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We Are All Salman Rushdie
Author and human rights activist Ayaan Hirsi Ali reminds us why the recent attack against Salman Rushdie was an attack on all of us.
“The infidels will not be silenced,” wrote columnist, speaker, human rights activist and best-selling author Ayaan Hirsi Ali on August 17, 2022, striking a defiant and heartfelt tone. “Like Salman Rushdie, I choose freedom.”
Ayaan Hirsi Ali has a better perspective than most on the recent stabbing attack of writer Salman Rushdie in New York.
The author of such works as “Heretic: Why Islam Needs a Reformation Now,” and, “Prey: Immigration, Islam, and the Erosion of Women’s Rights,” Ali is herself frequently the target of violent threats from the same extremists who have been ruthlessly hunting Rushdie since 1989.
“I know all too well the threat Islamism poses,” Ms. Hirsi Ali shared. “After I came out as an apostate, I was forced into a bubble of protection that still surrounds me to this day. I have 24-hour security. I still receive death threats.”
“My friend, the sweet, vulgar, brilliant Theo Van Gogh was murdered simply for making a film with me,” she wrote, before describing her own terror and heartbreak in these unforgettable words:
“His attacker used a knife to stab a letter into Theo’s chest: it said that I would be next.”