Infidel - Book 7

I listened to this book on audio in my car.  It was read by the author.  Infidel is the absolutely riveting account of Ayaan Hirsi Ali's life from her earliest days in Somalia, to just after she is booted out of Holland's parliament.  She is a wonderful writer, and her memory of her often brutal and sometimes loving but unsettled childhood, first in Somalia, then moving around to Saudi Arabia, Kenya with intervals back in Somalia.

Her father was a leader in the rebel government against the first dictator of Somalia after it won independence from Britain.  But the leader (I didn't get most of the names in this books.  I needed to actually read them rather than just hear them) allied himself with the Soviet Union and imposed a sort of communism.  Ayaan loved her father who was often away and indeed did eventually abandon her mother altogether.  The clan life of Somalia is incredibly complicated and holds a strong sway over the culture.  Islam played into this as well, but as Ayaan grows up the type of Islam pushed by the Muslim Brotherhood begins to take a firm hold over society.  Ayaan grapples with the brutality of her life, with frequent beatings from her unstrung mother, hers and her sister's genital mutilation forced on them as little girls by her tradition-minded grandmother, the fact that Allah seems to think so little of girls and women, who existence is only to be obedient to the men in their lives and to Allah; they are never think for themselves.

Ayaan manages to flee a forced marriage to a Somalian from Canada.  Instead of going to Canada, she escapes as a refugee to Holland.  She immediately loved this new world of order, dialogue, respect, reason, freedom and rule of law.  She eventually gets refugee status but she lied on her application because she feared being found.  In fact she was found and had to endure the Somalia clan ruling on her divorce.  With the help of many people she manages to go to university and eventually gets a masters in political science.  She becomes a Dutch citizen, begins to work for a think tank and gets dragged into the spotlight because she begins to speak out against the brutality Muslim women suffer that she sees as integral to Islam.  There are death threats and an associate she worked with on a short provocative video is murdered.  This throws Holland into a panic.

The book is beautifully written and Ayaan Hirsi Ali reads it herself and you can feel the emotion as she relives her tumultuous, surprising life. So much tragedy and pain, yet real love and connection too.   I was completely engrossed.  She is a brave, brave woman.  I don't agree with some of her conclusions, but I found her to be a lovely woman, possessed of a mind that wants truth and justice to prevail for all, no matter how frightening and dangerous that might prove to be.  She is her father's daughter, even though her father disowned her for rejecting Islam.

I want to read Ayaan Hirsi Ali's other books.  For more book reviews go to Read 52 Books in 52 Weeks.