In the book of Genesis Adam works the garden of Eden, maintaining it for God.  He lives a blissful, perfectly righteous and innocent life, albeit a lonely one.  So God makes him a suitable partner in Eve.  Adam and Eve have it all.  They have thousands of trees from which to eat, harmless animals to co-inhabit the beautiful garden with, and no shame or evil.  Eve is then tempted by the Serpent to eat from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil.  Traditionally most people look at this story as representing the folly of mankind.  But was Adam not a slave to God in that garden?  A slave with limited knowledge and thus limited ability to make decisions for himself?  Did the serpent not tempt humankind into a wold filled with knowledge and free will?  Likewise, in Greek mythology the hero Prometheus is condemned to eternal torture because he stole the knowledge of fire from Zeus and gave it to mankind.  Again a mythical character gave the world knowledge and was punished.  After reading Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s book Infidel I realized that she too has been punished for the transmission of vital knowledge.  This is a brief outline of her story and its relation to knowledge and power.

Childhood

Ayaan Hirsi Ali was born in 1969 in Somalia.  During her childhood and young adult life her family would move from Somalia to Saudi Arabia, to Ethiopia, and then to Kenya.  Although her father was a rather liberal political activist (by Somalian standards) she was raised under strict Sharia law, which led to a tormenting youth.  Her genitals were mutilated by female circumcision, she was not allowed outside of the house without a male, her sexuality belonged to the head of her family, she went through an unwanted arranged marriage, and she suffered the humiliation of losing her virginity on marriage night – the penis of a man was violently forced into her sewn-shut vagina.  She had no freedom and was subject to do all of the cleaning and cooking that her brother did not have to do, simply because he was male.  If she refused chores, or spoke out of line, she was beaten.  On one such occasion she disobeyed her Ma’alim- whom her mother had hired to teach her more about the Quran – by locking herself in her room.  The Ma’alim came back later and whipped her with a sharp stick, ending the assault with the smashing of her head into a wall, cracking her skull.  The next morning she was in too much pain to do chores so her mother beat her.  Several days later, in much pain, her head had swollen.  When taken to the hospital for immediate surgery the doctors said that if she had not received surgery that day then she would have surely died.  At school she learned only Islam, math, the Quran, and “all the evil things Jews have done and plan to do against the Muslims” (47 Hirsi Ali).  One of her teachers even beat her.  Suffice to say, her childhood was violent and lacked freedom, most of which was due to strict Sharia law.   Childhoods like hers were common among most other children she knew.

Religious Control of Knowledge

In her childhood Ali was taught nothing outside of Islam; everything she knew was viewed through a fundamentalist Muslim mindset.  It is clear that the clerics and Imams had control over what she read. This type of religious control of knowledge has been around since the start of religion.  It is no wonder that the development of the printing press brought about the banning of books by religious institutions. The first example of religious censorship of the printed word came in 1517 when Pope Leo X condemned Martin Luther’s Ninety Five Theses (15 Foerstel).  Then, in 1564 the Papacy set into motion its Index Librorum Prohibitorum, defining books which Catholics were not allowed to read nor print (15 Foerstel).  It has progressed into 1989 when Salman Rushdie was forced into hiding for publishing The Satanic Verses because Ayatolla Khomeini of Iran put a one million dollar bounty out to anyone who killed him.  Most recently, Richard Dawkins’ book The God Delusion was nearly banned in Turkey after Harun Yahya filed a complaint that it was insulting to Islam and Sherry Jones’ novel The Jewel of Medina was dropped by publishers Random House – the same company that published the Satanic Verses – for fear of violent Muslim reactions.

The banning of books in developing countries is an effective means of controlling knowledge because these countries lack a robust information society full of newspapers, magazines, television, and the internet.  How could a young girl like a Ayaan Hirsi Ali gain any new knowledge if she had no way of obtaining it?  The reading of books leads to new insights, ideas, and opinions.  It expands the mind to think outside of narrow mindsets.  That is, of course, if one is reading books with a view that is not within their dominant meaning structure.  The knowledge gained through reading leads to freedom, both philosophically and in real life situations.  Daniel Dennet describes this acquisition of freedom by getting his readers to imagine a straight line traveling across a page.  This line represents time.  If you have no new knowledge your line will continue straight, but as you gain knowledge new lines branch off of the main line.  It is now your choice which line you want to take.  As more knowledge is attained more branches emerge, thus leading to more choices, until your world of freedom looks like an immense tree with intertwining branches of possibility.

Escape to Freedom

In her young teens Hirsi Ali would finally be presented with new branches of knowledge when she attended a school in Kenya that had a library full of books written in English.
“Once I had learned to read English I discovered the school library.  If we were good, we were allowed to take books home…  We began with Nancy Drew adventures, stories of pluck and independence.  There was Enid Blighton, the Secret Seven, The Famous Five: tales of freedom, adventure, of equality between boys and girls, trust, and friendship” (64 Hirsi Ali).
This started a new path in her life – “An entire world of Western ideas began to take shape” (69 Hirsi Ali).  She started to become interested in experiencing the same romance, equality, and adventure she found embedded in her ragged paperbacks.
“All of these books, even the trashy ones, carried with them ideas – races were equal, women were equal to men – and concepts of freedom, struggle, and adventure that were new to me” (69 Hirsi Ali).

As she progressed into early adulthood Hirsi Ali would start to rebel and disobey her mom.  She went to cinemas and experienced new food.  She even secretly married a man she liked.  Her marriage was short lived as her father soon after arranged a marriage with a man he had met only for several minutes.  He was a Somali from Canada who she was set to marry in a weeks time.  She was utterly disgusted by her new husband to be.   After a short while he moved back to Canada and left her money for her flight to join him there.  Instead of a direct flight she stayed a few nights in Frankfurt, Germany with relatives.  She went out alone and roamed the streets – something she was never allowed to do back home.  She walked without a man at her side, without other males calling her names, and without the fear of being called a bad Muslim.  And she could go anywhere she wanted without restraint…she was free.

“I felt as though I had been thrown into another world, calm and orderly, as in the novels I’d read and certain films, but somehow I’d never really believed them before” (185 Hirsi Ali).

People had always told her that the rest of the world was dirty and filled with violence because it was not under Muslim rule.  She was amazed that they were not just wrong, they were completely wrong.  In fact, it was the opposite.  From her young teen years reading trashy romance and adventure novels that spoke of a beautiful world of passion, freedom, equality, and romance to these few days in Germany, Hirsi Ali had reached a climactic decision about her future.

“I could disappear here. I could escape it all, hide, and somehow make my own way, like someone in a book” (187 Hirsi Ali).

And so she did.  She packed her bags and boarded a train to Amsterdam to find Asylum in the Netherlands.

Death of Van Gogh

After a short stay in a refugee camp she received full Dutch citizenship in 1992 and stayed in municipal housing where she worked several menial labour jobs to save up for schooling.  After Hirsi Ali finished University she found interest in Dutch politics and won a position in 2003 in the Peoples’ Party for Freedom and Democracy. This same year she co-wrote and produced a short film with Theo Van Gogh (a descendent of Vincent Van Gogh) entitled Submission, which focused on the poor state of woman’s rights in Islam.  After the film aired on Dutch national television both Hirsi Ali and Van Gogh received death threats, which they both ignored.  In November of 2004, Van Gogh was murdered by a Muslim radical in broad daylight.  After the murderer had shot Van Gogh in the back 8 times, then slit his throat, he stabbed a knife with a letter attached into his chest.  In this letter was a call for Ayaan Hirsi Ali to be murdered next.  She has been in hiding ever since.

Knowledge secures power.  Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s acquisition of freedom came from knowledge of that freedom.  She understood the importance of knowledge and attended university as soon as she could, where she solidified her view that the reading of ideas leads to empowerment.  She then used this knowledge – this kernel of information so important to the flourishing of a free and democratic society – and wrote an  autobiography entitled Infidel.  Like the condemned serpent and the heroic Prometheus, Hirsi Ali has stolen knowledge from her oppressors, empowered herself with this knowledge, and used it to teach others the value of knowledge.  I highly suggest you read Infidel.  It is a beautiful book that puts a voice to the values of freedom and knowledge.