Ayaan Hirsi Ali sounds like the best type of intellectual writer - this side of Greer.

Ali is full of contradictions - forcing the reader to sort them out - and therefore forcing them to learn more about such important issues as religion and terrorism. No neocon white male Americans, who preach on the "evils" of Islam, need apply.

Meanwhile, I think Shakira Hussein is a real VIP and what an evocative name :)

Pete

Well what a heartwarming, balanced and positive contribution from Shakira Hussein... we can all learn much from her complete objectivity, sympathy with the author (Hirsi Ali) and lack of bias......right?

I don't care if Hirsi Ali's methods are a little 'artistic', or a few ends are left ragged, as with the given example of the disjuncture between her personal lack of religious beliefs, and her call for the Catholic Church to reach out to Muslim women.
She is discussing incredibly important issues, and her own personal religious beliefs are not really the central point.

She is doing an incredible service for oppressed women everywhere. Nitpicking on the details doesn't undo her good work.
Muslim women who are not oppressed should not deny the possibility that oppression can and does take place in the name of that religion.
We must reach out to our sisters, for if we don't, who will? Freedom to live without fear is a human right.

I agree floatinglili

All thinking shades of political opinion and genders should be supporting the liberation of woman - whatever their religion.

With the passing of Rudd the conservative churches in Australia have lost an ally - and hopefully Conroy to boot.

High Church Abbott, formerly of the Jesuit Order, needs to divest himself of his quiet allegiance to the odd Pell before he can honestly say he has a balanced view about woman of all religions, contraception, abortion and gay parenthood.

Regards

Pete
(a centrist atheist who's "calling" is nuclear weapons owned by Australians in 15 years)

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=10598#174816

plantagenet, you are an odd fellow to pin down on your views, opinions, like myself, i suppose.

Greer is the worst "intellectual" the world has ever known.

http://www.themonthly.com.au/monthly-essays-louis-nowra-exclusive-germaine-greer-and-female-eunuch-2309

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8630135369495797236#

Radical, Extreme, Fe"Man"Nazism has been proven wrong in everything it has ever preached, repeatedly.

http://www.reich4.de/Begriffe/sittlichkeit/?lang=en

http://www.warrenfarrell.com/

http://www.cruelhoax.ca/#top

The Loony, Left, Fauxmanista's introduced Radical, Fe"Man"Nazism to poison the relationship between men & women in the western world.

It is a divide & conquer technique.

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=10598#174866

ALGOREisRICH, have you seen this one mate?

http://www.henrymakow.com/australian_satanist_exposes_wo.html

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=10598#174874

floatinglili, your last 2 sentences could be better interpreted, the other way around.

There is almost no such thing as oppression of women, anywhere in the world.

Radical, Extreme, Loony, Left, Lesbian, Fe"Man"Nazi, Paedophiles have been lying about everything, since day one.

http://www.savethemales.ca/000185.html

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=10598#174879

plantagenet, i am a centrist & libertarian myself, but its men who are being oppressed, in order to promote incompetent women, like Gillard, above their station in life, in order to "Accidentally On Purpose" create dysfunction within Modern Western Democracies.

Formersnag: << ALGOREisRICH, have you seen this one mate?

http://www.henrymakow.com/australian_satanist_exposes_wo.html >>

From the linked article:

<< The US-based "Church of Satan" was the public face of "an ancient body whose very existence had never before been imagined." He lists as "influential members" J.P. Morgan, Drs. James McDonald and Rene Hardy, the Kennedy's (including Jackie), Irving Berlin, Groucho Marx, Elvis Presley, Garner Ted Armstrong, Sammy Davis Jr., Ronald Reagan, Edward Heath, Thomas Plantard de St Claire and the Bushes. He later mentions Stephen Spielberg, George Lucas and Gerald Ford as members. >>

Too funny. You're off with the fairies, old son.

<< There is almost no such thing as oppression of women, anywhere in the world. >>

What world do you live on?