Talk:Ayaan Hirsi Ali

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Before Feb 2007

[edit] Quality problem with article, indirect prediction based on time from "now"

The article contains the text "Hirsi Ali still has six weeks to react to this before any final decision about her citizenship is taken", which should probably be replaced by an actual date. But this wikipedia article is my only source of information about her, so I don't know what the true status is. Given that she wrote an article for the latimes, though, I guess that she already moved to the US and lost her Dutch citizenship. Rrenaud 23:53, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

This is indeed quite confusing. My guess is that the sentence should say she had six weeks, at that point in time, and is referring to the period from May 16 (the date given for the parliamentary debate), and June 27 (the date given for the announcement that she'd keep her citizenship). I'll make this change in due course if no-one asserts this is not what's meant. She's certainly now living in the US (there were multiples references to this in an interview she gave to the BBC), but I doubt she's lost Dutch citizenship. That would only happen if she's already been granted US citizenship (which I'd doubt), and that Dutch law recognises the disavowal of other citizenships in the US (which I wouldn't take as read: I know that the law in Ireland and the UK cheerfully ignores this as fanciful rhetoric...); or she's voluntarily renounced it (which may not even be possible). Alai 03:05, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

She has Dutch citizenship, technically she never lost it. This is just a tense issue, as the article was expanded considerably during the 2006 crisis. I intend to radically review this article some time this year, because I believe it can become FA. Then I will look at these issues. C mon 13:20, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

I've made that change, in the meantime. Alai 16:31, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] AEI political orientation

This is a cross-post from the talk page of the anon editor who states that AEI is 'conservative'.

Can you please provide a source for your assertion that AEI is a conservative organization? On their website, they present their agenda as essentially libertarian. The fact that Hirsi Ali is a pro-choice atheist doesn't really fit with the 'conservative' tag. RJASE1 23:43, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

It says right on American Enterprise Institute, "a conservative think tank". They may not be paleoconservatives in the mold of Patrick Buchanan, but they maintain very close ties with the current administration, and have a history of uncritically lauding their moves. They're about as nonpartisan as Karl Rove. If you want to dispute the characterization of AEI as a conservative think tank, please take it over there. grendel|khan 00:35, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

I'll take it over there...my objection to this is that, in the U.S., the terms "conservative" and "liberal" are POV-loaded and I don't think either fits Hirsi Ali. But you're right, the adjective in this case applies to the organization, not the individual. RJASE1 01:01, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

You may be right; Hirsi Ali is quite a fixture among conservatives in the United States because she agrees with them on issues of importance here--which has absolutely nothing at all to do with her domestic politics on other issues. So while she may be conservative to Americans, she may be something else entirely to the Dutch. (AEI, however, is still conservative.) grendel|khan 03:26, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

It is very well established that the AEI is conservative, just as the Brookings Institution is liberal. Just look at think tanks in any political science textbook.

If only conservative think-tanks are are offering her a position that says something about the liberal community. Dogru144 23:34, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

It's not that surprising that conservative think thanks are more interested in her then liberal ones. It says much more about her then about the think-thanks. She is primarily noteable for her very vocal attacks on Islam, which many people feel are bordering on xenophobia. While she has a right for these views, and appears to be more informed then many of a similar ilk, it doesn't change the fact the views she are most strong about are not something which most liberal think-thanks are predominantly interested in. Liberals tend to be more interested in reducing conflict and/or recognising the problems of all religions, not on attacking Islam. She appears to dislike all religions and is pro-abortion which is something most American conservatives wouldn't agree with, but these views are not something she focuses on. Anyway this is OT so I won't be discussing it any further Nil Einne 02:07, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] She is anti-Islamic & Christianity

Islam is backward, Muhammed was this, etc etc, what is the name for this? her entire career is about cursing islam, she is an apostate of the faith, associated with anti-Islamic content, what better example do you need. And then Netscott says no refence in article. Have you read this article? Critic is not the same as Anti-Islamic sentiment. I critic Muslims "Muslims need to be more involved in stamping out extreamism" but "Islam is a primative religion of pedophiles" is not a critic it is religious intolerance.--HalaTruth(ሐላቃህ) 13:33, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Halaqah, having that view is fine but if any particular individual is going to be labeled as having "anti-Islam sentiment" then there had better be reliable sources using wording along those lines relative to her (this per policy). This section is sparse with such citations. (→Netscott) 14:25, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

It's not up to us to go around labelling people. Just the facts, especially as this is a living person. Metamagician3000 13:23, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

So why is there an antisemitic, and holocaust denier cat?--HalaTruth(ሐላቃህ) 14:15, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

If you think those categoties are inappropriate you can seek their deletion. The second one sounds to me as if it could be applied pretty objectively, not so sure about the first one. But we're here to discuss this article and how to improve it, not whether certain existing categories that don't relate to this article are subjective and POV. Metamagician3000 00:35, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Can you Anti-Islamic people stop deleting criticisms about this Ali.

—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Xsp85 (talk • contribs) 05:16, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

As I explained on both your talk page and my talk page, the problem isn't with the criticism, it's with the point of view and the poor sources. RJASE1 ^Talk 05:19, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia is very sensitive to the harm that it can do to living people by publishing poorly sourced and damaging material about them. That applies Ms Hirsi Ali and anyone else. Hence the template on the top of this page. People removing such material are just doing their job, even if the material was added in good faith. Metamagician3000 07:29, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

For such a controversial writer, the article includes very little criticism of her views. (There is plenty of discussion about the falsehoods she told to stay in the Netherlands.) For balance, it would be good to have such criticism, but it must be well-sourced and not libellous. So go ahead and add criticism, according to Wikipedia policy. BrainyBabe 09:10, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

I agree. The only two reviews of Hirsi Ali's new book that I came across in the past couple weeks were in the Economist and the one by Lorainne Ali in Newsweek. Both were very critical of her and her work. For the Newsweek review, see here: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17204802/site/newsweek/ --Mon. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 144.91.215.208 (talk) 22:10, 26 February 2007 (UTC).

I just added another a new article link to the criticism section of further reading. I hope someone has the time to go through these articles and expand the criticism section actually in the article. It's rather tiny for such a controversial figure as Hirsi Ali.

Actually, I just noticed this article is listed as a "good article." IMHO, that's pretty ridiculous for exactly the reasons mentioned above. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 75.2.134.234 (talk) 21:41, 9 March 2007 (UTC).

[edit] Minor: brackets/parentheses

Oh dear. Twice in the past few hours, editors with good intentions have incorrectly changed something I had inserted with good reason. The first time, I changed it back, and wrote why in the edit summary (for which that editor thanked me). The second editor must not have read this, and made a good-faith edit. As I don't have time to keep reverting it to what is strictly correct, I will insert something half-way correct and hope it stays without causing trouble. If two people so quickly see and change something that they believe is a simple copy edit, I have no reason to doubt that many others in the future will do the same thing, out of good will, but erroneously.

This is the issue, from the bibliography, as it now stands:

Forthcoming: Short Cuts to Englightenment, a philosophical fantasy in which Muhammad wakes up in the New York Public Library and is "challenged by John Stuart Mill, Frederick Hayek and Karl Popper, (Hirsi Ali's) favourite liberal thinkers".

The problem is that this is a particular form of quotation. I took the words directly from the Evening Standard article, and in this passage Hirsi Ali is speaking in her own words, so of course she says "my favourite liberal thinkers". But the grammar of the entry requires the third person, so I changed the word "my" to "Hirsi Ali's" and put that phrase in single square brackets [ ] to show that I had changed the words -- but not the meaning -- of a direct quotation to fit the grammar, in this case from third to first person. This is standard citation practice. I guess a lot of well-meaning people don't know this, and assume it is a typo (of which I make many). So I have changed the square brackets to rounded parentheses, and hope this stops the confusion. BrainyBabe 14:47, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

Ah, I see - I'm sorry! Will look closer at the edit summary next time, my bad. Nice work on the article, by the way. RJASE1 ^Talk 14:49, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

Well, I actually do know the convention of using square brackets in that way, and of course it is strictly correct. For some reason it wasn't transparent to me that that was what was meant the first time I read it, perhaps because it didn't seem like a quote from Hirsi Ali herself but from a journalist's words, so I thought it was a typo (hence my thanks when you corrected me). I'm really not sure what is best - I'd rather not use the less correct round brackets - but I'll leave it for now. Metamagician3000 22:50, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

Could we try something like this? Forthcoming: Short Cuts to Enlightenment. As described by Hirsi Ali, this will be a philosophical fantasy in which Muhammad wakes up in the New York Public Library and is "challenged by John Stuart Mill, Frederick Hayek and Karl Popper, my favourite liberal thinkers." Metamagician3000 22:54, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

I have had another idea -- do it correctly, and insert invisibly into the code the warning not to change the single square bracket. I'd prefer to avoid an unnecessary first person, especially in the non-narrative bibliography section. As follows:

The single square bracket is correct here. It is not a typo. It represents the changing of something within a direct quotation -- in this case, from first to third person. The article at bracket gives more examples of this standard citation convention.

Only, bother, I can't remember the code to do this -- I tried and it didn't work. Can anyone help? Something like <! > which look like old-fashioned swearing symbols. BrainyBabe 23:49, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

[Un-indent]: Okay, let's see how it goes. I still wouldn't mind some kind of hint that the words quoted are her own - I think that should be made more obvious to our readers somehow. But I'll leave you to think about that. It's not a big deal. Metamagician3000 23:59, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

Oh, hang on ... I'll go and check how to do it. Metamagician3000 23:59, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

Checked it: Try this: See what happens. I.e. this edit contains some invisible words showing you how to do them if you put it into editing mode. Metamagician3000 00:02, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, that works. You may well be right about "some kind of hint" -- but also that it is trivial in the overall scale of things. I have no more thinking power at the moment! I rather like the elegance of hidden code. It serves to educate those who delve behind the scene -- those who take the plunge from reader to editor. I think the article is better now than a few days ago, but it does need reasonable, verifiable criticism of her views, although I'm not going to go searching for it. BrainyBabe 00:15, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Subtitled Dutch Interview

The holy Ayaan (original title: De heilige Ayaan) is a report from the Dutch [[1]] investigative TV series but including english subtitles: http://cgi.omroep.nl/cgi-bin/streams?/tv/vara/zembla/bb.20060804.asf -- Livinginabox 02:25, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] POV check

Xsp85 (talk • contribs) left a tag on the article that it has POV issues, but never left a note on this page saying what his concerns were. I also had to remove a libellous quote from the new "Catholicism" paragraph that the source attributed to Theo Van Gogh, not Hirsi Ali. The paragraph as it remains is fairly innocuous, especially if you read the full quote from the source article. I'm going to wait a couple of days for objections, but if there are none I'll remove both the 'POV' tag and the Catholicism para (or find a way to put it in context). RJASE1 ^Talk 05:33, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

I agree with you on both counts. The article is generally very factual at the moment, not a hatchet job or a work of a hagiography. Metamagician3000 06:05, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

Well, we never heard back from Xsp85, so I removed the tag and the paragraph. RJASE1 ^Talk 23:53, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Catholicism

This section should be allowed. Since it will be unfair to Islamic people. Thats is her view on Christianity. She is also Anti-Christianity as she is Anti-Islam. She is atheist. I removed POV, but keeping Catholicism comments. XSP85 07:02, 10 March 2007 (EST)

Here is the complete quotation as described by the source given for the paragraph:

“

Do you see any positive sides to Islam?

That’s like asking if I see positive sides to Nazism, communism, Catholicism. Of course Islam preaches generosity and kindness and taking care of the poor and elderly and so on – but these values aren’t limited to Islam. If you weigh what is provided in terms of kindness and humanity against the evil that can come from a society built on radical Islam, you will see that liberals must stand up to this like they’ve stood up to other ideologies.

”

I guess I would welcome some explanation of how this quote adds up to a position of anti-Catholicism - I have to admit I'm mystified. My interpretation is that she's saying any ideology has both positive and negative aspects that must be weighed against each other when deciding the overall value of the philosophy. Apparently Xsp85 (talk • contribs) sees this as an anti-Christianity quote, but I'm not getting it.RJASE1 ^Talk 01:03, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

user XSP85 is drawing conclusions where none are warranted and trying to insert a section based on his interpretation of what he thinks she is meaning. That's really OR. Her statement is neither positive or negative on those ideologies, Thus I have removed this quote.--CltFn 04:55, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm not going to argue about this - different interpretations are possible. However, after reading Infidel recently I'm pretty sure she is anti-religion in general, as well as being opposed to other comprehensive ideologies such as Nazism and communism. She sees them all as false and fundamentally illiberal, though she especially opposes what she see as patriarchal aspects of Islam. Metamagician3000 12:44, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

I think this section should stay. I also agree with user Metamagician3000.--redzone 1:18, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Atheism

I understood that she has defined herself as an atheist for some years now. THis Financial Times profile [2] refers to her as such. In this sense she is against all religions. BrainyBabe 22:58, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

That's fine if sourced into the article. However, the Catholicism section was a dumb way to express that, unless we're going to have a paragraph for each religious sect that she doesn't believe in. RJASE1 ^Talk 23:15, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

I didn't contribute to the Catholicism debate. My point is that there seems to be no difficulty in calling her an atheist. BrainyBabe 23:35, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Well, that much is certainly clear. She dsscribes this in detail in Infidel - how she came to realise that she did not believe in God. See especially pages 280-81 where she describes her realisation while on a holiday in Corfu in 2002, and how it affected her. Page 281: "One night in that Greek hotel I looked in the mirror and said out loud, 'I don't believe in God.' I said it slowly, enunciating it carefully, in Somali. And I felt relief." Metamagician3000 03:05, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

On the "Religion Atheism" tag: last I heard atheism still wasn't a religion yet (although one could describe some fanantical non-believers as such I suppose but) in general this applies to both "strong" or "weak" (agnostic) atheism varieties so this label either needs to be removed or rewritten: "Beliefs Atheist" or better "Beliefs/Relgion None". I will be coming back to do so... Mattjs 10:33, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

The general feeling around is that we should not have a "religion" of atheism in these boxes. E.g. I'm sure you'll find a lot of support for this on the talk page for the Richard Dawkins article. I support removal of the label, but her atheism should continue to be mentioned in the text of the article itself. Metamagician3000 10:45, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

FWIW I think atheism should be included in the basic info boax about her: it is a strong part of her identity and has relevance on her notableness (noteriety?) and thus why she is included in the encyclopedia. BrainyBabe 12:17, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Spam tag

Why is this at the top of the whole article? If one section is likely to get spammed, could the tag not go at the top of that section? It just looks so ugly. It's not as if the article is about a commerical product or a medical issue that would prompt salespeople to target it. BrainyBabe 23:35, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Removed, as no one has attempted to justify its inclusion. BrainyBabe 12:15, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

Good call. Metamagician3000 04:49, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

Sorry for the late reply - I think I may have mistakenly put it on this article when I meant to put it on another, sorry for that. That said, the external links section of the article probably needs to be pruned. :) RJASE1 ^Talk 04:51, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] anonymous contributor

It is not Fair. Hirsi criticizes Christianity and Judiasim, but we don't see that in the article. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by User:212.24.224.16 (talk • contribs).

Is there a tool within Wikipedia to find out who put the above anonymous comment? I'd like to learn how to do this. To the anonymous contributor: please add the criticisms you mention, with references. BrainyBabe 18:32, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Hence "ANONYMOUS contributor", "Brainy Babe" —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 4.249.111.110 (talk • contribs).

Well not exactly anonymous. We have your IP, so we can see that you are from Silver Spring, Maryland, using Level 3 Communications. JACO PLANE • 2007-03-19 23:41

[edit] New book

How are we able to describe it in such detail? Source? Metamagician3000 05:01, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Peer review

I've just taken the article to peer review to see what specific objections or general comments emerge. Metamagician3000 00:48, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Hirsi Ali is the "Malcolma X" for islamic women

She shows the same anger about opressed islamic women Malcolm X used to show about blacks in the U.S. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 82.101.241.202 (talk) 01:38, 7 April 2007 (UTC).

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