In this episode of Relatable today, I interview Anne-Anne Hersey-Ali about her new book, "Infidel" and her work in the field of women's rights, feminism, and the culture wars. Anne is a former member of the Netherland's parliament, an author, a refugee, and a former representative from the netherlands as well, Anne was named one of Time Magazine's 100 Most Influential people in 2005, and she is a founder of a foundation that raises awareness about female genital mutilation in Islamic communities, not just abroad, but also here in the United States. Anne also has a foundation to raise awareness about Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) that is happening in islamic communities not just in the USA, but in many other countries, including the Netherlands, Turkey, Ethiopia, and Kenya.
00:00:00.000hello hello welcome to relatable today i am having a wonderful fascinating interview with a wonderful
00:00:16.080fascinating person and that is ian hersey ali you've probably seen her before she's been on fox
00:00:21.500news she has been an author and in the public arena for a very long time she is an author a
00:00:27.280refugee and she is a former representative from the netherlands as well she is an immigrant from
00:00:34.340somalia but she moved to various countries in europe and lived in the netherlands and she actually
00:00:40.660fled to the netherlands to try to escape a forced marriage in 1992 she ended up earning her master's
00:00:49.160there she got her citizenship she got her master's in political science she worked as a translator for
00:00:55.440somali immigrants and uh from 2003 to 2006 she served as an elected member of the dutch parliament
00:01:03.060in 2005 she was named one of time magazine's 100 most influential people at today she lives in the
00:01:08.840united states she's a hoover institution research fellow she also has a foundation that raises
00:01:14.500awareness about female genital mutilation that's happening is in islamic communities not just abroad
00:01:22.860but also here in the united states and so today we're going to talk about her new book how
00:01:28.420immigration in particular in europe is uh leading to a rise of assault on women these immigrants are
00:01:38.220mostly from muslim majority countries just like and hersey ali and so this is a conversation that
00:01:45.620honestly a lot of people don't want to have because uh in the west we are afraid that criticizing other
00:01:52.260cultures or criticizing other countries is seen as bigoted or racist or wrong but as we will talk
00:01:58.520about today that actually blinds us to reality and it makes us unable to see right from wrong good from
00:02:05.600bad and it prevents us from being able to protect victims of violence and so i'm really excited for
00:02:13.380you to hear the insight that she has to give today uh without further ado here is ayan hersey ali
00:02:19.160miss ali thank you so much for joining us i think most people listening or watching have been following
00:02:30.960you and probably have read your work for a while but just in case there are some people who haven't
00:02:35.520can you tell us who you are and what you do well my name is ayan hersey ali um i was born in somalia
00:02:43.860and i've been in the united states since 2006 um i lived in saul arabia in ethiopia in kenya
00:02:53.540and in the netherlands and i have written the details of my autobiography in a book called infidel
00:03:01.180and i think most of your viewers will know this and right now i work for the hoover institution at
00:03:07.700stanford um i am a research fellow there and i work on the issues of islam immigration women's rights
00:03:16.600and the council culture now so uh now taking part in the culture wars yes um i think i first heard
00:03:24.900about you um it was after you had been writing and working in this field for a while but i remember
00:03:30.520linda sarsour who is a left-wing muslim activist she tweeted something about wanting to and pardon my
00:03:38.600french for everyone listening um take your vagina away and i think there was someone else that she
00:03:44.940said that about too what was that reaction and why do you get that kind of vitriol from left-wing
00:03:50.740activists well linda sarsour is uh right now yeah she mixes that far left conviction with also her
00:04:02.040convictions that sharia as a system of law is superior and so if you have that kind of um
00:04:08.440if that's your worldview then i i don't think you will like me because my worldview is the opposite
00:04:14.980uh i've been campaigning against sharia law for as long as i can remember and campaigning right now
00:04:21.640against far left excesses such as this woke uh or cancel culture it goes by many names uh it's called
00:04:29.600critical theory critical race theory critical justice theory um but you know the general public
00:04:35.360they know it as woke yeah and so i i campaign against that so obviously i'm not one of our favorite
00:04:40.520people on the planet and there have been feminists who are kind of in her arena or in her realm who
00:04:47.400also um they they don't like you or they push back against you and i guess it's for what you said
00:04:53.400because you're you know you're against kind of the woke social justice mob you're against a lot of the
00:04:58.240tactics of the left but you also consider yourself a feminist or a champion of women's rights correct
00:05:04.540well i do but i mean when i i've just released a book pray that i think we might get to hopefully
00:05:11.800yes um and that's the kind of feminism i believe in uh i'm talking about the safety of women
00:05:19.960in the public space and that safety is threatened by um a phenomenon that these women can't do anything
00:05:28.180about which is immigration from countries that are failed states or failing states the people who are
00:05:34.460fleeing civil war and economic turmoil who come to europe many of them happen to be young men
00:05:41.240between the ages of what you call a military age 15 to 35 and some of those men behave very badly
00:05:49.900towards women and i think if you are a serious feminist you would bring to the surface such issues
00:05:57.140you know women's safety uh things that really affect women in their day-to-day lives um and i you
00:06:06.260know some of the feminists who who have gone woke um i don't i don't even regard them as feminists
00:06:14.160anymore and i'll give you an example um the author of harry potter jk rowling um had written about
00:06:23.400the unintended consequences of four women of the transgender movement so she's not disparaging
00:06:31.060the transgender people she wants them to live as i do with freedom and dignity but there there are some
00:06:38.520unintended consequences for children and for women she raised that and all the feminists dropped her
00:06:45.320i mean when i say all i mean the woke feminists dropped her right and so for the woke apparently
00:06:53.600if you have to make a trade-off between women's rights and something else they will go with something
00:06:59.880else right and in your book pray you talk about how illegal immigration in particular in europe has
00:07:06.360kind of led to this rise of sexual assault of young women can you talk a little bit more about that
00:07:12.500why you decided to write this book at this time and the problem that's going on there
00:07:16.580so i think when we talk about immigration and talk about legal and illegal that is very much a very
00:07:23.420american thing because that's what the conversation in america is about uh in europe uh the conversation is
00:07:30.880about asylum and refugees because europe's neighbors in some parts of africa some parts of the middle east
00:07:38.100and this is about proximity um they come from states like libya that's a failed state syria civil war
00:07:46.660failed um many other countries in africa so the kind of immigration they get is very different from the
00:07:56.420kind of immigration we get here in the united states now a consequence of that is when you just have
00:08:03.940masses and masses and masses and masses of people who are displaced from their own countries
00:08:09.540come in large numbers into europe what you get it's chaos it's mismanaged obviously all of it is illegal
00:08:17.900uh but then the european countries are trying to talk okay about asylum who deserves to come in who doesn't
00:08:26.220and they've messed up all of that some of those people come in anyway legally or illegally it really doesn't matter
00:08:34.120that much anymore and they find themselves in streets and neighborhoods they look at women they have
00:08:42.080attitudes toward women that are so radically different from the countries where they come from and then you have
00:08:48.660this spike in sexual assaults against women in the public space and some of these countries are overwhelmed
00:08:55.040they're shocked um they the leadership uh has been indulging in political correctness for decades
00:09:02.820so they haven't anticipated the problem or the scale of the problem and they're failing their women and they're
00:09:08.320failing the immigrants yes and can you tell us about kind of just tangibly what some of those um what some of
00:09:15.980those consequences have actually looked like for for young women well it's not just young women it's all
00:09:23.480women if you if you read my book you'll see i don't only collect uh the statistics that i'm i was able to
00:09:30.500get from these various governments i actually also talked to some of the women who have been assaulted
00:09:37.340who've been victims of sexual assault by immigrant men most of them from muslim countries and i've collected
00:09:45.280stories court cases where testimonies of women are that have been subjected to this kind of
00:09:51.160behavior and what you find is that the women can be as young children as young as 11 or 12 year old
00:09:57.540but they can be also in their 70s so it seems like these perpetrators are not making a distinction
00:10:04.560between age or whether the women are you know in their countries of origin sometimes they say well she
00:10:10.640provoked it she was dressed this way or that she was a it's here it's just almost like all women
00:10:16.780she could be an immigrant she could be black or white she could be old or young rich or poor
00:10:24.280uh they it's very it's bizarre for young men to walk around in groups and just target any woman
00:10:35.900they can find and hunt her down and try and rape her and sometimes they succeed and that is why i call the
00:10:42.700book prey you have men who look at women and they don't see a fellow human being uh they think of
00:10:51.980themselves as predators and they prey on these women and they start behaving like groups of hyenas or
00:10:58.880other wild animals that hunt in groups and no one i mean very few people are saying
00:11:04.800some of the the sexual assaults are noted but then they refuse to take data points such as
00:11:15.820ethnicity right you know nationality religion and so and if you refuse to take those data points
00:11:22.540you wouldn't be able to develop you know tailor-made uh programs that can help these young men
00:11:30.320assimilate into the societies that they've come to and that have accepted them
00:11:34.800yes and obviously we know that men of all different ethnicities and cultures can be predators and
00:11:41.440rape but your argument is that this is um this is happening in particular uh in groups of young
00:11:50.920muslim men that this is part of the culture of islam especially in that area of the world what is it
00:11:58.800about um islam and kind of their upbringing in their countries of origin that has encouraged them to act
00:12:09.500like in your words like a pack of hyenas hunting prey
00:12:13.660so i insist in the book over and over again that this isn't really about muslims in general
00:12:22.560uh in fact i talked to muslim men who are fully assimilated in uh countries like sweden and denmark and germany
00:12:31.360and uh they agree with me that not all muslim men uh perpetrators of sexual violence against women
00:12:43.200but there is uh a clash of values when it comes to european values and muslim majority country you know
00:12:56.340islamic values let's just put it let's just say the way it is and when that last question where you say
00:13:04.660what is it about islam well in islam women are seen as chattel they should submit to their male
00:13:15.620guardians your male guardian is your father and when you get married it is your husband and there is
00:13:20.860a a code of conduct for women the modesty code or the chastity code or the virtue code whatever you want
00:13:27.840to call it but that means that you cover your body parts you stay at home and you adhere to that code of
00:13:35.860um doing as what your husband or what your father gives you permission to do
00:13:42.480now the men in those countries are also taught that they they too have to adhere to this modesty
00:13:51.960doctrine which divides women into good women and bad women good women are those who
00:13:57.820who behave according to the code of conduct that is called the modesty i call it the modesty doctrine
00:14:03.560if women don't adhere to that code then they are fair game women in muslim majority countries
00:14:11.140have learned how to cope with that when they don't have or can't afford a guardian they cover themselves
00:14:18.040they walk in groups and they don't go out at night if they do they go in again in groups or in ways
00:14:24.980that makes them feel safe um the men in those countries when they find women without guardians who are not
00:14:36.820protected by their male bloodline clan family tribe they hunt down those women when those women when those men
00:14:48.980come come to europe and they find that the modesty doctrine does not apply because in europe women
00:14:56.720they they don't take permission from male guardians they are considered to be fully equal to men and so they
00:15:05.800they go about their business like every man would do they wear what they want and the public space at least for some time it was taken for granted that women are safe there and
00:15:16.980and and that's what we are now seeing we're just seeing that clash of values on the streets of some neighborhoods in europe
00:15:24.420and it's women who are especially women in working class neighborhoods they're the ones who have to bear the consequences
00:15:33.140of the unintended uh i would say the unintended consequences of immigration and it's an immigration
00:15:41.040system that is totally mismanaged and do you think that part of the reason that it's
00:15:48.920mismanaged you mentioned that when these assaults happen very often ethnicity or immigration status is not noted
00:15:56.720do you think the reason for that is what you kind of mentioned earlier this kind of critical
00:16:01.960race theory view of west and white bad anything not west not white is good
00:16:09.660anyone who is an immigrant or anyone who is not a you know a white cisgender western christian is on the
00:16:17.540side of the oppressed do you think that that kind of erroneous worldview is part of why these european
00:16:27.200governments won't take specific action or take specific precautions or make specific programs for
00:16:34.440uh these uh majority uh majority muslim young men i think it's a combination of factors and yes that
00:16:42.880narrative of all things west and all things that have to do with western civilization is bad
00:16:48.840that narrative is in europe and has been there for a long time among the elites and it's very strong
00:16:54.560so it's part of the explanation but it is not the whole story i think part of the story is
00:17:01.560they do have uh so if you look at the united states of america it's been one nation for at least
00:17:07.900230 something almost 40 years in europe uh these various nation states um have joined
00:17:20.100a club called the eu so some of their policies are made on the eu level including immigration and some of
00:17:28.660them are made on the national level and so right there you have a policy mismatch you have a good
00:17:36.780reason for policies to go wrong so some countries anticipate uh after an event like the arab spring
00:17:45.660that okay watch out we're going to get a lot of immigrants coming from these countries because
00:17:53.680those states are going to fall apart but on the national level there's very little they can do to
00:18:00.920prepare for that eventuality which started to happen in 2015 in a big way it started in 2011 2012 13
00:18:09.420but in 15 you had that big influx so part of it is practical also then within each country there is
00:18:20.380a disagreement on why immigration why do we need people to come in so that people there who are
00:18:27.380arguing we need immigration we need immigrants because our populations are shrinking we need them
00:18:32.660for the economy while others are saying well actually this particular type of immigrant
00:18:39.560costs us brings us more cost than benefits and then of course there is the history of europe
00:18:46.300there is a history of colonialism and there's the history of the holocaust and part of that history of
00:18:53.200the second world war was a lot of jews were sent to their death because they were registered not only with
00:19:04.380their names and other personal identity details but also their religion and if if that were not the case many of
00:19:15.220them would have been saved and so there is a huge reluctance in some of these countries
00:19:21.820to take down such details as religion ethnicity skin color because it's it's informed i mean it's
00:19:31.680understandable of course right but you're trying to bring in you're trying to correct history
00:19:38.480and that went wrong uh by doing things wrong right now so i yes yeah i'm trying to be compassionate
00:19:48.900and empathetic and i'm trying to understand but right now i think uh the refusal to note down these
00:19:57.340details of skin color and ethnicity and nationality are actually going to cause more problems than the
00:20:03.660other way around this is different context it's a different problem and in this case we really do
00:20:09.740need the physical details of the perpetrators even if it is only to develop programs of assimilation
00:20:17.480that will fit that but if you come from afghanistan you come from a different environment than somalia
00:20:23.340or eritrea or egypt or wherever so it's important to have these details to be able to develop assimilation
00:20:31.660programs because that's really the only way for europe to go is to assimilate to the people that
00:20:36.660they've allowed in right and i think that's um part of that kind of anti-west world view that a lot of
00:20:44.480westerners have and believe is sophisticated and edgy and educated and academic and all of that
00:20:51.020um it resists this idea of assimilation because we view assimilation or wanting assimilation as bigotry
00:20:57.680um but as you're pointing out there can be at times very tangible and dastardly consequences for
00:21:05.980vulnerable people when we don't promote assimilation um with western values i also think it has to do with
00:21:14.260this kind of morally relativistic post-modern world view that a lot of elites and people in charge have
00:21:20.520that oh you know they're just cultural differences you know joe biden said this the other day in
00:21:27.300reference to you know chinese uh concentration camps of uighur muslims is that there are just
00:21:32.720culturally kind of relative differences i think that mentality also can inhibit a government official
00:21:40.180from saying okay you know this cultural norm is not okay this cultural norm is actually better or this
00:21:46.840law is better and that's not bigotry that's just to say okay we abide by this moral framework we
00:21:53.480believe that this is best for everyone no matter their background but i think a lot of westerners are
00:21:58.460hesitant to say that because they don't want to be called bigots or islamophobes
00:22:02.320absolutely right in everything you say and i don't think we should hesitate to describe what exactly
00:22:09.960it is that china is doing china is interning putting about 10 million people in concentration camps
00:22:17.960because they're different because of their religion which happens to be islam and they are forcing
00:22:25.060women to be forced to be sterilized they are raping these women they are committing gross acts and
00:22:34.420violations against humanity and you should just say it as it is that's exactly what president biden
00:22:39.580should do now in terms of europe for a long time they tried to avoid the clash of values the clash of
00:22:50.140civilizations between islam and the west between islam and europe but when you get to a place where
00:22:56.620there are beheadings and now we have this spike in sexual violence against women
00:23:02.780where the jewish minorities of europe feel so unsafe that they're fleeing to israel in america
00:23:11.960where homosexuals in many european streets either refuse to go to these places or pretend not to be
00:23:20.640homosexual so they won't hold hands or show each other affection in public because they're afraid
00:23:25.880of being attacked when we get to that place all these politically correct nonsense multiculturalism
00:23:35.100moral relativist stories that is not going to cut it and so what you're seeing now is in many of these
00:23:41.800european countries voters are going to populist parties to far-right parties if you look at france
00:23:49.500national front is they seem to be either very close or leading the polls and so i think there's a lot of
00:23:59.320waking up going on in europe right now as opposed to america where for some reason we seem to be attracted
00:24:06.700to this critical justice theory uh rubbish yeah and i was going to ask you if you see some of the same
00:24:15.960problems that europe is seeing happening here obviously it's different because of a point that you
00:24:20.260mentioned earlier because of proximity and so we don't necessarily have um the exact same issues but you
00:24:27.100have been an outspoken critic of um of sharia and of some parts of islam and do you see those things as
00:24:35.740having um a dangerous amount of influence here and in american politics uh i see so i always make this
00:24:44.700distinction between dawah and jihad and i don't know if your viewers or listeners know what i'm
00:24:50.580talking about probably probably not if you could if you could explain that that would be awesome
00:24:54.860um so i think most people are familiar with jihad because that is when violence is used it's holy war
00:25:01.780so a terrorist act by a radical muslim uh trying to make his point or achieve his objective is called
00:25:10.660jihad right most americans understand that but before you get to jihad there is the propagation
00:25:18.540the teaching the proselytization the brainwashing of young people to get them to a place where they
00:25:25.660think jihad is okay so that whole process is called dawah and i think that when it comes to the
00:25:34.500establishment of dawah and institutions that engage in dawah in the united states yes we have a problem
00:25:41.520we have a lot of mosques and islamic centers and they do undertake these activities of
00:25:48.960trying to persuade muslims who are not very observant to become really observant and extreme in their
00:25:58.760beliefs but they also convert or try to convert non-muslims into radical islam so the dawah
00:26:05.600activities are something we need to watch out for but thank goodness in the last few years we have seen
00:26:12.520a deep decline in the terrorist attacks now that's not to say they are gone forever
00:26:18.140but it's to say it's just to note that we haven't had uh islamist driven terrorist attacks in america
00:26:28.900for some time yes i would say that that's a good thing it does seem like anti-american and anti-western
00:26:38.020anti-democracy anti-freedom curriculum in schools even if it's obviously it's not explicitly pro-islam
00:26:45.420it does seem like it would have um a similar goal though to the kind of indoctrination that you're
00:26:52.640talking about where it would at least help this kind of anti-american sentiment obviously it's
00:26:58.860prevalent in a lot of different places in the united states but it's especially prevalent a prevalent
00:27:02.860in muslim majority countries and so it seems like if you can kind of um have that resentment against
00:27:09.940the united states here in america by american children that that would kind of help the extremist
00:27:16.820cause to and not just muslim countries but also you know china and the countries that really want
00:27:23.120to see the demise of the united states it seems like all of those anti-american forces would kind of
00:27:28.080work together that's a very good point and i think that is one of the most important reasons why we
00:27:35.160should resist the critical race theory and uh this you know movement that calls itself woke uh because
00:27:45.660if what the woke are telling us is that america is systemically racist that white people are the
00:27:55.740oppressors of all people of color that the only way to achieve justice is to break down
00:28:04.840the so-called racist structures which is to destroy america and the only way to achieve justice
00:28:12.740is to take away from the oppressor and then give it to the various factions of victims that they have
00:28:18.740constructed now any adversary of america islamist chinese russian any adversary of america would
00:28:29.340obviously exploit that kind of thing and so in a few years ago we all thought that this whole critical
00:28:38.980race theory justice theory wokeism was a fringe ideology it was somewhere you know in some corner of the
00:28:48.760universities and we thought people who went there would simply outgrow it and now it's become this
00:28:54.860mainstream thing people are being afraid of people are terrified of being cancelled
00:29:01.400in universities in newsrooms in corporations it's everywhere so yes you're absolutely right this
00:29:10.980homegrown ideology that is anti-american to its core uh is really right now what we need to focus on
00:29:19.300and and and reject the idea that we are systematically racist systemically racist uh and and all this it's
00:29:27.720it's pure garbage but it's dangerous garbage
00:29:30.340i'm interested to know just as an immigrant from somalia yourself and you have also been in european
00:29:47.520countries i think you're in uh the netherlands before you came to america is that correct uh yes i was
00:29:54.580a number of countries so i do have uh the fortune to be able to compare america to different countries
00:30:01.900yeah and that's what i'm interested in in hearing from you what has been your experience in the way of
00:30:08.000just opportunity equality your assessment of civil rights when it comes to not just from where you came
00:30:14.340from somalia but also european countries versus the united states is there any credence whatsoever in
00:30:20.560in your experience from your perspective of people who say you know america is this white supremacist
00:30:26.700uh supremacist endemically racist place where only white people um can can get ahead i mean
00:30:34.580in your just honest assessment is there any kind of accuracy to those assertions
00:30:39.940i find it bizarre uh when i read some of the works of ibram x kendi and de angelo and all these other
00:30:50.300people who are pushing the narrative that we are hopelessly racist and uh you know people are only
00:30:58.360oppressed here we do have an inequality between black people who are the descendants of slaves
00:31:05.840and the general public and the general public and i think that that inequality should be addressed
00:31:11.300and the appropriate way of doing that is by improving public schools providing more charter schools
00:31:18.600setting aside resources time and effort and tough love tough love to bring those people who are left
00:31:31.560behind into the system not to declare that the system is racist or that the system is structurally
00:31:39.060against them i think that is absolutely wrong uh it's wrong and it's proven that that narrative is wrong
00:31:47.140over and over again because look at the immigrants from other african countries who are doing fantastic
00:31:52.740here what about the immigrants from india where they have a caste system and the indians who come into the
00:31:59.020united states they flourish because nobody cares about their skin color they're not outcasts here
00:32:04.340they're americans here look at the asians the chinese who are not able to flourish in their own
00:32:11.360country because it's authoritarian and they come here and they love it they work hard and they live the
00:32:16.480american dream look at all the hispanic people who uh same thing uh come for the american dream
00:32:23.440and live the american dream but also look at the white folks who are poor and many broken families so many of
00:32:35.280them dying of drug overdose um what who who if those are white heterosexual men who are addicted to
00:32:45.780opioids and who are in many ways poor or just as poor as the black americans who's who's oppressing those ones
00:32:57.120you know it is you can simplify it and say the the source of all our problems is race and have yourself
00:33:07.080talking about race all day long but that's just a distraction i'm being charitable right it's a distraction
00:33:15.160because it distracts us from some of the real problems that are going on that are not racial
00:33:21.360issues in most cases they might be class issues they might be geographical issues they could be
00:33:26.120local government issues and when we refuse to look at some of those problems then we then we are unable
00:33:32.820to reach actual solutions that could help these groups but you know i don't necessarily think that that
00:33:39.860is the point of critical race theorists i i'm not sure that they're actually trying to make life better
00:33:45.880for particular groups i think it's more of an academic theory and ideology that they're hoping
00:33:50.980they'll be able to kind of just project onto the world to create i don't know some kind of socialist
00:33:56.420dystopia one day it's kind of hard to know ever where progressives want to land on things
00:34:02.960well these people the ones who are pushing for critical race theory it's very clear what they want
00:34:09.160they want power and they're exploiting these vulnerable groups that they have uh set you know
00:34:16.300black people women homosexuals or lgbtq they are using um these vulnerable minorities
00:34:26.540exploiting their situations to get themselves into power and stay with that power they're not
00:34:34.540interested if you look at that website of black lives matter they are not interested in black people
00:34:39.280they have they want to redistribute wealth they are getting by the minute wealth here because people
00:34:46.800are throwing money at them out of guilt but they're not taking that money to inner city chicago or
00:34:52.980inner city atlanta uh and if you ask them where are you taking that money they'll just call you a
00:34:59.740racist right so it is they do have an agenda and their agenda is to get rich and it's to get powerful
00:35:06.580and uh it's very absolutely clear that they do not care about the vulnerable groups that they say
00:35:13.640they care about it's very cynical yes and um you know this kind of has to do with with what we're
00:35:20.540talking about but it was something that i meant to mention earlier and ask you about and now i
00:35:24.780want to bring up and that is this issue this terrible ongoing problem of female genital
00:35:33.620mutilation that is happening i think more prevalently than most people um that most people know about and
00:35:40.860the reason why i think it connects to what we were just talking about is because it interferes with
00:35:46.300this critical race idea of the only people who do the oppressing are these white western people and
00:35:51.800everyone else are just oppressed but unfortunately in many areas of the world and in in some cultures
00:35:57.900young girls are being subjected to this kind of mutilation and many so-called feminists here western
00:36:04.900feminists certainly don't talk about it so for people who don't know can you just talk about what this
00:36:10.720is what's going on and if it's something that's happening here in the united states that we should know about
00:36:15.400so fgm stands for female genital mutilation so little girls between the ages of anywhere from
00:36:24.880four years five years six years they have their genitals removed and uh the vaginas sun shuts
00:36:32.140i've started a foundation here the aha foundation which is an acronym of my name i am hersey ali
00:36:39.840um and they have been very active our foundation has been very active in trying to bring awareness
00:36:46.920uh to americans about the fact that this takes place here in america um and the reason why it does is
00:36:56.040look if a hundred percent in some countries ninety percent ninety seven percent uh if populations come
00:37:02.560from countries like that where it's the norm and you come to america you don't stop doing it just
00:37:08.040because you got off the airplane um and we've we've there was we succeeded in trying to bring
00:37:17.640one case to court didn't go anywhere there's another one that's ongoing i think i'm not allowed to talk
00:37:23.720about it yet because i don't want to frustrate um prosecution but yeah it's going on in america
00:37:31.680and feminists why are they silent on it if you're a woke feminist you believe that only white men
00:37:39.440engage in oppression so you're not going to talk about other cultures and you censor other people
00:37:45.680from talking about it so we are now in a place where our society is divided into groups depending on
00:37:53.900their skin color and their religion and their gender and other immutable traits
00:37:58.400and only individuals within those groups are allowed to talk about their problems
00:38:04.780and that's terrible that's tribalism it's actually reverse racism so yes it's it's all very crazy but
00:38:13.700yeah if you are woke you won't talk about female genital mutilation you're not going to talk about
00:38:19.000honor killings which is uh another in europe they've now started calling it femicide
00:38:24.560killing women who violate your honor as a family you are not going to talk about any kind of
00:38:33.340misogyny or cruelty that is perpetrated in the name of islam or in the name of an indian culture
00:38:41.580or the name of a chinese culture or in the name of any anything that is non-white if women are
00:38:47.440badly treated when those other cultures are invoked our feminists if they're woke they're
00:38:54.500not going to talk about it because that was against their narrative yep uh moral relativism cultural
00:39:01.880relativism post-modernism all these ideas have consequences they have very serious consequences
00:39:07.320which is why it's so important for you to be this clear voice of morality and this clear voice of
00:39:14.380right and wrong and truth in a time when a lot of people don't want to hear it so i'm very thankful
00:39:19.160for you i'm thankful for the books that you write for the work that you do can you tell people one
00:39:24.440where they can buy your book and two how they can support you and the foundation um that you just
00:39:31.800talked about well the foundation please go on the website it is called uh the ayaanhirsi
00:39:38.680alifoundation.org or the aha foundation aha.org there it is the aha foundation aha foundation.org
00:39:49.220um and the book is pray i don't know if i'm holding it um yep so a bit is that that is that better yes
00:40:03.500that's in the frame so for people who are for people who are watching this on youtube the book is called pray
00:40:08.440immigration islam and the erosion of women's rights um and so we'll make sure to put the link
00:40:14.080to that book in the description of this podcast episode so people can just click on it and um go
00:40:19.940ahead and order it thank you so much and i think you can find it on amazon and uh any of you know
00:40:26.500your closest bookseller it's now out and out and about well perfect well thank you so much i really
00:40:32.880appreciate you taking the time and thank you for all of the work that you do thank you so much and
00:40:38.040thank you very much for having me on and thank you for taking on the woke culture yes thank you thank
00:40:43.140you have a great day you too bye bye thanks
00:40:46.300all right so i hope you guys enjoyed that conversation and i just wanted to i just wanted
00:40:56.700to note at the end of this something that i was thinking about when she was talking about the way
00:41:01.660that um islam treats women and regards women if you read love thy body with us um as a part of
00:41:09.460women's book club with ali's ducky on facebook then uh you read how nancy piercy describes how the
00:41:15.960christian church has been a refuge for women throughout history you know some people especially
00:41:22.680progressive see christianity as this oppressive force against women as this oppressive patriarchy
00:41:27.920that basically is the same thing as sharia law and basically regards women is the same as islam does
00:41:33.660and nothing could be further from the truth remember we're not morally relative we're not culturally
00:41:38.220relative we don't believe that all religions are the same we don't believe that all morality is the same
00:41:44.100all values are the same as christians we do believe that christianity um is as jesus says jesus is the
00:41:52.360way the truth and life and no one comes to the father except through him we believe that jesus is god and
00:41:57.640we base our foundation for our faith on jesus christ and the inspired inerrant word that he has given us
00:42:04.440through scripture and while there have been people who have perverted the faith or have exploited the
00:42:11.020faith in order to oppress women in order to oppress vulnerable groups that is not what the gospel says
00:42:17.360it's not what the gospel offers women that's not what christianity and scripture offers women what we see
00:42:22.840throughout the bible from the creation account to the very end is that women are honored by god
00:42:28.500as people who are made with equal dignity made in the image of god in jesus and how he took the time
00:42:35.980to befriend women to look women in the eye the woman who was caught in adultery to help the bleeding
00:42:42.160woman who had been bleeding for 11 years and touched his cloak and he said i've you know i've he said the
00:42:48.360bible says that he felt power go out of him and he turned around and he paid attention to this woman
00:42:53.360and he looked her in the eye and said that she was healed the way that jesus honored women paid
00:43:00.700attention to women women who were rejected by society that is what christianity is that's what
00:43:07.420christianity has been and people look at something like ephesians 5 that says wives submit to your
00:43:12.840husbands as to the lord and people see that as oppressive people see that
00:43:18.360as archaic and wrong and something that has led to abuse of women no sin has led to abuse of women
00:43:25.240but that passage actually speaks to how much god and how much husbands are to cherish their women
00:43:30.920because or to cherish their wives uh because husbands are also called in that same passage to
00:43:37.020lay down their lives for their wives in the same way that christ laid his life down for the church
00:43:42.300and so no other religion gives this kind of um deference and this kind of respect and dignity
00:43:50.900to women that christianity does as people who are made in god's image people who are given
00:43:56.140gifts spiritual gifts gifts of the holy spirit uh women who are equal in the sight of god that
00:44:02.880doesn't mean that we have all the same roles it doesn't mean that we have all the same responsibilities
00:44:06.740within the church and within marriage it doesn't mean that we are the same there are obviously very
00:44:12.320foundational differences between men and women and always have been since the beginning of time
00:44:17.380but as far as equality of worth equality of dignity and the husband's responsibility to treat his wife
00:44:25.060with love and respect with sacrificial love and respect christianity stands out and that is why women
00:44:31.340have sought refuge in the christian church for all of its history and will continue to as we see this
00:44:39.780sexual revolution and we see this moral relativism and this cultural relativism make its primary prey
00:44:47.680women in women's spaces vulnerable women women will still be looking to the church as a refuge of grace
00:44:55.840and of truth and of protection and of care and we have to continue to be that we have to continue to
00:45:02.040be that we have to reject this postmodern relativism which says all value systems are the same all morality
00:45:08.420is the same it's not the same our god the god of the heavens and the earth the god that we read about
00:45:14.660in scripture the truth that has been revealed to us uh he tells us what is good and right and true he
00:45:21.040tells us what is right and wrong he tells us what is true and what is false and so if we love women
00:45:25.320if we love vulnerable communities uh then we will share with them the love of christ and the goodness
00:45:31.340of the christian life and the refuge that has been and can be should be um should be the christian
00:45:40.360church unfortunately there has been victimization within the christian church there has been abuse
00:45:45.960there has been manipulation and that is sin that is satan and as christians we should do everything we
00:45:51.620can to use the gospel and use scripture to push back against that sin and to protect women as much as we
00:45:58.780can all right that's all i wanted to say i'll see you back here soon