Infidel Reflection #3 (Chp. 8–11)

In the third section of Infidel, Ayaan Hirsi Ali grew up into a young woman, still unmarried and silently rebelling against the injustice she has grown up under. After she and her sister Haweya moved back to Nairobi with their mother, a civil war broke out in Somalia a few days later. Ali described this a a “massive exodus from Somalia to Kenya, Ethiopia, and beyond” (pg. 149). Many people fled Somalia in search of refuge, yet refugee camps were overcrowded and understocked in resources. When Ali visited one of these camps, she saw a great contrast between her and the people in the camps: “the children had lice visibly trailing along their necks, and there I was with my sporty little duffel bag, with a toothbrush and toothpaste and a change of underwear and clean clothes. It was surreal” (pg. 155). If she had not left Somalia when she did, Ali may have been in the exact same situation as those refugees.

An ongoing theme mentioned a few times throughout this section was the alienation of women who were raped and/or impregnated out of wedlock. Although “force and rape are not an issue” (pg. 178) in marriage, unmarried rape victims were treated like outcasts and constantly abused by everyone around them. When Ali met a woman who was raped in the refugee camp, people told her “’you shouldn’t be seen with that woman. She is impure. People will say you’re the same’. All I could see was a human being who had been abused, who was on the verge of death, but to them, she was an outcast” (pg. 157). Ali recounted that when she was younger, her grandmother had “warned us that if [we were raped], it would be our fault” (pg. 158). The culture that Ali lived in was inconsiderate and unforgiving of women who had been forced to live through such a traumatic event. Women who got pregnant out of wedlock were treated the same way, and “most unmarried Somali girls who got pregnant committed suicide” (pg. 169). Throughout the course of this book, sexism has been a large issue, and the social stigmas behind rape and pregnancy of unmarried women have literally killed women.

Ali continued to doubt her religion and all of its sexist teachings. When she faced problems she had to solve, Ali said that “a good, believing Muslim would pray to Allah for guidance, wisdom, strength, but I didn’t”. I felt this was for me to sort out” (pg. 172). She started putting more trust in herself and her own decisions, rather than relying on faith alone. When her father arranged a marriage that Ayaan refused, she was not allowed a choice in the matter, and “had no realistic way out” (pg. 174). The blatant sexism in Islam showed in the marriage process as well: Ali recounted that “neither my presence nor my signature was required for the Islamic [marriage] ceremony” (pg. 176). Ali had no choice — the ceremony was complete, the papers signed, the plane ticket to Canada already bought for her.

While in Germany, when she was waiting to receive her visa and fly out to live in Canada, Ali had a new idea: “I didn’t even have to go to Canada. I could disappear here” (pg. 187). She realized that although she “might have a decent life [in Canada], …I would be dependent — always — on someone treating me well” (pg. 187). So, Ali decided to run away, to take a train to Holland and never look back. “It was Friday, July 24, 1992, when I stepped on the train. Every year I think of it. I see it as my real birthday: the birth of me as a person, making decisions about my life on my own…I was just a young girl and wanted some way to be me; so I bolted into the unknown” (pg. 188). This quote stood out to me, because it truly describes Ali’s feelings of freedom, of how she did not know where she was going or what she was doing, but how she knew that she could not stand a life married to a man she did not love, being treated like an object. Ali took advantage of the freedoms she gained in Europe, and stepped off the train into a new life, a free life, a life she created for herself and did not have to rely on anyone else for.