Review by Booklist Review
Somali-born Dutch American activist, feminist, author, scholar, and former politician, Hirsi Ali is no stranger to controversy. Famous for her best-selling autobiography, Infidel (2007), and her manifesto on the reformation of Islam, Heretic (2015), Hirsi Ali now grapples with another subject that many other writers and commentators are hesitant to approach, namely the growing sexual harassment and sexual violence in Western Europe and the eradication of women's rights. Hirsi Ali examines how an increase in Islamic immigrant populations is transforming the culture and sexual politics of various European countries. While the #MeToo movement has seen big Hollywood names face justice for their crimes against women, and fourth-wave feminists advocate for better representation of women in politics, entertainment, and business, Hirsi Ali argues that the basic human freedoms won in first-wave feminism are under attack and nobody is talking about it. By presenting her thorough research methods and findings, which include many descriptions of violent sexual assault, Hirsi Ali offers strong evidence for her bound-to-be contentious claims in this in-depth and harrowing volume.Women in Focus: The 19th in 2020
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Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Somali-born political activist Hirsi Ali (Heretic) argues in this contentious account that liberal immigration policies have led to an influx of young Muslim men bringing regressive cultural ideas and sexual violence to Europe. She blames German chancellor Angela Merkel's 2015 suspension of European Union asylum protocols for Syrian refugees, and the criminality of failed asylum seekers, for increases in sexual violence in Germany; accuses European politicians of hiding crime data out of fear of losing liberal support; and argues that local law enforcement is too soft and unprepared to deal with sexually violent gangs. Western feminists don't understand the regressiveness of traditional Muslim attitudes toward women, Hirsi Ali claims, or comprehend that basic public safety is a feminist issue. She also explains modesty culture and attacks Muslim immigrants for creating "parallel societies" and utilizing state welfare rather than productively integrating into European communities. Her proposed solutions include changing the asylum system to better assess immigrants' likelihood to assimilate, tightening border patrols, and European military involvement in Iraq and Syria. Though she paints Islam with a broad and overly negative brush and risks intensifying anti-Muslim xenophobia, Hirsi Ali provides valuable, gut-wrenching testimony from victims of sexual violence. This harrowing polemic is sure to spark controversy. (Feb.)
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Review by Library Journal Review
Courting controversy as she did with New York Times best sellers Infidel, Nomad, and Heretic, Ali, the well-known Somali-born Dutch American women's rights activist and free speech advocate, argues that Muslim immigrants must not be allowed to bring the harmful and regressive gender attitudes of Islamic extremism to the West. She points especially to an increase in sexual violence in European cities, which she blames on immigrants, urging Western feminists not to turn their heads. With a 75,000-copy first printing.
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Review by Kirkus Book Review
An outspoken critic of Islamic extremism identifies a threat to women's safety. Women's rights activist Ali mounts a scathing critique of migrant Muslim men who perpetrate sexual violence against women throughout Europe. Between 2014 and 2017, when immigration increased dramatically, the author provides evidence that rape and sexual assault increased, as well, enacted by men coming from cultures in which women are often exploited. In Muslim-majority countries--like Ali's native Somalia--women are considered second-class citizens: denied education; confined to their homes for much of the time, allowed outside only when monitored by male family members; and treated as commodities by their fathers and husbands, subjected to "honor violence, female genital mutilation, and forced marriage." In Europe, men from such contexts repeat sexually aggressive behaviors, "not because they feel inferior or oppressed; it is because they think they can get away with it, just as they did back home." Fearful of being branded racist or xenophobic, European authorities--and even liberal feminists--tend to deny the problem, offering "poor advice and bogus solutions" that often entail blaming the victims. Although Ali stresses that she does not want to fuel populist arguments for closed borders, she vigorously argues for reforms that will mitigate the "causal connection" between migration and sex crimes. She proposes radical restrictions on immigration to allow entry only to those cognizant of "the culture, laws, and norms of the society they wish to join," willing to adapt to European liberal values; and to keep out those she calls "menaces" (unemployable, attracted to crime), religious zealots, and "coasters" who will live off welfare benefits and populate segregated ghettos. Migrants who refuse to adapt within a year or two should be deported. At the same time, Ali asserts, Europe must take responsibility to stabilize Muslim countries from which migrants seek to flee. An impassioned analysis sure to incite controversy. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
