The Caged Virgin - Ayaan Hirsi Ali [75]
But if these critical Muslims took their comparative analysis a little further, they would discover that the number of “word nazis” in the Christian and Jewish worlds is far smaller than in the Islamic world. The God of the Christians and Jews has been tamed by reasonable people and largely moved to the believer’s private conscience. Nowadays, God is referred to as “love” or as “energy,” and those who believe in Him have done away with the concept of hell. Christianity and Judaism have lost their grip on the individual, although the priests, ministers, and rabbis have not allowed this to happen of their own free will. The prevalence of freedom of conscience, the search for knowledge, and the individual control over human nature in the West were hard-won conquests, all of which began as a battle of words.
Most women born in what were originally Jewish-Christian states can safely go out in the streets on their own, have equal access to education, reap the rewards of their labor, and choose with whom they want to share their lives. They are in charge of their sexual needs, the decision to get pregnant, and the number of children they want. Most of the women of Jewish or Christian descent are free to travel around the world, buy a house of their own, and have their own possessions. Not all of them, but the majority. Only a tiny fraction of the women in Muslim families can do any of these things. They have virtually no right of self-determination.
Jews and Christians have achieved this in the West by criticizing their holy texts, by ridiculing things that are said in the Bible and Talmud, and pointing out that many of these things are wrong. The ancient texts have survived, but our ideas about how the sexes should relate to each other have moved on. When Jews and Christians discovered the power of words and images, they used them to shine a light onto their belief and culture, to find inconsistencies, to stop harmful practices, and to promote merciful, humane ones. Time after time, those who wanted to preserve the status quo complained that the texts, images, and behavior of their critics were “hurtful,” “sinful,” and “radical.” For centuries the church encouraged the faithful to ignore its critics. It held inquisitions. It ignored priests who behaved immorally and illegally until the people would not allow it anymore. The same must happen in Islam. The people who truly love the beauty of their faith must act to stamp out the ugliness.
The history of the West is the search for enlightenment through self-reflection. This is the source of its democratic practices and its power. I have borrowed my strategy of criticizing Islam from the Jewish-Christian insurrection against the absolutism of religious faith. I made in this context. How effective my controversial strategy can be will be known to anyone familiar with the struggle between the churches of the West. As I say, I am an optimist.
Sixteen
Portrait of a Heroine
as a Young Woman
One of my current heroines is Samira Ahmed, a twenty-four-year-old girlishly pretty woman with large, brown, doelike eyes, dark, curly hair, and a smile that seduces even the gloomiest of faces to lighten up and smile back. Besides her good nature, she is also inquisitive and has a strong will to be her own person. Born to a family who left Morocco in the early 1980s and settled in the Netherlands, she is one of ten children.
In the summer of 2005, I attended her graduation ceremony at a training college in Amsterdam. Samira received a diploma for pedagogy and a record 10 score (the highest score possible) for her thesis.
This is the celebratory side