The current debate about immigration is characterized by extreme positions. On the one hand there are those who uphold a sunshine perspective on the migration society and keep silent about the problematic sides. on the other hand, immigration is reduced to crime and terrorism and demonized as a threat to the western lifestyle. Especially when it comes to Islam and the situation of women, things get difficult. One event that summed up the different positions like in a magnifying glass was New Year's Eve 2015/2016, in which mass sexual assaults on women were committed in Cologne and other cities.

Police spokesmen and the media initially kept silent about the acts and only reacted when thousands of pictures, reports and videos were circulating on social networks.

Then a discussion broke out that was telling.

Right-wing organizations, which had not been particularly emancipatory before, posed as defenders of women's rights, while left-wing activists put the events into perspective by making dubious comparisons with the Oktoberfest and carnival events.

Factual discussions were difficult even in academia, as intersectional feminists reflexively raised accusations of racism because migrants were at the center of social criticism.

Remembering a New Year's Eve

Now the subject is back. “Booty” is the title of Ayaan Hirsi Ali's book, which brings together four hundred pages of evidence for the sub-title thesis that Muslim immigration threatens Western women's rights. The events on Cologne's Domplatte are painted on the wall as a warning sign of future dystopias. The cover shows two women standing back to back and looking in opposite directions. One of them has loose blonde hair, the other is wrapped in wide black cloths that only leave the eyes free. This is certainly promotional, but also striking and triggers spontaneous defenses in those who have not always believed that Muslims are an evil. Can it get even brighter, one involuntarily wonders.

The author of the work has earned a reputation for bringing topics to the public that fall victim to the taboos of political correctness. Your fundamental criticism of Islam is also biographical. Ali was born in Somalia, was genitally mutilated and severely abused by an Islamic teacher. She resisted the forced marriage with a cousin by fleeing to the Netherlands. Here, a girl raised in the spirit of the Muslim Brotherhood became an atheist. She educated herself, became politically active and criticized the Islamic oppression of women. With the artist Theo van Gogh she produced a film that summarized this criticism in provocative images. Van Gogh was murdered in the street by an Islamist for this, and Ali has not been safe since then either.

An argumentative and controversial author

How do you survive such a chain of traumatizing experiences?

Ayaan Hirsi Ali decided to go on the offensive and warn of circumstances the consequences of which she would have to experience firsthand.

She now lives in the United States and is one of the harshest internationally known critics of her former religion.

Your publications are all arguable and controversial.

For some, she is a woman who speaks plain language, others consider her to be Islamophobic.

That probably also applies to her new book.