Nick Kristof Attacks Ayaan Hirsi Ali

At The Daily Beast, Andrew Roberts takes New York Times columnist Nick Kristof to task for his review of Ayann Hirsi Ali's new book, Nomad:

The bravest woman I know—and I know plenty, including Margaret Thatcher—is the Somalian-born writer and former Dutch politician Ayaan Hirsi Ali, who is presently under a fatwa sentence of death for her apostasy from the Muslim faith. When the Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh was shot eight times in 2004, a paper stuck into his corpse with a knife stated that Hirsi Ali would be next. While that would push most of us into hiding for the rest of our days—including me, I’m perfectly ready to admit—Hirsi Ali has resolutely continued to make public appearances promoting the cause of female liberation in the Muslim world.

Women’s liberation is something one might also have expected The New York Times to laud and support, yet the review there of Hirsi Ali’s latest book, em>Nomad: A Personal Journey Through the Clash of Civilizations<, by op-ed columnist Nicholas D. Kristof, was instead–unforgivably in my view—entitled “The Gadfly," and subtitled, “Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s second memoir is as provocative as her first.”

The word “provocative” is often a term of approbation; here it is clearly intended pejoratively. The only people who could possibly be “provoked” by Nomad are Islamic fundamentalists who abuse women and beat children; much of the book is a passionate denunciation of the way violence is routinely used against children in the Muslim world. Of course, equally provoked are ultra-liberal Western commentators who regard any criticism of Islamic practices whatsoever, especially those specifically sanctioned by the Koran, as “provocative” and thus somehow illegitimate.

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