"I would make a Muslim 'Life of Brian'." -- Ayaan Hirsi Ali

Update 5/9: Michelle Malkin posts impressions of Ms. Ali's Harvard appearance of just a few hours ago, and offers a stirring tribute on her latest Vent segment (click "Women Warriors" at the end of the Malkin link); Miss Kelly was there and makes you wish you were, too.

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Little Green Footballs has footage of a February 2006 appearance on Norwegian television of Somali-born, Dutch Member of Parliament Ayaan Hirsi Ali. Her nominally polite interviewer wears a grin that seems to me to present the form of hospitality while yet withholding the spirit of it. It's that old liberal grin that, when confronted with what it cannot or will not understand, tries to disarm it with (apparent) kindness.

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Nevertheless, Ms. Ali makes a number of splendid points, including:

I make a disinction between Islam, on the one hand, and Muslims, on the other hand....

What I'm looking for is more reason among Muslims, and less religion....

I wish I had the time and the means to make it -- I would make a Muslim Life of Brian. I would. Yes, absolutely.... That is what I see as self-censorship -- and in a way also a betrayal of the institution of freedom of expression -- that the filmmakers, the novelists, the poets, the people who use the imagination to make change are now being very quiet when it comes to confronting and reflecting on Islam.

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Watch the interview over at LGF and see for yourself.  Then send it to your friends.

Comments

[beth]

This message really does need to get around. It's very frustrating that her message isn't more widely heard.

I read the February interview a while back and I'm very sure what she has to say does not go over well with the liberal view of the world.

[JMK]

Imagine this without blogs. It'd be completely off the radar. She's really quite moderate -- which in terms of medieval Islam makes her "radical". Yehudit (of Kesher Talk) left a constructively critical comment ag LGF about her remarks. That's the kind of dialogue we need to be engendering (so to speak :) ).