WTW30: Ayaan Hirsi Ali Converts to Christianity to Fight the Woke

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors — the audio is the record.

0:00:41 Thomas: Hello and welcome to Where There's Woke. This is episode 30. We've hit the big 3-0. I'm host Thomas Smith, and I've got a fun one for you today. So, around about a month, a little more than a month ago, something significant happened to, at least for those in the old atheist community, now or ever in the past. So, So, Back in the Day, I was a member of the atheist community. I suppose I still am, but I was part of that kind of new atheist movement in a way. Identified I with a lot of those goals and with those leaders and such. Some of that I very much regret. Some that I Very much don't regret. Just depends on kind of which parts of the argument we're focused on. But one of the significant leaders in that, so there was the four horsemen of atheism, so-called, of new atheism. Hitchens, Dawkins, Harris, and Dennett.

0:01:28 Thomas: And then there was someone who many, not everybody, but many considered to be like the fifth beetle, you know, the fifth horse person of atheismo, of New Atheism. And that was Ayaan Hirsi Ali. By my memory, she sort of burst onto the scene in like 2010 or something. That isn't quite right. We go through it in the recording you're going to hear. But when she sort of burst into the scene, Hitchens and Dawkins and others really latched on to her and promoted her. And she was an inspiring leader for people who were not really for people Who were atheists, but more for people Who hated Islam because she's an ex-Muslim and there's a whole story there. There. So anyway, picture being the fifth horse person of new atheism, then flash forward to around a month ago in this year, and Ayaan Hirsi Ali has has written written an essay declaring that she is now a Christian.

0:02:23 Thomas: So you might be thinking at this point, why are we talking about this on Where There's Woke? Well, that is I don't think there's any way to avoid this off in the naming of the episode. So, but that is porque she cita as one of the foremost problems, threats, challenges facing the world. World. She cites wokeism. And somehow becoming a Christian is going to help that. So here to help break that down, a sort of a marriage of shows, we've got Heath Enwright from The Scathing Atheist and, of course, Lydia and I. And so the three of us will put our heads together and figure out what's going on here and talk about this Ayaan Hirsi Ali conversion to Christianity. Here you go. Don't put down that shakshuka, everybody, it's Heathen Right back for another visit, yeah.

0:03:09 Heath: Hello, everybody. It's a very sad day. We lost an atheist. Very, very sad.

0:03:17 Thomas: We, Yeah, that's, can't wait, this is perfect overlap of our areas of interest. Shakashuka for one. Wait, no, I guess there's no connection there, but we'll just, that's our our forever connection. But also, yeah, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, I guess was an atheist, maybe. It's actually unclear, but she was, anyone who was around for the atheist movement from 2000 circa 2005 till now will remember that she was a huge deal. Christopher Hitchens kissed her ass to an uncomfortable degree. I remember thinking, that was my impression of the time, was like, like, all right, man, that's, this is weird, this is getting to a weird degree. And that was like 2007.

0:03:24 Lydia: Yep.

0:03:35 Heath: Allegedly.

0:03:56 Heath: Sure hope Hitchens dies so he doesn't become horribly, horribly problematic for the rest of his life. And he did. He did. He tapped

0:04:00 Thomas: God. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, he had the decency. I, I, not a day goes by. Well, actually, that's not true. Sometimes I think about that very thing. I wonder where Christopher Hitchens would be because they just every, every like other, well, we'll get to it. But that's that's actually part of the conversation today, because Ayaan Hirsi Ali, to get back to the basic description, was an atheist. She was more than anything anti-Islam, which was the most important thing to be in 2006-ish when this, when she came up. And she wrote an article for unheard.com, which I think also has a show. I don't really, I don't know. I saw a little bit out about it, but I don't care enough. There' there's too many things. And yeah,

0:04:05 Heath: Out.

0:04:29 Lydia: Yeah.

0:04:41 Heath: The unheard mentality podcast.

0:04:43 Thomas: Kind of. And it is actually that, like the intro is like, combating herd mentality. So it is like the unheard mentality. Oh, she's an unheard columnist. Wow. That's so popular. It has columns too. And so she came out and said, why I'm a Christian. She wrote that recently, this month, actually. And naturally in our circles that made a bit of a splash, but I thought it was perfect for this show because A, we've got someone from Scathing Atheist, of course, you are semi-interested in the question of atheism, Heath, I assume. Express passing interest in religion and irreligion.

0:04:51 Lydia: Mm-hmm.

0:05:21 Heath: Genuine answer, though. Yes, but like, what's next is my real interest in that. It's like, yeah, zero gods. Cool. What's next? Let's have some morality. Yeah. All

0:05:27 Lydia: Yep. Yep.

0:05:21 Thomas: Sure, yeah, exactly. It's not as though Scatting Atheists, every episode now for fucking 100 hundred years that you've been doing it is like there's no god and music

0:05:39 Heath: Right, guys. It's episode 583. Are we at zero gods? Yeah, we're all at zero. All right. Good episode.

0:05:44 Lydia: Yep.

0:05:40 Thomas: Yeah yeah because there are shows that are that bad most they of them have gone away, but for a while that was like what atheism was, and also if you did anything else you had a bunch of angry neckbeards online being like, "Why don't you just stick to atheism?" And it's the very thing you're talking about where it's like, yeah, I mean, and

0:05:59 Heath: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Shut up and dribble of atheism. Yeah, I

0:06:04 Thomas: So, the tie into this show, maybe perhaps people listening are wondering why are we talking about this? Cause this is, you know, atheism and this isn't like an atheism show. She cites as one of the three most important reasons for her conversion and the three biggest threats to like the world. You're never going to guess what they are. You're never going to. Heath, you probably already know, otherwise I'd make you guess

0:06:26 Heath: I bet it's gonna be fun to circle the one that doesn't belong in this list.

0:06:30 Thomas: Yeah yeah it's um, just as a like rational person thinking listener, why, what would you guess, listener, what's the three biggest threats to the world? Climate change would probably be like number one to me, I think because it kind of trumps all the other ones. Yeah, I, nuclear stuff I'm not as worried about at this point, you know, like maybe I'm, the nukes would be good. Like maybe the nuclear winter helps with the global warming. Have we thought of that? So I think climate change, number one. Number two would be like creeping authoritarianism and like fascism in every seemingly every government that ever caused by like just disproportionate reactions to immigration, like just absolute right wing, you and fascistic reactions to, you, people needing to migrate because of reason number one, climate change, which is a huge. So

0:06:31 Lydia: Yeah. Yeah, yeah,

0:06:43 Heath: Climate change, nuclear proliferation.

0:07:20 Heath: Yeah?

0:07:21 Thomas: There's like a reinforcing thing that

0:07:21 Lydia: Yeah.

0:07:21 Heath: Yeah. Economic injustice would be on my list for

0:07:23 Thomas: Yep.

0:07:24 Lydia: I was going to say number three like would be that pervasive income inequality that, feeds you generational divide. Yeah.

0:07:24 Heath: Sure.

0:07:25 Thomas: Ooh, yeah. Yeah. So let's see if we got any of the serve.

0:07:32 Lydia: Are we close?

0:07:33 Thomas: Steve Harvey, do are we, do we get any of them where

0:07:36 Heath: Steve Harvey might agree with this list.

0:07:38 Thomas: To be fair, I don't know if she says these are the biggest threats to the whole world, but she does say it's the biggest threat to, quote, Western civilization. So, yeah.

0:07:46 Lydia: That's The only world that she cares about. Out. Too. So,

0:07:48 Thomas: Yeah, exactly. But it would be the same. Like, if somebody asked me, what's the greatest threat to Western civilization? I'd like, A, I don't, what is Western civilization, define that, please? But B, if I answer your question, subbing in like just civilization or like that, that. It would be the same answers. So, I don't think it changes the question.

0:07:49 Lydia: Yeah.

0:08:04 Heath: I think she said like life, humanity, freedom and happiness or something like that. Like Like it's it's the three biggest threats in a very big way is what she's claiming.

0:08:07 Lydia: Yes. Yes. The

0:08:08 Thomas: Yeah, yeah. So what are they, hun?

0:08:13 Lydia: Resurgent of great power authoritarianism and expansionism in the forms of the Chinese Communist Party and Vladimir Putin's Russia. That's Number one. TikTok.

0:08:22 Thomas: Okay. All

0:08:21 Heath: OK. All right. I mean, authoritarianism, at least we

0:08:27 Lydia: Yeah.

0:08:24 Thomas: Right. Yeah. Like partial credit, you know, we could like, yeah, I mean, Chinese communist. Okay. Isn't it weird how she's phrasing that already? Like, wait, we should already just, let's Get into it. 'Cause this is, this is down in the essay a bit, but it's, you know, it's, key point number one here is like what her threats to this are. And It's literally, by the way, this part of the essay is under the sentence, so, what changed, why do I call myself a Christian now? So like, this is top, top thing going on here. If you were to say, yeah, you know, what's a major, I don't know, threat's a good word, but like a cause for concern, I could see discussion of China being well within that range.

You know, the Chinese government has found a way to both join the world markets, you know, and keep, keep a tight lid on any kind of dissidence or anything like that. Like they've found a ways to balance that, seemingly. And there is a real danger of this, like, techno fascist kind of thing, like, that's certainly a concern, but isn't it weird to say, like, yeah, you know what the threat is, there, the Chinese Communist Party, it's like, is that really the threat, isn't

0:08:29 Heath: Was doing OK for a second.

0:08:37 Lydia: Yep. Yeah.

0:09:27 Heath: Dissidents.

0:09:27 Thomas: That weird, isn't like, it just, I don't, I wouldn't even, that wouldn't be the top 10 things I'd think about listing, about talking about China as an issue, and

0:09:35 Heath: They're pretty heavily involved in international capitalism. So it's a weird way to frame it. Yeah.

0:09:36 Thomas: Yeah. Bizarre.

0:09:40 Lydia: I Also think, like, this is a weird thing, like, why "a Christian now," and she cites Vladimir Putin's Russia, how long has he been in Power, you

0:09:49 Thomas: And Yeah. There's this new country called China Have You

0:09:53 Lydia: China's Growing authoritarianism Like that's not, you know, post 2023, that's no, not New Information.

0:09:58 Thomas: Heard They Founded a new country called China and it's, it's, I, so bad, tell you this, how bad is it, it's so bad, I'm a Christian now, that's How bad it is, yeah.

0:10:04 Lydia: Yeah.

0:10:05 Heath: And Russia. So she's thinking about starting some sort of, you know, frigid war with Russia now. Maybe that might be a problem.

0:10:06 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. Gosh. One more new country pops up, she's gonna have to be like a, another new religion, what's, she's the connection there between Christian and whatever? We'll get to it. So that's threat number one. What's threat. Number two.

0:10:18 Lydia: I don't know. Threat number two

0:10:24 Thomas: Holy shit.

0:10:24 Lydia: Is the rise of global Islamism, which threatens to mobilize a vast population against the West.

0:10:30 Thomas: The rise of global Islamism. That is. that'S marvelous. To quote the great Big Lebowski.

0:10:40 Lydia: Like

0:10:39 Heath: OK. Say what you will about the tenets of National Socialism. At least it's an ethos. No, I don't think that's what she's going for. She I mean, I don't like that Islam has power anywhere, nor do I like that any religion has power anywhere. But it's a weird thing to add to your list of the top three problems of the world.

0:11:00 Thomas: Rise of global Islamism.

0:11:02 Lydia: In the language on that clause that she follows it with, right? Which threatens to mobilize a vast population against the West, is stoking, like, real sort fear images, right?

0:11:13 Thomas: You know, this is like, I don't know if you've had this experience, maybe you have, Heath, you know, when you go back to your hometown after a really long time, you're like, "Fuck, I don't want to be here, I don't want to see," and then you see somebody and you're like, "Oh, man, okay, well, I got to talk to this person," and they're asking you what's going on with your life, and you're, "Yeah, no, I'm doing so," and and got the kids, got the, or whatever. What's going on in your life? And you find, like, they're still just living there in the hometown that you grew up in, that you went to high school in.

0:11:40 Heath: Hanging out with Squooch. We had some beers yesterday. Alright.

0:11:41 Thomas: Yeah. They're doing the same thing that they were doing there. This is like that. Cause I haven't thought about Aion for a very long time. And this is like, Oh, Aion, you're in the news again. What you, uh, what you've been doing? She's like, Islamism is a threat. You're like, fuck man. That's 2007. 2007, you're still doing 2007, but now she's like, not only yes, but more yes, like, we'll get to her biography, she hates Islam, she just, good reason, personal reason, sure, but like the rise of global Islamism in the year of our lord 2023, being what, I don't even know what she's referring to, like, what, what in her mind, what, what, is rising, what what's the indicator that, like, shit, you know, it's on the rise, Islamism, what is that, do you think?

0:11:43 Heath: Alright. Cool.

0:11:53 Lydia: You're up to Yeah,

0:12:09 Heath: Valid. Valid for sure.

0:12:09 Lydia: Yeah, I Think there's some elements of this that's related to the Israel-Hamas war and like the kind, don't know, I don't know, like support, I guess, that you're seeing in the West for Palestine. And I think that that is probably concerning to her. And that's kind of what's driving some of this.

0:12:38 Thomas: Yeah,

0:12:46 Heath: Yeah. Humanitarian support for the people of Palestine is like a big red flag for her, apparently.

0:12:53 Lydia: Yeah.

0:12:53 Thomas: You know the only thing that could explain that, heath, Islamim, the only thing there could explain people being like, hey, maybe don't genocide this powerless population right now, like, maybe don't kill all of them, that person must be under the influence of extreme Islam. That's the only thing that explains that.

0:12:58 Lydia: Yeah,

0:13:09 Heath: I mean, yeah, a lot of my opinion on that avenue is based on my knowledge of Islam, for sure. Yeah.

0:13:13 Thomas: The Quran. Yeah. Yeah, no, you're right. That probably is what timing-wise maybe is going on. But what's the pillar number three, hun, in the threats to civilization?

0:13:20 Lydia: The viral spread of what do you think? Woke ideology, which is eating into the moral fiber of the next generation.

0:13:30 Thomas: Drum roll. Yeah Hey, first of all, I'd like to thank the Academy of me for the good job, everybody listening. We have achieved a viral spread that is eating into the moral fiber of the next generation. I didn't know we had done that quite yet. It was on our list of things to do, but we've officially eaten into the moral cyber of the Next Generation. And I just, for one, I'd like to say it takes a team. It takes a, it's not, it is not me alone. It takes, you know, like it's, there's all kinds of people that I need to thank for this.

0:13:48 Lydia: How?

0:14:05 Heath: Unbelievable. Ayaan, pro tip, don't make lists of three. That's fucking you're already crazy thing is even crazier when you put it in this list form. Just be like, I'm against woke ideology because I'm kind of an asshole. But then you can make your argument, but like, it's one of the top three threats to humanity, in your opinion.

0:14:18 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. Wow.

0:14:24 Lydia: And, She's been feeling that way actually for a long time, yeah, of yeah Yeah, I mean, and I'm sure we'll get into it, but you you go poking around and you'll find a lot of stuff

0:14:26 Thomas: Forever. Yeah. Yep. That's what we wanted to talk about. I Think that's what maybe the goal of today's show. We should go, we'll go through more of this and we'll talk about some history of Ayaan. But I think the kind of one of my goals for the show is showing a little bit how this is absolutely the most predictable fucking thing in the world. Because I think there will be a lot of casual atheists or whatever, because I don't know how many like normies have heard of Ayaan Hirsi Ali. She's pretty niche, maybe depending on where you are, maybe in Dutch parliament or whatever the fuck you've heard of her, for the because average listener, I don't know, unless you were there for atheism in that time, you maybe haven't heard of her. And I suspect that a lot of people, maybe this would have come as a surprise to a lot of people. Maybe this would've been like, oh, whoa, wow, that person that Christopher Hitchens was best friends with apparently until he died and was propping up, she's now converting to Christianity.

0:15:23 Thomas: And it's actually when looking back not only with hindsight, but with like present sight, it was super predictable, you know, and looking at the signs and looking at what she said back then, I think that a lot of what motivates me and all this is looking at how omnipresent this ideology has been in lot of society, but also right down even the atheist movement that I was a part of. Like a lot of this right-wing reactionary viewpoints, a lot those viewpoints have been there the whole time. But I, for one, did not notice them at the time, really. I didn't. I'll confess, I didn's notice them at the same time or I thought some of them right. Were And I don't know, Heath, if what your memory of history is, but I mean, what do you think about that? Do you have any observations about how you felt about her and this kind of thing back then?

0:16:09 Heath: So I wasn't paying much attention to it in 2006 when she first emerged as, you know, one of those big atheist voices at that point. But certainly during that moment, like, say, if you would ask me something about woke ideology in 2006, my opinion would have been way less enlightened than it is now. I'd like to believe I've, you know, improved a little bit and become a little more reasonable.

0:16:27 Lydia: Yeah,

0:16:32 Thomas: Yeah, because can trace kind of the source here and show why this is ultimately the most predictable thing in the world, but, uh, before we do that, uh, hun, do we want to go through any biography? Do we kind of talk more about Ayaan?

0:16:44 Lydia: Yeah, we can do a little bit of that, um, you know, I'm not gonna delve deep deep deep deep into her history, but just so everyone has some context, like you said, she is sort of a niche personality for the broader public. So Ayaan Hirsi Ali was born in Somalia. Her father was involved in politics there, you know, pretty well-to-do family, and there was political challenges within Somalia at a variety of times, but one of those occurrences, is her dad was actually imprisoned when she was pretty young and while he was imprisoned he was very much against female genital mutilation and her grandmother was not her grandmother was into it and so while dad was in prison

0:16:45 Thomas: Wow.

0:17:22 Thomas: Holy Shit, I actually didn't know that specific part of it

0:17:27 Lydia: Yeah, the the grandma had a man come and do FGM on her when she was five.

0:17:32 Heath: Terrifying.

0:17:32 Lydia: Horrible.

0:17:27 Thomas: Wow. Like I said personal valid reason to be mad at Islam, I'm not gonna not gonna take that away from her, wow.

0:17:36 Heath: Sure.

0:17:36 Lydia: Yeah, yeah. Really awful. Apparently also her dad had been married like 18 times or something. He's had 18 different wives. He has like 19 children. Yeah, it's a lot of work. Or

0:17:51 Heath: No shakshuka in that household for anybody.

0:17:52 Thomas: That's Yeah,

0:17:53 Lydia: Maybe they have to make a lot of shakshuka to feed everybody.

0:17:57 Thomas: Yeah, But No Beyonce or whatever the other thing was

0:18:00 Lydia: Yeah, no Beyonce, no time. So he's released from prison. And there's still, you know, problems within Somalia, and he ends up taking the family and and they move. Basically They kind of exile themselves a little bit for protecting everybody. They move to Saudi Arabia, then Ethiopia, then Kenya. They sort of settle in Kenya. And while she's in Kenya, her dad is able to kind of help rebuild a life for all of them. They end up pretty upper class in Kenya and she went to an English-speaking Muslim school. And And while she was there in Kenya, I guess coincided that with the Muslim Brotherhood rise there, and she was into it. It was, yeah,

0:18:01 Thomas: Yeah, Oh, Right, Yeah, That was her deconversion

0:18:02 Heath: Sure.

0:18:42 Lydia: Right.

0:18:43 Thomas: Kind of story, yeah, yeah.

0:18:44 Lydia: So she was very sympathetic towards the cause of the Muslim brotherhood. She started wearing a hijab to school, and every day she was completely clothed and everything, thing, and it was something that she was pretty invested in as a teenager. She supported the fatwa against Salman Rushdie, um, she thought that was appropriate, um, and it really kind of helped give her meaning, um, at this, you pretty formative part of her life, the next thing that happens, the way that she tells it, she was supposed to be getting on a plane to fly to Canada, um, in a forced marriage an arranged marriage to her cousin and When she was supposed to get on the plane to Canada, she ended up hopping off in the Netherlands instead because she didn't want to marry her cousin who she was being forced to marry, apparently.

0:19:19 Thomas: I didn't catch that part, geez, right. Which You know, oh, okay, if, if true, again, I get it, I get the beef with Islam if that's related. Like, if that is what is making you do that.

0:19:36 Lydia: Yeah, Yeah, So

0:19:43 Heath: Right. But now she's a Christian and she hates secular stuff, but she was able to escape the terrible oppression thanks to one of the most secular countries in the world, the Netherlands, who granted asylum, she

0:19:52 Lydia: She Yeah, Yeah,

0:19:54 Thomas: No, they are Western civilization, Heath. The trains, planes, and automobiles? Christianity. That is what underlies Western civilization. I

0:20:03 Lydia: Yep. So she sought asylum in the Netherlands as part of this and apparently a few years into a, you know, she ended up doing very well for herself and she was elected, um, to be a an MP there.

0:20:19 Heath: Was yeah, she was an MP in the Nederlands, yeah, yeah.

0:20:20 Lydia: Yeah, Um, and she is an MP, she's an MP.

0:20:24 Thomas: Was going to say, shall we talk about which party she was elected under?

0:20:27 Lydia: Um Yeah, Yeah, Um, a party that I think some characterize as like classic liberal, but I have Seen Some

0:20:33 Thomas: Oh, that is not what I have seen.

0:20:34 Lydia: No, I've seen some some characterizations that's like it's pretty right and very anti-immigration, which I think is incredible coming from someone who You know, um Was Able to Immigrate

0:20:44 Thomas: Yeah. Amazing. Hi, I'm an immigrant. Which party should I join? Do you want to join the one that's super anti-immigrant? Sold! What?

0:20:47 Lydia: Yeah,

0:20:51 Heath: No problem, I'll just burn this bridge behind me, I Got it I got I

0:20:53 Thomas: Yeah, yeah.

0:20:54 Lydia: They used her as evidence that they weren't racist, racist, they're Like, hey, look who's in our party, though. Um, and and I also think I was reading a an interview that she did, I think this one was with the New York Times, where they had asked her about, like, you know, her feelings on immigration, and she was like, well, it looks so different from what it was when I immigrated To the Netherlands when I emigrated, it was, you know, like a really nice place, and like there was like a pool there, and, you know, they were very kind, and and it was like a like almost a resort style thing, is what she was describing. And she's like, and now they like put people in this place that looks like a prison. And I was like, I'm so confused.

0:20:58 Thomas: Yep. Yep!

0:21:15 Thomas: Of course. Yep, yep.

0:21:32 Thomas: Yeah.

0:21:33 Lydia: Nothing you're saying makes sense with the other things that are happening in your life and the things that like you're pushing towards. So, yeah. So that was very confusing.

0:21:37 Thomas: Yeah! Yeah. Well, also, yeah, I love that idea that like, here's why we can't support immigration anymore. They're separating children at the border. So you don't want like people to migrate into that. And you're like, wait, why are they doing that though? Is it because they're anti immigration? It's like, what do you mean, you're complaining about the facilities that I don't, how was that even meant? How did she mean that? Like, 'cause that's, that is being done in order to stop, like, to make it harder for immigrants, that's not a cause of why immigration is bad, it's

0:21:52 Lydia: Yeah. I don't know. Exactly. And So she also was, you know, much later, super supportive of Trump's Muslim ban. You know, some critics have said, how, how does this jibe with your stance that women and children in Islam are being, you just horribly deprived of these things, but then you're so, so incredibly in this camp of, like, the Muslim ban is appropriate, and it's preventing, then, you know, women and children from being able to escape, right? Maybe that's the word she would use, in the, in same way that she did. Kind of going back to when she was MP, apparently a film crew went and was interviewing her family, and they were like, we don't know what she's talking about.

0:22:51 Thomas: Yeah, yeah.

0:22:51 Lydia: And I would say, her family is very much of the mindset like Like, no one was forcing her to get married to her cousin. I think they said that was talk of the marriage to the cousin, but that she, like, got on the plane, seemed excited. I mean, who knows, right?

0:23:09 Thomas: Well.

0:23:10 Lydia: Who knows? I

0:23:11 Heath: Were only mildly encouraging marrying the cousin, like I don't understand how that's a good walk back.

0:23:14 Lydia: Think so, yeah. But they said, you know, she was free to leave at any time. But her then response to that, when that became known, you know, uh, the Netherlands was like, you need to revoke her citizenship

0:23:25 Thomas: I was gonna say It's important context here, she, I believe, had to have some story like that in order to get asylum in the Netherlands.

0:23:26 Lydia: Yes. She also said that she was coming from Somalia, but she wasn't, she was coming from Kenya, so she, like, left that out in a particular way. She changed her name, which ended up being fine because she used her grandfather's name, um, apparently, apparently, another fun fact, they had a hard time tracking down her grandfather's name and kind of that lineage because he was born in, like, the 1800s. And they were like, how is this possible? And it's because her grandpa had her dad when he was 90 years old. Yeah,

0:23:34 Thomas: Yeah.

0:23:35 Heath: Okay. Whoa. Oh

0:24:06 Thomas: Comes, it seems like she comes from a family of people who have a lot of, a lot, kids and marriages, so maybe, you know, one of those later ones, yeah, well.

0:24:11 Lydia: Yeah. But, her, you, response to that, the government, you, was going to revoke her, her citizenship, um, they actually didn't, they investigated it and they didn't take her citizenship away, um, yeah

0:24:20 Thomas: They did something didn't they, or they just threaten it, because I saw coverage of like

0:24:24 Lydia: Yeah they I think they threatened it, they, they were looking into it, um, and then I think the government eventually, like, there was a motion to, you know, let it go, kind of thing, because they, they were able to verify the name that wasn't illegal, um, and then I think they were kind of like, well, what does it matter, you know, she was from Somalia, yet, like, wouldn't you also, you know, lie if you're trying to escape the situation, she said that, um, this information had been known since 2002, this, uh, film thing happened in 2006, and she was like, this has been in the public since 2002, and she didn't really refute her family's characterization there of the marriage, so I don't know, again, put that again in the box of, it's all very confusing, confusing.

0:24:26 Thomas: Yeah Yeah.

0:25:07 Thomas: Back when I was involved in this kind of movement, I think the storyline, now it's coming back to me. The, mean, she did that documentary, it was called Submission, and it's very anti-Muslim, obviously, and, the director was assassinated by a Muslim, so, again, I get it. I get why she doesn't like Islam, you know, like, I understand it. But sort of, I remember the storyline among atheists being, well, this effort to discredit her, like, after the fact, is because of, like, know, the progressive left that wants to apologize for Islam all the time is coming, is trying to discredite her by pointing out these lies. But, you know, her story is like, yeah, this has been known since 2002, it's not a secret, it's, you know, it's no coincidence it's coming up now, so that's what I remember, it was like, and I remember, like, buying into that, where it's like, yeah, this is politically motivated to try to discredit her because she's really anti-Muslim, and she's, making a documentary that's very anti-Muslim, them, um, so.

0:26:07 Thomas: Yeah, I mean, there's a lot going on there, yeah.

0:26:07 Heath: Right right

0:26:09 Lydia: There's A lot going on there, and, of, you, the assassination was, the the murderer pinned a note to his chest. Yeah incorporating death threats to Hirsi Ali and the Dutch government then started, you know, funding a security detail for her that followed her around everywhere. And a couple years later, she got picked up to be a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, our friends over at AEI. They come up all the time. And then, the, you, Netherlands was paying for her security detail to travel with her to the United States, live there. They were doing that over and over and over again, and it got very pricey, and eventually they were like, hey, you we can't do this unless, like, you keep living here, and she was like, I'm being forced to choose, you know, to, like, stay in Netherlands, the, or, like, risk being murdered, was her characterization of that, so yeah.

0:26:16 Thomas: Yeah yep right No.

0:27:04 Heath: So Yeah, I mean, anti-radical Islam, sure, but she, she doesn't seem to be able to parse out the difference between that and anti-Muslim people, which is ridiculous. It's very easy to parse that out. And you mentioned she was in favor of Trump's Muslim ban, which is ridiculous, obviously, after hearing that story of how she found asylum in the Netherlands. What do you think she means by, like, this? She supports a ban, but also she's in favor of, like, really clever people who, like, get around the ban, and that, that's the amount she wants to be able to go places.

0:27:04 Lydia: Yeah yeah

0:27:11 Thomas: Yeah

0:27:40 Lydia: Like she wants them to lie, like her

0:27:41 Thomas: If you happen to be maybe plausibly an arranged marriage situation with a cousin, then, and only then, should you be able to leave.

0:27:44 Lydia: Yeah Yeah.

0:27:48 Heath: Here's what you do, you have a dad from the 1800s who had you when he was 150, and then the math is weird, so they're like, okay, you're in, I

0:27:48 Thomas: Yeah yeah those are the only people who should be allowed. Loud. Yeah. That's an interesting place to go, because the difference between her perception of Islam and other religions is a very big theme here. And I have, again, I have something that was around at this time that I guess, I don't know, I do remember if watched this specifically, but interviews like this, I know I saw. I will just play, I am going to to play some, uh, some clips of an interview from 2007. This interview, watching this with today's mindset for me anyway, is pretty eye-opening because it's like, I'm endlessly impressed with the people who were pretty consistently liberal through all of the 2000s to now, you know, and I like it's Just

0:28:06 Lydia: Yeah. Oh,

0:28:40 Heath: Was Not I was not. Like, you know, to circle back to what you're saying before, for sure, like, I was, when I was college age at the beginning of the 2000s, I was like psyched about Ayn Rand. I was such an asshole, and then you know, 9/11 happens and it's so easy to be an asshole in the wrong way about that. Yeah, absolutely, I'm

0:28:51 Lydia: Man. Yeah,

0:28:40 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, and it's so easy to pretend like you didn't support any of that, even though we know from the polling that literally fucking everybody did except a few people, you and I'm not gonna pretend like, yeah, I was, I was a kid, so I don't really blame myself that much, but super into that. But even into 2007, 8, 9, 10, getting into the atheism part, point of it, I was not, I wouldn't say I was like super conservative by then, but the key overlap here is the Islamophobia is the, the hardcore hatred of Islam. Again, some of which against radicals, against certain people.

Yeah. Some of it's justified. They're literally assassinations based on documentaries that should never fucking happen. Like, I get it, I get it. But this was something that very much appealed to the atheist movement of the time because, more than anything, hatred of Islam was like the motivating force behind that movement. Like, when you look back, I plan to do more on that later. But listen to this interview from 2007, looking at this question of, with a broad brush, when it comes to Islam, but not other religions, uh. Is a very, is, is kind of what made me want to play this clip now.

0:29:25 Lydia: Yeah,

0:30:03 Clip: Are many versions of Islam, like there are many versions of Christianity, of Judaism, of all major religions. You're presenting it as one thing, and it's just obviously not. Islam as a faith, as a doctrine, defined by what's in the Quran and the example of the Prophet Muhammad, and unreformed, unchallenged, is a monolith. I could point to other things in other holy books that are equally offensive the other holy books the Old Testament the Bible have become almost obsolete as

0:30:32 Thomas: This is the I'm sorry. I have to just hype this for a sec because I literally laughed out loud.

0:30:37 Heath: Did she say the Bible has become obsolete to Christian and Jewish people? Yeah.

0:30:39 Thomas: Yeah, yeah. So the response. Yeah, just to set this up in case, I know the audio is a little rough. So she has made a bunch of assertions. I'm trying not to play the whole clip because, you know, you don't want to just play another show on your show. But she has made some assertions, and this is in, mind you, 2007. She has made all kinds of assertions about Islam. And this guy, whose name is Avi Lewis, who I don't remember, but we'll have to check on him, see how he's doing. Again, pretty amazing to see somebody pushing back on these talking points that long ago, at a time when certainly a lot of the world was pretty anti-Islam. But anyway, he pushes back with, like, yeah, but aren't there different kinds of Islam, or no, and also, uh, uh, isn't there bad shit in the Bible, essentially. Let's, let's hear

0:31:22 Heath: That's I mean, he was, he was a step ahead of me, I was like, hold on, no, there's a bunch of, like, definitely do murders because of the Old and New Testament too, what are you talking about

0:31:27 Thomas: Yeah. But it doesn't count for the following reasons, Heath, there

0:31:32 Clip: A faith as a doctrine defined by what's in the Quran and the example of the Prophet Muhammad and unreformed unchallenged is a monolith I could point to other things in other holy Books that are equally offensive the other Holy Books the Old Testaments the Bible has become almost obsolete there are no Christians who wants to have the Bible replace any constitution in the West in Western society the

0:31:46 Heath: You Nope, they

0:31:54 Lydia: Oh my god.

0:31:59 Heath: Think the Constitution is the Bible here in the United States.

0:32:01 Thomas: Are No.

0:32:01 Lydia: Unbelievable.

0:32:02 Thomas: Christians who want to have the Bible replace the Constitution. That that was one of those things where you're like, did somebody insert this back in time from now? Like, there's no way that I heard that back then and was like, yeah, right. I can't. I, the speaker of the house is literally a guy who wants to do that. Like, like it's, it's a joke. And, um, it'S so much of a joke that even this guy back then, I think has a good response. Let's see.

0:32:17 Heath: Mike Pompeo wanted to probably literally do that, and he's way more recent, thank

0:32:25 Lydia: Yeah yeah

0:32:32 Clip: Pope hasn't apologized okay whoa you live in the United States of America this is a country where evangelical Christianity has ascended to the highest ranks of power where conservative social values drawn and justified by the Bible are imposed on people every single day I think you're exaggerating they should abortion doctors in the United States of this homophobia is rampant when abortion doctors in the United States were shot the federal government reacted to it by going after the perpetrators putting them on trial and jailing them when in Iran two men went after a woman holding a woman in a man holding hands and shot them they were accreted by the Supreme Court that is the core difference

0:32:38 Heath: You. Okay.

0:33:22 Thomas: Yeah.

0:33:22 Clip: Never

0:33:22 Thomas: That's her counter argument.

0:33:22 Heath: Okay. I was a difference there, she highlights, but then she, I'm guessing, completely skips the homophobia part of the question entirely. So there's that too.

0:33:30 Thomas: Yep. Yep. Oh yeah. We'll get to that too, that's another argument in another other clip I have even today, but yeah, I, this is the type of bad argument that I think you don't notice when it's on your side maybe as much, that I'd like to point out, which is it's setting an unrealistic standard for one side versus the other. Like, the question is not, is the United States literally Iran, but for Christians. Like, if that's the question, like, like if someone was like, "Yeah, Iran, United States, same country, just the different religion." We'd be like, well, no, that's fucking stupid. Like, yeah. We know that.

0:34:03 Heath: Yeah, it's a nobody, nothing, and then I'll, Iran and the United States are different. And it's like, yeah, yeah, right.

0:34:10 Thomas: Yeah, no. We get that. But like the point you made was that nobody anywhere wants to make the Bible the constitution. That was your argument. Was nobody. And then he's like, Well, what about all these examples of precisely that? And there are more that he didn't bring up, obviously. And there's more every day. Yeah, it's actually getting worse. What about all these examples? And then she's like, here's the difference. In Iran, it's totally an Islamic Republic and here it's not quite that. It's like, yeah, okay. But that wasn't the standard that we were setting up.

0:34:39 Heath: The response from the FBI is not the key to this question. It's the fact that that somebody who's a religious fundamentalist was willing to murder people at an abortion clinic. That's the point.

0:34:40 Lydia: Yeah and even now in her essay about that she's now a Christian one of the quotes is unlike Islam Christianity Christianity outgrew its dogmatic stage. This is in 2023, she's saying that. It became increasingly clear that Christ's teaching implied not only a circumscribed role for religion as something separate from politics.

0:35:00 Heath: Yeah.

0:35:02 Thomas: Yeah.

0:35:10 Heath: Sorry, sorry. Christians all agree that we should have a separation of church and state in the United States. That's what she said.

0:35:17 Lydia: Not Mike Johnson. Literally, Speaker Mike Johnson said, yeah,

0:35:19 Thomas: Literally the Supreme court doesn't believe that anymore.

0:35:21 Heath: Ayan, when are you? What are you talking about?

0:35:24 Lydia: Right.

0:35:24 Thomas: Are You a time Lord? But also, there's no time in which that actually made sense. It's insane. I could play this whole fucking interview. It's so good. It' short, but so good, but I just have to play the end because it's brilliant and like, I, I just laughed out loud here, on, I'm

0:35:39 Clip: Elections that the democracy is completely broken well I tell them and I tell them, you shouldn't have stood by and watched for the democracy to be stolen. My point is not so much when the Democrats are in office, everyone is happy, or when the Republicans are in the office, everything is bad. It's that both Republicans and Democrats and the majority of Americans, fortunately, feel that they can run for office, they can get power. As long as you're staggeringly rich, totally connected, in the pockets of your donors, you can do anything you want in America. In America, you can come with no penny, nothing, no money, and you can become very wealthy. Tell me which Muslim country you can Is school where they teach you these American clichés? Is it part of your application process that you have to... No, I I'm so upset that I'm losing my guards

0:35:42 Thomas: Oh, he's yeah, that was about Bush and you know this

0:36:09 Lydia: Yes, man.

0:36:28 Thomas: Guy rules

0:36:28 Clip: Here. I can't believe you just said that. I read Alexis de Tocqueville, and I read about democracy, and I lived in countries that had no democracy, that had not founding fathers, that could not, have not invented, or could not resolve. All. So I don't find myself in the same luxury as you do. You grew up in freedom and you can spit on freedom because you don't know what it is not to have freedom. I haven't. I know that there are many things wrong with America and I know there are things that are wrong with Americans, but I still believe it's the best nation in the world. Thanks.

0:36:28 Thomas: Alex, this is actually kind of important do

0:36:57 Heath: Okay.

0:36:57 Clip: Thanks for coming.

0:36:58 Heath: De Tocqueville was writing in like 1835 about how great America was and the land of opportunity. I think it's a little different now.

0:36:58 Clip: Thank you.

0:36:59 Thomas: You God I love that, yeah, Yeah, God, Conservatives love to cite de Tocqueville, because for one it makes you sound smart, and for two, yeah, it's like, boy, this 60 year old country, here's some observations about it, or whatever the fuck it was. It's not like we didn't even have, like, by the way, when he wrote, when was that? I actually don't know the precise year.

0:37:25 Heath: Alexis de Tocqueville, like mid or early mid 1800s was when that writing was mid 1800.

0:37:30 Thomas: Because so yeah women couldn't vote, black people were still enslaved, so that like, that country that is great and free, that one, that, okay, sure, but I love him because he was like, I'm sorry, I'm like, he's clearly so, so polite, I think he might be Canadian, I'm not sure, but he was like, I, I'm sorry, I'm so, this is, I can't believe you said that, I'm losing my, that was him losing his chill, was like, is there a school you go to where they teach you these things, but I think that's him but it's so perfect, where that kind of argument, so, and this was very prevalent back then, you say, okay, you know, you, my side, or Ayaan's side, or Richard Dawkins' side, or Hitchens, or Sam Harris, would be like, here's a problem with Islam.

And then someone would be like. Yeah, but like, kind of look at the U.S. And there is an element in which you can be like, yeah, there's matters of degree. And that's where I try to be now and be like, yeah, there are some areas where obviously things are a bigger problem in Iran than the U... Like duh, like of course.

0:37:31 Heath: Yeah. Yeah, are

0:37:34 Lydia: Yeah, nuts.

0:37:53 Heath: You looking at a list of memes? Yeah, sure.

0:38:24 Heath: Sure.

0:38:25 Thomas: But also the response back of well, yeah, but this is the greatest country of the world. And, oh, you're complaining about these minor things that are actually not quite minor. Um, I didn't grow up with freedom. You spit on freedom. It's like, is that him spitting on freedom? She literally says he's spitting on freedom is that what he's putting on? Or was he like, yeah, this is what you're saying is kind of bullshit for these reasons. You can easily hold the view that like, this system, this current state of the country is better than fucking, I don't know, Iran, Somalia, whatever you want to say. Sure. Okay. The democracy might be in better shape.

0:38:38 Lydia: Yeah. Yeah.

0:39:01 Lydia: Maybe.

0:39:01 Thomas: But when she's like, look, I know there's problems with the U.S. I like genuinely do you? Because I feel like she has to take this like totalizing view that either your Islamic fascist, whatever, or your perfect freedom. I don't like, I'm not sure she acknowledges that there's problem with the US. I think she just says that.

0:39:19 Heath: Right. And at the end of the day, she's equating good things that she sees about the U.S. from 1835 or whatever as Christianity, not just there's some different types of economic opportunity, United States versus, for example, Iran.

0:39:34 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. And I really wonder much of the Christian part was always there is what I've kind of wondered. Like I've known like for a while I've know she's always been conservative as fuck, like pretty quick. Like you said, she joined up with the American Enterprise Institute away. That was 2006.

0:39:50 Lydia: Yep, very early. Hoover Institution now.

0:39:53 Thomas: And so it's like, were they always conservative? That's what I wonder, you know, because for a while I believed that Hitchens, mean, Hitchens was really lefty at one time. He's like far, far left at a certain time. And I know he eventually turned into more of a conservative. The Iraq war was a major thing there. I want to do more on that, but it's such a big project that I like I don't know when I will. But like this is so like this is 2006. She's she's barely made the stage in terms of the US. Like, yes, she's, you know, notable other places, but in terms of the U S she's barely even anything at this time. It's like, she just coming into prominence a little bit and she's already, bam, I'm with the American enterprise. Like that's, You know what I mean? It's not like she had an image for a while. And then like a lot of people we know, not personally, but like a lot of these people where they're like, okay, now they're cashing in on the right wing money.

0:40:44 Thomas: 'Cause they're whatever. It's like that seems like from the start, she was in with the right wing, hardcore right wing whatever, and people just didn't see it. Like broadly the atheist movement did not see that. I don't think, at this time, I think they were just literally oblivious to it, coming

0:41:00 Heath: No, we were just psyched about anti Islam as a movement, as an atheist movement.

0:41:04 Thomas: From a non-white woman who was, yeah, we're just like, this is awesome

0:41:04 Heath: Yeah, right. It was a good way to dunk on it. Yeah, right. Can we talk about several times in her essay where she does that thing of like describing how amazing Christianity is, but really she's describing the same problems that both Islam and Christianity have, and she doesn't seem to like it's so many times, like so early in her essay, she says something like, "When I became an atheist, I liked not having a God who does everlasting punishment."

0:41:08 Thomas: Yeah can Sure.

0:41:32 Heath: And but the title of the essay is "I'm a Christian Now," or something like that, so so then she has to be like, "But now I I like everlasting punishment again, but with a different name for God." So it's so it's great, um, um, she talked about how, how, OK, when she was involved with the Muslim Brotherhood, she was like, "Yeah, we did charity work." And during that time, we would demand that people convert to our religion. "Now I'm a Christian, though, and we don't do it like it's all the same shit. She she's describing all the problems with Islam like another like like getting to heaven. It can be used to manipulate people. But with Christianity, it's

0:41:35 Thomas: Yeah. For different people. Yeah,

0:41:45 Lydia: But I'm into hell. Yeah Yeah.

0:41:57 Thomas: Not

0:42:00 Lydia: Oh,

0:42:09 Heath: The next paragraph. Like it's so much of that yeah

0:42:09 Lydia: My God.

0:42:10 Thomas: That fucking Bizarre, are well, um, once again, under the theory that this is not new and this was inevitable, would you like me to play a clip from 2011, Heath, that uh has strong uh strong uh implications, or or shows the roots of that very thing you're talking about, 2011? Ooh, well, I'm gonna leave a bit of a teaser there, a bit a cliffhanger there, because Heath was kind enough to stay long so that we could do another whole part on this. It was too much fun, there was too many to analyze and poke fun at, so you'll hear the video I'm referencing in the next part. Thank you so much for listening, as always, please support the show, avoid the auto-ads at patreon.com/wherethereswoke, we'll see you next time.

0:42:26 Heath: Please

0:43:11 Lydia: You know, some critics have said, how does this jibe with apparently your opinion?

0:43:16 Thomas: Jibe, sorry. Otherwise I'll have to divorce you, yeah.

0:43:16 Lydia: Oh, okay. How does this jibe with, maybe I'm doing the hand jive. You don't know what I'm doing in my little closet right now.

0:43:23 Heath: Got they

0:43:23 Thomas: You Can't say jive instead of jibe in front of Heath. It's Gonna Thank You

0:43:28 Lydia: Okay, you're right. I know. Okay. All right. Let me recompose as myself

0:43:32 Thomas: Oh