Ayaan Hirsi Ali

Ayaan Hirsi Ali is a Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University and founder of the AHA Foundation. She served as a Member of the Dutch Parliament from 2003 to 2006. While in Parliament, she focused on furthering the integration of non-Western immigrants into Dutch society and on defending the rights of Muslim women.

She has written several books including Infidel (2007), Nomad: from Islam to America, a Personal Journey through the Clash of Civilizations (2010), Heretic: Why Islam Needs a Reformation Now (2015), The Challenge of Dawa (2017), and Prey (2021).

Prior to joining the Hoover Institution, she was a Fellow at the Belfer Center’s Future of Diplomacy Project at Harvard University and a Resident Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, D.C.

She received her Master’s degree in Political Science from Leiden University in the Netherlands.

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  Schools shouldn’t fly BLM flags

  Its divisive programme is the enemy of black prosperity After more than two years of disruption, American schoolchildren are finally returning to something approaching normal education — in-person, and without masks or social distancing or other “non-pharmaceutical interventions”. But many of these children are returning transformed. Last week, data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress showed […]

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  The infidels will not be silenced

  Like Salman Rushdie, I choose freedom Thirty-three years ago, when I was a teenager in Nairobi, I was a book burner. The year was 1989, the year of the fatwa against Salman Rushdie, and I was seduced by the rising tide of Islamism. I greeted the fatwa with glee. I rarely burnt actual books: we were too poor to […]

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  There is no “Biden Doctrine”

  A year after Kabul, his vision is blurred by chaos I keep thinking of the people falling from the sky. The images are seared into my mind: Our Afghan allies, the people we were callously leaving to their fates after 20 years, clinging to an American plane taking off from Kabul Airport, only to drop […]

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  (Podcast) – Rafael Mangual on Crime in America

  (Ayaan Hirsi Ali Podcast) – How do we remind Americans of the inherent good of America?

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  Our universities need a revolution

  Legacy institutions have lost the campus wars What is the point of university? It used to be, when Harvard was founded in 1636, “to advance learning and perpetuate it to posterity”. But in recent years the university has taken on an altogether narrower character. Learning is no longer enough. Activism is demanded. Yale and Harvard […]

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  (Podcast) – Kmele Foster on Importance of Positive Role Models

  (Ayaan Hirsi Ali Podcast) – What happened to the American man?

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  The new war on Islamism

  The West has been terrorised into silence Art and Islam often seem like oil and water. Other times, they behave like matches and gasoline. It is hard to believe that more than 30 years have passed since Ayatollah Khomeini issued his fatwa against Salman Rushdie for The Satanic Verses — longer ago than the fall of the […]

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  How Texas can stop mass shootings

  Psychiatric disorders should be cured not celebrated A child smearing her friend’s blood on herself in an attempt to play dead. Agonised parents waiting to learn if their children had survived. The death of teacher Irma Garcia’s husband immediately after she was shot and killed, leaving their four children orphaned. It has been more than a week since […]

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  Buffalo and the myth of racist America

  Democrats want to create another George Floyd moment What connects the tragedies of May 25, 2020, and May 14, 2022? The straightforward answer, at least according to many in the media and on the Left, is systemic racism. On May 25, 2020, a black man was murdered in Minneapolis, Minnesota, by a white police officer. The […]

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  The desperation of Biden’s Disinformation Board

  There are dangers to using censorship as a political tool In 1918, Woodrow Wilson’s Democratic administration passed a piece of legislation it hoped would accelerate the end of the First World War. The new law didn’t directly concern the military — nor was it a revolutionary act of foreign policy. Rather, its target was ordinary […]

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  (Podcast) Ian Rowe on the Power of Agency

  (The Ayaan Hirsi Ali Podcast) – Ayaan speaks with Ian Rowe about the power of personal agency and how to build it.

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  This isn’t a war between good and evil

  Mythical struggles are the tool of the despot The images emerging from Bucha are haunting. Dead civilians line the streets, many with their hands bound behind their backs. They are the victims of systematic executions, left to rot before the Russians decided to retreat. Reports of such atrocities always strike a chord across Western Europe and North America. […]

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  (Podcast) Jason Hill on Race in America

  (The Ayaan Hirsi Ali Podcast) – Ayaan speaks with Jason Hill about free speech, immigration, and the power of individual agency.

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  Do we need a Trans Olympics?

  (UnHerd) – (Opinion) Lia Thomas should not compete against women.

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  Europe’s empty promises to Ukraine

  (UnHerd) – It’s time to show what ‘burden sharing’ means.

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  How Vladimir Putin weaponises refugees

  (UnHerd) – Immigrants have become a tool of war.

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  The Texas synagogue attack won’t be the last

  (UnHerd) – But two conclusions can already be drawn — and both are deeply concerning. The first is that the attack should never have been allowed to happen; the second is that such acts of violence are likely to become more frequent.

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  (Podcast) Speaker Newt Gingrich on the Politics of Yesterday and Today

  (The Ayaan Hirsi Ali Podcast) – Ayaan speaks with Speaker Newt Gingrich about growing up in the 1950s and ’60s, and how life differs today.

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  Ayaan Hirsi Ali: ‘Britain should take the lead of the English-speaking world’

  (The Telegraph) – The author and activist says that, with America in moral confusion, Boris Johnson can become the new leader of the world order.

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  Will California ever be safe?

  (UnHerd) – The affluent look away while their cities burn.

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  How influencers have legitimised anti-Semitism

  (UnHerd) – Instagram activists have turned false narratives into deadly fantasies.

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  Ayaan Hirsi Ali vs. the Mob

  (Commentary Magazine) – In defending the rights of women, the Somali-born author has incurred the wrath of liberals

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  Republicans should campaign hard for votes of immigrants like me who are US citizens

  (Fox News) – The Republican Party has not done enough to win a significant share of our votes

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  What Biden needs to understand about Prophet Muhammad saying he used at Muslim voter event

  (Fox News) – I would strongly advise the Biden camp to reach out to Muslim reformers and progressive dissidents to formulate a better strategy

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  America Doesn’t Need a New Revolution

  (Wall Street Journal) – Outrage is the natural response to the brutal killing of George Floyd. Yet outrage and clear, critical thinking seldom go hand in hand. An act of police brutality became the catalyst for a revolutionary mood.

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  Can Ilhan Omar Overcome Her Prejudice?

  (Wall Street Journal) – I once opened a speech by confessing to a crowd of Jews that I used to hate them.

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  We need a better definition of ‘refugee’

  (Washington Post) – The global asylum and refugee system is no longer fit for purpose. As a beneficiary of that system, I do not make such a statement lightly. The reality is that it is outdated and can no longer cope with the challenges posed by mass violence and global migration today.

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  Ayaan Hirsi Recognized for Work to End Honor Violence

  (Essence) – Ms. Hirsi Ali received the Woman in Public Life Award for her work to end honor violence, which shames, hurts, and kills thousands of women and girls in the United States each year.

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  Ayaan Hirsi Ali stirred the audience about radical Islam

  (Lesley University) – Steering away from the humorous personal anecdotes that often characterize the Symphony Hall lectures, Hirsi Ali held the packed audience in rapt attention as she warned of our complacency in the face of terrorism and called for a reformation of Islam.

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  Human rights activist Ayaan Hirsi Ali to keynote Boca event

  Acclaimed international human rights activist Ayaan Hirsi Ali will provide the keynote to 500 women philanthropists at the Jewish Federation of South Palm Beach County’s annual Lion of Judah Luncheon.

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  Ayaan Hirsi Ali says complacency is problem on campuses

  (Boston Globe) – Author/activist Ayaan Hirsi Ali sold out Symphony Hall for her appearance as part of Lesley University’s Boston Speakers Series.

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  The Dissenter: Ayaan Hirsi Ali on Her Controversial Views on Islam

  (Broadly) – Since she first started voicing extreme criticism of Islam, Ayaan Hirsi Ali has attracted both death threats and vehement criticism from fellow feminists. Still, she has no intention of backing down.

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  How Do You Solve a Problem Like Sharia?

  (The AHA Foundation) – As a moral and legal code, sharia law is among the most dehumanising, demeaning and degrading for women ever devised by man.

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