Writer and activist Ayaan Hirsi Ali, who recently appeared in an episode of Hub Dialogues in conversation with The Hub’s editor-at-large Sean Speer, spoke on pluralism, radical ideologies, and multiculturalism, among other topics. Here are four takeaways from their conversation.
1. On creating Courage Media
“Courage Media is a platform where I want to speak openly, and I invite guest writers and speakers to explicitly discuss [difficult topics]. Open societies and democracies cannot thrive if we don’t participate openly, and if we don’t participate honestly. .. I launched Courage Media because we have lost trust in mainstream media—we want to have these incredibly important discussions we are having behind closed doors brought out into the open.”
2. On the fragmentation of Western pluralism
“Depending on who talks about pluralism, from the perspective of one group, that puts us in trouble because it then becomes ‘this group’ versus ‘that group’, and we drift away from the foundations of Western society in terms of protecting the individuals. We are all equal before the law, but that only works if we are individuals. If we start dividing societies into different groups…there are no consequences in a society that lacks a core creed. It is the wrong approach to keep hacking society into different zero-sum groups.”
3. On her faith
“I see that these classical liberal ideas have their roots in Christianity. I didn’t see that when I was an atheist. I thought, like many of my atheist friends, that it was a reaction against Christianity. They say all religions are the same. Christianity is no better than Islam, and I think that that’s just not true. Christianity produced the Enlightenment and produced classical liberalism, and perhaps even some of these other isms, and that is the challenge. One thing about if you’re a true classical liberal is you welcome discussion, you welcome debate. You try to do your best to see things from the perspective of others, and this shutting down of debate, this canceling of people, that’s not liberalism and it’s not progressive either. It’s hugely progressive.”
4. On immigration and cultural cohesion
“Immigration has always been selective in North America and elsewhere. You let in the immigrants you think are going to be productive, that will assimilate, that will contribute to your society, and that are not a danger to your society. And I don’t only mean political subversion, I also mean safe streets and safe schools. You know, women feeling safe at home. So I think it’s an excellent idea to run on your immigration system, on values. What kind of society do we want to live in, what’s our core creed, what’s in our national interest, and we’re going to take in people from outside who are part of this, whom we can call part of this [society]. That’s number one. Number two, it’s, I think scale. I think it becomes impossible. It is self-defeating to think that you’re going to maintain your core identity if you flood your society with people who have a radically different set of values.”
Listen to Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s conversation with The Hub here.
ChatGPT assisted in the creation of this article.
Editor’s note: Some of the quotes above have been revised for accuracy.
