The Orbis

Issue date: 3/26/08 Section: News/Features

Media Credit: Erika Hyde Ayaan Hirsi Ali delivered the IMPACT symposium's keynote address.

"Controversy" was the buzzword last Monday night when Ayaan Hirsi Ali delivered the keynote speech of the IMPACT Symposium. Ali, an internationally known author and critic of Islam, spoke about the fundamental flaws of the Islamic faith to an audience full of Muslim students angered by her words. Although her speech raised several valid criticisms of the religion and its practice, ultimately her skewed rhetoric and misunderstanding of Islam did more damage than good.

Ali was born in Somalia, a traditional Muslim society. She spent her formative years as a devout Muslim, but grew disillusioned with the faith over time. In 1992, she fled to the Netherlands, where she started her new life as an atheist and outspoken critic of her former religion.

Because of her public stance against Islam, Ali has faced several death threats from Muslim extremists and lives with constant personal security. Her story of persecution and hardship rightly evokes sympathy from audiences, but it was evident from her Impact speech that her anti-Islam rhetoric contains several flaws.

"I wanted to keep open-minded and just listen for the truth. I didn't go to defend my religion," said senior Nik Mohd Daniel Abdul Rahman. However, he and several other Malaysian students at the speech found problems with her argument. "She tries to talk about what Islam is, but only the bad parts are shown. She's not presenting the full picture."

Ali spoke about the human rights violations that stem from Muslim practices. She pointed to a strong gender disparity in Muslim communities, where girls are kept uneducated, forced into marriages, and subject to domestic violence. Ali herself was a victim of female genital mutilation at the age of eight and was forced to flee to Europe to escape an arranged marriage at the age of 22.

Undeniably, there are several tragic and flawed cultural practices carried out in the name of Islam and Allah. Though these problems cannot be trivialized, most of the students' criticisms of Ali's speech came from the fact that she was talking about the cultural implications of Islam rather than its religious roots.

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