I partially retract my criticisms of Yale

It turns out that the Yale Muslim Student's Association put out a letter protesting Ayaan Hirsi Ali's speech at Yale that listed a number of 'supporting' groups that had not in fact endorsed the letter.  From this day hence they will be called the Yale Muslim Liars Association.  Not that being caught out as pathetic liars will deter them.  Their religion explicitly says that any crime done to non-believers in the name of Islam isn't a crime.  Which is why Islam must be considered a global crime syndicate. Anyway, I gladly take back all the nasty things I said in this post.

David Gelertner, a Yale Professor and brilliant writer of "Drawing Life" the best living memoir I have ever read summarizes her visit:

The attempts over the last decade to silence Ayaan Hirsi Ali range from death threats to polite suggestions that she be barred from campuses. They have served only to heighten her stature—and Hirsi Ali is already impressively tall. She has a stately bearing, dresses quietly and tastefully. She speaks slowly, with a rich and robust accent. And you’ll never see a less affected speaker at a podium.

She began by thanking Yale in contrast with Brandeis University. The latter had, only a few months earlier, first offered and then rescinded an honorary degree and an invitation to appear at their commencement ceremony. Yale will probably get more credit than it deserves for the comparison: It was not the university but William F. Buckley, Jr. Program, a conservative undergraduate group, that invited her to speak on campus. Perhaps Yale will follow through and do the decent thing and award her a degree this spring term. That would mean something. It would turn Yale into a bastion of freedom overnight, at a time when American universities are threatening to become an elaborate, extremely expensive practical joke.


Hirsi Ali was introduced by Harvey Goldblatt, a professor of Slavic languages, who praised her courage and especially her work on women’s rights, and reminded the audience that part of a serious academic environment is listening to opposing viewpoints. That this reminder should be deemed necessary on a university campus is striking, but even more striking was the almost pleading tone. There was a hidden acknowledgment of helplessness, like a Wild-West saloon owner sidling up to the local outlaws and saying, “Please, y’all, we don’t want any trouble here.”


The protesters who had warned against a rabble-rousing speech to be delivered by an ideological firebrand must have been doubly disappointed. Hirsi Ali is a gentle, thoughtful speaker. There were no red-meat “applause lines”—though she did often get applause. Her thesis was simple: Any attempt to deal with Islamic terrorism is doomed unless we acknowledge its connection to Islam. Every religion has a “core,” and the core of Islam is to submit to the will of Allah. (That is, in fact, what the word “Islam” means—submission to God. Hence also the title of Hirsi Ali’s film collaboration with Dutch director Theo van Gogh criticizing the treatment of women in Islam. Van Gogh was subsequently murdered by an Islamic extremist.)


She insisted that there are not, as some suggest, “many Islams”—but there are several sets of Muslims: The first group are radicals who want to force the entire world into Islam by eradicating everything else. The second group, the vast majority, are in a “state of cognitive dissonance”—torn between the strict teachings of the first group and their own consciences, which revolt at the terrorists’ behavior. The third group, perhaps the smallest, are reforming Muslims, who suggest, for example, that mosque and state should be separate. Members of the third group are excommunicated, exiled, threatened, murdered.

Ms. Ali is a truly admirable person.  I hope someday to meet her and tell her face to face.