Ayaan Hirsi Ali

I have been doing a bit of research on Ayaan Hirsi Ali today. Just to give you a quick summary: She is a liberal member of the Dutch Parliament and currently in hiding because of death threats for the movie she has made together with Theo von Gogh who has been killed a while ago. Being a Somali immigrant and a former muslim (a contradiction in terms?), she is now firmly convinced that open societies do not just have a problem with fundamentalist islamism, but with islam as such, which she deems irreformable and incompatible with open societies. An impressive, courageous character who deserves all our support!

Doing that, I came across the poem IF by Rudyard Kipling, which I liked very much. It reminds me a lot of another one of my preferred works by The Bard, namely Sonnet 94. I think they both go very well with what Ayaan Hirsi Ali stands for.