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"Decades ago, I escaped the Islamic world and came to The West. Many don't know how good The West is, or how fragile. I fight for the restoration of what made The West great." – Ayaan Hirsi Ali

Ayaan Hirsi Ali is one of the bravest and most prominent voices in the defence of The West. We are delighted that she will deliver our 2024 Smith Lecture in which she will explore the multiple threats to our way of life and how to combat them.

 

Today, Britain and The West seem crippled by self-loathing. Our heroes and achievements are denigrated, our history rewritten. Race and identity politics are fracturing social cohesion. Mass immigration from the Islamic world has led to a rise in illiberal cultural practices and attitudes towards women, girls and others. Our right to free speech can no longer be taken for granted.

 

How did we get here? And, crucially, how do we get out?

 

We hope you will join us on 26 November for this important lecture, following which there will be a Q&A where attendees can ask their questions.

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Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Lady Ferguson is a Somali-born Dutch-American writer, activist and former politician. She is a critic of Islam and advocate for the rights and self-determination of Muslim women, opposing forced marriage, honour killing, child marriage, and female genital mutilation.

 

Hirsi Ali was born in Mogadishu, Somalia, where she was forced to undergo female genital mutilation. In 1992 Hirsi Ali fled to the Netherlands to escape a forced marriage. There she was given asylum and in time citizenship. She quickly learned Dutch and was able to study at the University of Leiden, earning her MA in political science.

 

From 2003 to 2006 Hirsi Ali served as an elected member of the Dutch parliament. While in parliament, she focused on furthering the integration of non-Western immigrants into Dutch society and on defending the rights of women.

 

In 2004 Hirsi Ali gained international attention following the murder of Theo van Gogh. Van Gogh had directed her short film Submission, a film about the oppression of women under Islam. The assassin, a radical Muslim, left a death threat for her pinned to Van Gogh's chest.

 

In 2006 Hirsi Ali had to resign from parliament when the then Dutch minister for immigration decided to revoke her citizenship, arguing that Ayaan had mislead the authorities at the time of her asylum application. The Dutch courts, however, confirmed that Hirsi Ali was indeed a legitimate Dutch citizen, leading to the fall of the government. Disillusioned with the Netherlands, she subsequently moved to the United States.

 

In 2007 Hirsi Ali founded the AHA Foundation to protect and defend the rights of women in the United States from harmful traditional practices. Today the foundation is the leading organization working to end violence that shames, hurts, or kills thousands of women and girls in the United States each year and puts millions more at risk.

 

Hirsi Ali is a fellow with the Future of Diplomacy Project at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at the Harvard Kennedy School, a visiting scholar at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, DC, and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

 

Hirsi Ali is currently researching the relationship between the West and Islam. She must live with round-the-clock security, as her willingness to speak out and her abandonment of the Muslim faith - she is now a convert to Christianity - have made her a target for violence by Islamic extremists.

 

Ayaan Hirsi Ali was named one of Time magazine's "100 Most Influential People" of 2005, one of the Glamour Heroes of 2005, and Reader's Digest's European of the Year for 2005. She is the best-selling author of Infidel (2007), Heretic: Why Islam Needs a Reformation Now (2015) and Prey: Immigration, Islam and the Erosion of Women's Rights.

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