Infidel

This is Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s memoir of her childhood in Somalia, Saudi Arabia and Kenya as well as her adult career as a Dutch emigrant who learns the language, works as a translator and becomes a member of parliament and journalist. After a short sculpture film she produced as a plea for abused Muslim women was produced by Theo Van Gogh, he was murdered and she had to spend months in hiding.

What she tells us about the excision, brutal subjugation and frequent murder of girls and young women by radical Muslim fathers is frightening, particularly as such fanaticism is prevalent in Saudi Arabia, our so-called ally, as well as Somalia and Kenya. Hatred of the Jews and the West is kept at fever pitch by rabble-rousing imams. Her message is that we must recognize and deal with all these realities, not dismiss them as lunatic fringe occurrences.