors they were all Social Democrats when I say Social Democrats in our beliefs we were to the left of Bernie Sanders and why not social democracy meant a just and fair Society our work week was all about balancing our careers with our free time we didn't have to worry about incomes and pensions and all that sort of thing for those of us who had or wanted children there was money for day care our health care was universal and our life had great quality in those days I would think of my mother my poor mother's life if only she had lived in Holland I would think the Social Democratic safety net would catch her and meant that she would not have had to suffer the indignity of begging my father's relatives for money in those days it didn't occur to me to speak in public or to write about Islam Muslims and national security the issues that I deal with now you will hear that I speak on women's rights or for women I do I should after what I survived I find it is my obligation my duty to speak out against the belief system the customs and the practices that to this day continue to rob girls and women of their rights their freedoms their dignity it is not just female genital mutilation but there is a specific type of domestic violence that's defended in the name of honor in the name of honor little girls as young as 8 9 10 11 12 13 are forced into marriage in the name of Honor these little girls are denied access to education or they are pulled out of school in the name of Honor they're placed under permanent house arrest in the name of Honor they are routinely beaten and in the name of Honor sadly tragically they are killed I speak on the issues of women's rights because I am a survivor and in much the same way as some cancer survivors choose to educate the public on the risks of cancer I choose to educate the public on the plight of Muslim women the consequences for those women and the spillover effects on the rest of society when I say the spillover I'm now working on a book in which large numbers of Muslim immigrant men who are in Europe are treating European women on the streets in much the same way as they treat women back in their home countries that is something that I speak out on and that everyone should speak out and bring a stop to but there is even an a more important reason why I choose to speak and it started for me Christ after 9/11 2001 I described to you the stark difference of my childhood whoops I feel like I've jumped nope I haven't I described to you the stark difference between the world of my childhood and the one I found in Holland the perpetrators of the attacks on the United States on 9/11 died and killed for an ideology that was determined to destroy the way of life I and millions and millions of others enjoyed and continued to enjoy in free societies they represent an ideology that has its foundation in Islam the religion that I was raised in 17 years ago my first mental challenge was to acknowledge this that the agents of political Islam when they referenced the Koran the holy book of Islam which I regarded as our holy book and the Prophet Muhammad the founder of Islam whom I regarded as the most honourable of all human beings were accurate I started going through some of bin Laden's writings to pick up the Quran when he referenced from it and to my shock I found that in fact his citations were precise the ideologues that inspired bin Laden like site could've referenced not just some verses of the Koran but the lifestyle and the legacy of the Prophet Muhammad so as a young woman of only 31 years old I first had to come to terms with the plain but extremely painful truth that what I called my religion was not being misinterpreted misused or misunderstood by the men who sought to replace the constitution of Liberty with the constitution of political Islam as a teenager I was a member of the Muslim Brotherhood and back then in the weeks right after 9/11 I was reminded of that membership back then I believed that Sharia law or Islamic law was the highest and most just law and that it was superior to any kind of man-made legal system I believed in Jihad sometimes when I went to a mosque I cupped my hands right after prayer and I said I mean like everyone else around me when the Imam prayed for the annihilation of the Jews and the destruction of America and the destruction of Israel and the destruction of the infidels ice up there cupping my hands and going army I mean like everyone else in those weeks after 9/11 I had to come to terms with the differences the radical difference between who I was as a teenager and who I had become as an adult with the conscience of an adult with the education I enjoyed at the University of Leiden with the lifestyle that I was leading and now with the knowledge of the political philosophy of freedom I could no longer view Mohamed as my moral guide I found much of his legacy immoral now when I thought of Sharia law I said it nobody forced me to speak out I could have gone on with my comfortable life I could have like many other Muslims argued that I lead a peaceful and productive life and I have nothing to do with misogyny and the violence the violence is that are carried out in the name of my religion I had to speak out if I speak out it is because when Sharia law is applied this is what they do look at Iran look at Saudi Arabia look at parts of Nigeria look at Indonesia look at Pakistan look at what Isis it in the past years that is Sharia law that is Islamic law in action I speak out because homosexuals are thrown from tall buildings I speak out because when people in prayer say annihilate the Christians annihilate the Jews when they do get government power that is exactly what they do and they do it in the name of Sharia I speak out because when Islamists say a husband may use force against his wife when they come to power they implement that they groom young boys and young men to force to use force against girls and women now I want to emphasize that it is not all Muslims who are violent or misogynist I want to emphasize that it is not all Muslims who believe in cruel and unusual punishment it's not even all Muslims who support Sharia law I call those Muslims who do support Sharia law the medina Muslims because they invoke Muhammad the founder of Islam during his time as an Empire Builder in Mohammed in Medina where he and his small militia converted people to the religion of Islam Muhammad's religion by the sword I believe that the vast majority of Muslims prefer to accentuate the spiritual aspects of Islam I call them Mecca Muslims because when they speak of Muhammad's influence on them they only speak in terms of spirituality and religion but the problem is that the Mecca Muslims do not challenge the political claims of the medina Muslims they do not dare to because they do not dare argue or stand up to the infallibility or the claims of infallibility of Muhammad now there is a growing number of Muslims individuals and they live as minorities they are not satisfied with the status quo their standing up to the medina Muslims and their goal is to transform their own Muslim majority countries but they have to stand up to the medina Muslims and what is the goal of the medina Muslims the goal of the medina Muslims is to transform all Muslim majority countries into Islamic theocracies and to use Muslim immigrants minorities as a beachhead to Islamist societies even free ones medina Muslims use a combination of force and that is called jihad along with the dissemination of the ideology a mechanism an infrastructure of indoctrination known as Dawa in theory Dawa is the call to Islam and consists of proselytizing in practice it is a process of radical brainwashing Dawa advocates the use of missionary cover belief work education cultural activities to advance the political agenda and arguably the mosques and the madrasas I have learned in my period here that there is a mosque established by Saudi Arabia here in Chile mosques such as these that are funded by Saudi Arabia or Qatar are examples of Dawa on your Shores the agents of Dawa target the individual the family the education system the workplace the broader economic society as a whole the most ripe targets are the disenfranchised member of society young men in prison those in poverty their goals are just as totalitarian as the Communists and the fascists of the past but they enjoy much greater protections than the totalitarians of the past because they appear to be engaged in religious activity indeed their efforts are Santa sometimes supported and subsidized on grounds of religious freedom the upheaval we see in the Muslim world today is not solely due to despotic political systems it's not only because of failing economies and the poverty they read I want to argue that it is rather because of his lung because Islam in itself and the incompatibility of certain key facets of that faith that are the breeders of evil and poverty and backwardness that is why the most important conflict in the world today is between those who will defend to the death those incompatibilities on the one hand and those who are prepared to challenge them not to condemn or to malign muslims but to reform Islam this is where that third subset of Muslims come in the Reformers the modifiers this small but growing group openly questioned the political aspects of Islam and at least some features of Sharia law in my book heretic I described these performance men and women young old clerics and ordinary individuals in the West we don't really know their names in the Cold War the West celebrated dissidents such as Alexander Solzhenitsyn Andrei Sakharov and vaclav havel who had the courage to challenge the Soviet system from within today there are many dissidents who challenge Islam former Muslims like myself and reformers but the West either ignores them or dismisses them as not representative and this is a grave mistake performance such as Tao filter Hamid Asura normally in the United States Majid Noah's in the United Kingdom Hamid of the Sabbath siren artists in Germany Afghani dawn manse in Austria jolly Tavakoli I believe in Denmark he has mean Hamid in Canada and others they must be seen they must be heard they must be given platforms they must be supported and they must be protected like my friend Richard Dawkins has seen me and loved me and protected me and inspired me many of these reformers face threats public shaming and worse for speaking out this is not in Iran Egypt Turkey Saudi Arabia these people are threatened by the propagators of dower in liberal societies like the United States Germany the United Kingdom and Canada there was a debate in the United Kingdom and whether to take a CRB be the Christian woman who was persecuted for blasphemy in Pakistan because there is a large Pakistani community in the United Kingdom who might kill her think about that there is some irony in the fact that anyone who publicly doubts Islam's peaceful intentions is likely to be threatened with violence for the world at large the only viable strategy for containing the threat posed by the medina Muslims is to side with the Reformers and to help them do two things first it's to identify and to repudiate those parts of Muhammad's legacy that summon Muslims to intolerance and war and second it is to help them to persuade the great majority of Muslim believers the Mecca Muslims to accept this change for too long we have confined ourselves to countering violent extremism we must stop not only the violent entities like Al Shabaab I don't know if you saw the news today but my fellow Somalis organized under the banner of al Qaeda attacks people innocent people in Nairobi and of course mayhem entities like Isis like al-qaeda and Boko Haram but we must also dismantle the networks of Dawa we must dismantle the networks of Dawa which are often the preparatory schools for jihad we must make the long-term commitment to defend and promote our principles of freedom of tolerance of equality and of reason here and abroad at the very least we must stop facilitating the spread of an ideology that is fundamentally hostile to our own freedom I am NOT a cleric I have no weekly congregation I simply read and write and think at Stanford's Hoover Institution those who might object that I am NOT a trained theologian or a trained historian or an Islam expert are correct but it is not my purpose single-handedly to engage the Muslim wall in a theological debate rather it is my purpose to encourage Muslim reformers and dissidents to confront the obstacles to reform that they seek and to encourage the rest of us the rest of us who enjoy these freedoms to support them in whatever way we can I speak out because I believe strongly that the constitution of Liberty is superior to the Constitution of the Quran and political Islam and to stay silent is to acquiesce if we speak out we have a chance of preserving our freedoms for us and our children and our grandchildren and the world thank you [Applause] [Music] okay okay I don't know he's working yes okay thank you again for this wonderful and moving speech I think that nobody in this room can be indifferent to your life and to answer your ideas but let me tell that you failing something if you say that you are not brave we don't believe it if you say that you don't have original ideas we don't believe you because now we know you're a little more and you are a great person and I think everybody knows with you there is always a temptation to talk more about your lives that you about your idea that's a problem it's a problem but we will not be an exception here because many people have to know more about you when I read your book about your life I at some point I didn't know if I was reading a novel because it was so different of what I think everybody here has fake or leave and I was a kind of fascinating with your parents characters first your mother your mother was very unique she has first married I just understand but she get divorce very quick and that was very strange in that moment it's till now and she married your father for love very strange concept cause your father by the way it was a very active man he was educated in the state he studied at the Columbia University and he was a great leader of democracy in a country where democracy was not even an idea but what intrigued me about your parents is that if they were so unique they give you the same life that more or less all your colleagues or friends has and you get at five years old the genital mutilation I know that your father was not there but you get it you were treated as a second class citizen because you were a government and you were forced to marry it to another person even your father was living with another woman living in that time how do you explain all this contradiction about how your father were at the beginning how it ended your life yeah so the way I explained that is by saying it is true my father had been exposed to the West he had he had come to the United States he was fascinated by American democracy he wanted to supplant it in Somalia my mother was at some point I don't know she had the inspiration that's she didn't want to live with this man that was that propelled her her father chose for her this man but she didn't want to be with him those were impulses in a context where these deep-rooted traditions and practices and religious beliefs were still established so even though my father was forward-looking when it was convenient for him to be polygamous he was polygamous when it was convenient for him to dictate this is the man you are going to marry he did it because the institutions the culture the norms hadn't transformed-- quite as completely as what he found in America and in fact if you look at the life of say Acuto there I would say one of the the biggest inspirers of radical Islam he started in really really Colorado and there was a lot in his alien life that suggested that he was consuming and enjoying American life and at some point he became disenchanted with freedom with civilization with democracy and turned his back on it and became so angry that he started to hark back to this 7th century utopia and that is them how he inspired his followers so I think that that in Luke let me call it the Rousseau impulses idea of romance of falling back in time to think that what we've left behind is more pure more appealing more virtuous that that is a universal impulse and my father and my mother were much closer by the way to a context where things actually hadn't changed that much and it was easier to fall back then say where we are now we have there is a part of your life also that you were very engaged with the Muslim brother you said yes and I don't remember that you used you used to use the Guru callosum I didn't wear the burka oh okay I know you saw a garment here in the video at the beginning where there is an open where your eyes are visible but the rest of you is hidden that's the kind of in a way yeah yeah and used to celebrate the fatwa from for yes and you were there then it's a you have to imagine when you change your opinion and decide to escape from all of that I understand that you begin to change when you live in Holland but you take a plane because this sir is this the your husband was living in Canada and you have to take a plane to visit him in Canada but the plane made a stop in Germany and she decided not to take the plane to Canada instead you went to Holland yeah but that was a big big decision yeah for you where where was this Strang to do that I don't know if you can call it strength it was you know my father hadn't made up his mind he said this is what your future is going to be like this is the man you're going to marry and it's the right decision and I think he did it again out of his motive was to be protective and to secure my future but that's not what I saw what I saw when I imagined my life with the man that my father chose for me what I imagined was a replication of my mother's life of all these women I had seen who had been married off and who had been thrown into a life of dependence and chaos and my mother's life very much was determined by the circumstances we moved from country to country my father was absent she didn't speak the language she didn't earn any money she had to look after these three children and she didn't know what to do and she was absolutely desperate from day to day and she had flights of Rage and sometimes she expressed her helplessness and her powerlessness her beating us up and destroying the furniture and you know could you blame her I don't know so I thought that's not of the life I want I've been luckier than my mother because I actually did go to school and learn something and in Germany I had that sudden choice that sudden window of opportunity I could go to Canada and comply with tradition and I knew how that script would end or I could just take that train and jump into the unknown and see what happens and now sitting here and being mrs. Ferguson I can tell you that was the better choice and that's what I tell [Applause] Nicholas we will have to tell Neil Ferguson about that being mrs. Ferguson okay mrs. Ferguson mr. Ferguson doesn't beat me mr. Ferguson doesn't abandon me mr. Ferguson tells he does what I tell him to do big difference that's a great man well we're talking about ninety-two you were funny 23 years old when you write to your 22 service yeah and there is a part of your life that seems normal normal in terms that you are unknown you have this job that you describe and there were also some funny things was the first time you had to get a pair of pants yeah a big one why were there so big because I think I still didn't quite feel comfortable with exposing parts of my skin because remember I was it was programmed in me even the tiniest bit of flesh of skin that you expose as a female is going to drive this man crazy so I come in 1992 July of 1992 to the Netherlands it's summer it's a very hot summer and all these women are in shorts and miniskirts and tank tops and the men are also in shorts and life is moving on perfectly fine and well I look at these people horrified they look at me horrified and but white Dutch people who are working in the asylum seekers and to see it is so hot how on earth can you move around in this because I'm covered from head to toe and there's this mutual incomprehension and and I think that is it is through encounters through conversations that you convince one another and think good I felt I was open to understand how it all started and I would just ask a question so the men are just gonna be normal and they would be absolutely what do you mean and empirically observing I could see that man who saw lots and lots and lots of female flesh we're just going on in the most civilized terrain they were not well you have to read the book but there is some story for your first visit to a pool and you see people in swimsuit and or your first visit to a pub yeah things like that but you have to read the book for them but can I please undress just point out to those who live in Europe today that incident where I'm looking at these men and thinking okay heavens they're okay they're doing nothing now there are a young boys and men who were raised in muslim-majority countries who have been told you can't control yourself you see a female you jump her and they're coming from Afghanistan from Somalia from Eritrea from parts of the Middle East and that's exactly what they are doing in Europe and the European men governments people in the media are looking at them and either making excuses or saying oh yeah they come from war-torn countries or they're saying it's the odd man out but they still don't want to face this cultural difference that if you if you raise men like he goats they behave like Eagles that's great yeah don't say that that you look yes that's subject of my next book you mention 9/11 and it's the time where you begin could you decide to speak out more or less and one of the way you speak out with this film called submission that you work with to you mango yeah and the consequence was tragedy when Tia was murder and in his body I understand they put a letter in where they say that the next will be you and for that time your lives change forever I think assume that you cannot live a free life as we understand you have to go with bodyguards you have to move from one country to another and how is this feeling to live in constant danger so first of all the threats against me started in 2001 and 2002 and from 2002 November when I went back to the Netherlands I was in the u.s. going back to the Netherlands I had six men from the Secret Service with me at all times there were periods when I would have two men period when I would have four men but six men and I always want to point out that the threats against me didn't start after Theo Fangoria was killed and the constraints to my life didn't start then in fact I am Alive because I had protection and because Theo did not have it that is the practical point but the not so practical point is we I mean the Netherlands prides itself on being the foundational country of freedom of tolerance of critical thinking and what Theo finger and I were doing was we were engaging in that you know traditions long practice of Holland you know you have an intolerant set of ideas you scrutinize them you mock them you make film Lucy you make arts about it that's exactly what you are doing we did that fearful girl was killed and all of that went away submission the film was who moved from museums from anywhere where it was going to be shown hate crimes were introduced and to this day it's extremely difficult to have a conversation a critical conversation about what these set of these radical Islamic set of ideas means in practice okay anyway submission is in YouTube you can everybody can can see it if they were it yeah it's on YouTube but I mean no it's because if they want to see it yeah talking about critical thinking we talked a lot about the threat that you have from the Islamic group some of the Islamic group well I don't want to make you know but it's strange me more what happened with people from the Muslim world and I want to remember you another example that happened in 2014 when Brad this university designed not to give you an honorary degree that they have offered you and you have offered you to speak at the commencement of that year because some professors and some other people decide that you were not appropriate your ideas were not occupied then in which moment this liberal community or these big institutions that are supposed to teach about critical thinking the freedom of speech became so timid about the Islam and our ideas where is this happen yeah what is happening what's happening so there is a phenomenon in public discourse in general in the United States and especially on University campuses where it is so fashionable for people to be offended students are not seen as or the institution of the university apparently no longer probably it doesn't apply to all universities and it doesn't apply to all professors it doesn't apply to all administration's but there's this general idea that universities are now not in the business of teaching students how to think they're in the business of protecting students from ideas that they might find offensive there is a vocabulary in circulation microaggressions trigger warnings safe spaces all sorts of in my view absolute rubbish pure garbage are nonsense and you shouldn't be but you know some of these universities they pay up to $60,000 a year a year and if that is what your child is being exposed to then I think people shouldn't be paying for that but what I can say on an empirical level is this is what is happening in the United States and what the radical Islamist organizations on campus do the student organizations and those who who financed them who resource them what they do is they're taking advantage of that particular culture that is now in sway it's not radical Muslims who have rendered American universities intolerant but because American universities are in in the grip of this crazy spell they're exploiting that you are the platform from a radio so richard docket can you believe it Richard Dawkins was a D platform meaning he wasn't that his his speaking was canceled by a radio in San Francisco in San Francisco so there's something that's going on in the United States of America that makes me think it's you don't need outside forces and enemies from Islam or China or Russia to come and bring the United States now we are doing it happily ourselves Mario Vargas Llosa who was here with us a year ago right about you that it's incredible that a woman that live in Somalia who lived your life is now one of the most prestigious defender of the freedom who is the only gift that oxygen can give to the rest of the world that what to say that is a compliment for you okay but even that in the university is particularly difficult to critique this lamb I mean there are other topics around but it's lamb is particularly difficult I mean there seems to be very well organized persons you describe some of that it's still difficult to you to go to universities to different place to talk about it's not difficult for me it's not any more difficult than it was 10 years ago but what makes it difficult is 10 years ago I could have in the audience people who would say I really disagree with you and they would they would put forward arguments that were well thought through that I thought I learned something from they would look at my work my numbers they would they would say you looked at this context but you didn't look at this context you're generalizing etc and now I find what's happening very different they're people I say I'm not even willing to listen I'm preemptively offended and you have campaigns where me or other speakers whose works they don't like they simply say you can't even have them on the we don't we won't even listen we won't engage with them and I think I just can't imagine how frightening that is and this is not on religious grounds and the people who use this language who hoody platform people who silence they're using the vocabulary of human rights they're saying that it is their human rights to demand that a speaker not come what you think Islam is still popular in some groups especially young people yeah why is this Lomb let me say it doctrinaire islam the agents of that doctrine they offer their clients their consumers their audience their targets a life where everything is thought through everything is planned from the time you wake up in the morning till the time you go to bed they provide you with the most clear rules so you don't have to bother with the exercise of thinking and I think for a lot of people a lot of human beings that is appealing you don't have to think you don't have to worry about anything you just do as you're told when I was a member of the Muslim Brotherhood I remember some of the preachers saying to us when you wake up in the morning you get out of bed left foot first than right foot and when you're going into the toilet left foot fast right foot first when you're getting into your shoes right foot first left if you internalize all of that you memorize it then and you're told you're leading a virtuous life and at the end of that life you're going to die and I think what Islam provides in many ways is an encounter with the idea of death and what happens I was supposedly after death if you do all of that after death you're going to be rewarded if you are a young man with a lot of sex if you are a young woman with a lot of fruits you have been engaged in this idea to reform this lamb and denounce many of his ideas but there are some indicators that show that it's less freedom in some Islamic countries know there is some indicator as you said that in Europe Islamic areas are beginning to grow are you still with that strength to fight or to all of this I mean you see if you talk about Kenya now we we saw today a hotel with a bomb they kill Riverside a complex yeah look for Europe it really is up to the Europeans to fight for their own legacy and the sad thing about Europe is the only moment in their history that they seem to reference is this the period just before the Second World War and the only figure that they seem to think of is Hitler and Europeans especially Germans every time these issues are raised they seem to think that their populations will fly into a fancy of genocide and as long as this is the case it's impossible to have these debates and discussions I think most Europeans are well-meaning most European leaders are well-meaning but in instead of what they need to understand is instead of being psychologically mired in the totalitarian nightmare of the past they have to actually face the totalitarian nightmare of the moment in the future and it's up to Europeans to do that I'm not a European anymore in fact woman rights are a key to a nearest statement and I know what you said in your speech but and you're very focused in the woman right and Islam but woman rights are it's a major issue in every country in these days in the States in Europe here in Chile and yesterday in a target we have you said that you also were a little surprised of what happened with human rights in America yeah let me ask you what about their meet to mobile movement you like it so the me two movements started with a perfectly legitimate problem the the symbolic figure the the guy who was outed was a Harvey Weinstein and he was committing all sorts of sexual misconduct in the workplace against his employees and then you know that reports seemed to bring out the fact that he wasn't the only one that in the entertainment industry and in the media industry this has been going on for a long time perfectly legitimate story perfectly legitimate cause and then the fringes of society somehow on the far radical left they they came and they I think hijacks this hall me to thing and they have turned it into a war envoys and men and not just a war on boys and men but also a war between men and women there are now figures in woman in wall street who are saying don't go anywhere near a woman don't say on the same floor with them you know don't have lunch with them and I think paradoxically the me to movements has set back women's rights in time and I don't know if you all this is chilly I don't know if you followed the Supreme Court hearings Brett Kavanaugh one of the candidates who is now in the Supreme Court if you see if you saw that process what I saw was disturbing it was a whole mass of people who were saying I believe her I believe who I believe her I'm not interested in the presumption of innocence I'm not interested in evidence and this is the United States of America and I thought that is absolutely frightening I didn't assume that he was innocent I didn't assume that the accusers who are lying I simply wanted to know what happened but all around me people were saying you cannot do that you have to believe her and I don't think that that is good for women when we talk about individual rights and individual freedoms I don't mean to say that it's only women who have rights and only women who have individual freedoms it's also men it is this is the society so it I presumed if you're going to make an accusation like that you have to come and present the it the evidence and it's very sad that in the United States of America that we do give into mass hysteria time and to me it's still mass hysteria until some evidence is provided at least that guy was elected to the Supreme Court that's a good meal wait yeah he went into the Supreme Court but it is the stuff it is what it symbolized you know there is an economist at Harvard now Colin fryer who's being accused he's taken away his his job is taken on his tenure ship is probably going to be taken away and the accusation is that he made jokes this it creates us me to think has created a toxicity between the relationship in the relationship between men and men and men we have to finish I would take it risk yeah you think Richard want to ask a question to you it's to can I give you the mark this is exciting okay I am curious why the so-called liberal left is so soft on Islam and so hostile to people like you it seems to me to be that you you are your you have made enemies among the people who ought to be your friends as you know that is because the liberal left is now more left than its liberal they have abandoned classical liberal principles they have abandoned the principle of the presumption of innocence they have abandoned the principle of life and of Liberty of reason of critical thinking they think now in collectives in identity politics it's all about groups they want to divide society into groups that vote them into office that is the way I think that the left most of the left has now become far left the democratic party in the United States is now moving so far left is frightening as you know in your own country Jeremy Corbyn you know his principles that is not in the least liberal it has nothing to do with liberalism and I think that is where that unholy alliance comes from with between the Islamists and the left because they they care more about the collective they care more about coming into power and staying in power than that they care about individual liberty they don't care about science they don't care about the things that this organization stands for the things that you and I stand for great and now Nicholas has the last question you don't want to ask I just want to tell you one thing you read a lot of books I mean you were living in Somalia or Saudi Arabia or Kenya and even no but you always mentioned the books that you read that was important for you look so important absolutely books are still important I think that but it's probably a cliche to say that the path to emancipation and especially to the emancipation of those who are deprived who are underprivileged - it is it is through the path of books it's through reading it's through education it's through information and it is through engaging with ideas that are disturbing ideas that are provocative that I think is the path to knowledge and happiness great well again miss Ferguson thank you for being here and like very good luck with your fight [Applause] [Music] oops [Music] you

Channel: Fundación para el Progreso

Views: 27,724

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Id: p4Ax_yWZ8Io

Length: 86min 41sec (5201 seconds)

Published: Wed Jan 16 2019