Dalrymple reviews Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s new book Nomad in The Globe and Mail, and he says it is “a philosophical memoir” from “undoubtedly one of the most remarkable people in the world”. While he finds her zealous embrace of the Enlightenment “rather too simple”, he agrees with her core contention that “a profound change in the relations between the sexes is the key to Muslim integration into Western society” and says she writes “with both modesty and great eloquence”.
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Spot the difference:
“This is the tragedy of the tribal Muslim man, and especially the first-born son: the overblown expectations, the ruinous vanity, the unstable sense of self that relies on the oppression of one group of people – women – to maintain the other group’s self-image. Instead of learning from experience, instead of working, Mahad [her brother] engaged in a variety of defence mechanisms involving arrogance, self-delusion and scapegoating. His problems were always somebody else’s fault.”
“This is the tragedy of the tribal feminist, and especially the middle-class white woman: the overblown expectations, the ruinous vanity, the unstable sense of self that relies on the oppression of one group of people – divorced fathers – to maintain the other group’s self-image. Instead of learning from experience, instead of working, Harriet [a one time minister for ‘equality’] engaged in a variety of defence mechanisms involving arrogance, self-delusion and scapegoating. Her problems were always somebody else’s fault.”
Dalrymple has made an uncharacteristic mistake in this article: Hirsi Ali turned 40 last November.
Would you care to supply a citation to show where you found the second quotation?
I’m afraid you’re missing the point. Here’s a hint: it’s not plagiarism.