Ayaan Hirsi Ali on AEI, Lateline

Ayaan Hirsi Ali appeared at the American Enterprise Institute last week to do a presentation for her recent book Infidel. Video and Audio are available.

She was in sparkling form and their is a - around the 30 minute mark - an amusing, and slightly flirtatious exchange between Ayaan and Christopher Hitchens.

Two points she made struck me in particular , around the 45 minute mark she is asked to compare the situation of Islamic radicalism in Europe and the United States. She issues a caveat about how little time she has yet to spend in the US, and that her remarks should be seen as no more than a speculation at this point, but went on to say that the profile of European Islamists is very young, enthusiastic and in a hurry, and that they believe that they can achieve the Caliphate through violence and soon. In Contrast she thought the Islamists in the US were more patient and prepared proceed step by step and primarily through persuasion - and setting up shop on campuses and through professional organisations and through the media - a Classic Gramsician manoeuvre - and that they were better funded than in Europe. I don't think Europe is without it's patient Islamists - i.e Tariq Ramadan, but I certainly think there is something in the observation.

The other point that struck me especially was her recounting of how she herself was recruited by the Muslim Brotherhood and the reasons why it is successful as an Ideology. She pointed out that if the west is to compete with a more benign vision of the future then it could not go about being all apologetic about it - and being half hearted (it is incidentally a riposte to those who accuse her of being an Enlightenment fundamentalist.

My own feeling is that the information battle has to be fought much more aggressively - not just in extolling the virtues of secularism and liberalism - but also in attacking the Muslim Brotherhood and the like through their works. They should be distributing documentaries covering the Algerian civil war of the 90's , Taliban ruled Afghanistan , the plight of the Muslims in Darfur and any place else where the bitter fruits of Islamism have already revealed themselves.

In any case go and listen to the source herself, she is far more eloquent than I am.