I Lived In Countries That Had No

What I Find Daunting Always Is To Stand On A Stage And Talk To People, Whether They Agree With Me Or Not.

When I Was With The Labor Party, I'd Get Into Trouble Because The Party Bosses Determined That Some Of What I Wrote, Or Proposed To Write About, Wasn't Conducive To Their Policies Or To Electoral Success.

Infuriatingly Stupid Analysts - Especially People Who Called Themselves Arabists, Yet Who Seemed To Know Next To Nothing About The Reality Of The Islamic World - Wrote Reams Of Commentary [after 9/11]. Their Articles Were All About Islam Saving Aristotle And The Zero, Which Medieval Muslim Scholars Had Done More Than Eight Hundred Years Ago; About Islam Being A Religion Of Peace And Tolerance, Not The Slightest Bit Violent. These Were Fairy Tales, Nothing To Do With The Real World I Knew.

The Demand That Islam Makes Of Women Is To Not Attract Attention To Yourself, And If You Are In A Secular Society, That Attire Does Exactly That, And It Is A Political Symbol, No Longer Religious.

I Grew Up In Somalia, In Saudi Arabia, In Ethiopia, And In Kenya. I Came To Europe In 1992, When I Was 22, And Became A Member Of Parliament In Holland.