Analysis of Ethnic Experiences in AyaanHirsi Ali’s Infidel

Abstract

AyaanHirsi Ali’s Infidel (2007) is more than simple cataloging of life’s events as she brings out the absolute horror, verbal and physical abuse, poverty, death and forced marriages that numerous women faces. Even death threats failed to subdue Hirsi Ali’s iron will and fierce determination as she continues to assert the rights of Muslim women and the need for reform of Islam. Hirsi Ali’s Infidel describes her physical journey from Somalia, through Kenya, Ethiopia, Saudi Arabia to Netherlands and U.S. and her intellectual journey from tribal culture through fundamentalism into Western liberalism. LailaLalami in her review in The Nation criticizes Hirsi Ali for her lack of knowledge about Islam while the American novelist and screen writer, Roger L. Simon hails her as “one of the great positive figures of our time, a modern Joan of Arc who surpasses the original Joan in a moral sense and is at least her equal in pure guts”. In The New York Times, Nicholas Kristof calls her as “by nature a provocateur”. Hirsi Ali’s memoir powerfully projects the situation of Muslim women in various parts of the world. The present paper analyzes the ethnic experiences depicted in AyaanHirsi Ali’s Infidel.