What has the New York Times got against Ayaan Hirsi Ali?

Ayaan Hirsi Ali is not an easy person to cancel. She has survived the brutal murder of her colleague Theo van Gogh, lived through more than two decades of serious threats to her life and fled more countries than many people have visited. Perhaps it is for these reasons, rather than in spite of them, that she generates such hatred from what used to be called ‘liberal’ quarters.

Hirsi Ali has a new book out this week. ‘Prey’ is a forensically detailed, careful and brave analysis of (as the subtitle says) ‘immigration, Islam and the erosion of women’s rights’. It looks at questions that most people turn away from: horrors that result from the mass immigration into Europe of recent decades. Horrors like the one which Britain euphemistically describes as the ‘grooming gangs’ problem. 

Prey is a clear-sighted book, filled with what data is able to be gathered from numerous Western countries which have been careful to do anything other than collect data on such questions. Hirsi Ali’s conclusions are far from outrageous. They are moderate, detailed and in line with what sensible public opinion would agree with in almost every country.

Unfortunately sensible public opinion is rarely aired because a small group of left-wing boundary-beaters have spent the last twenty years trying to ensure that none of the news, data or debate around this is ever had out. For the last twenty years all Western European countries have circled around the consequences that mass immigration from Muslim societies can bring. But thanks to these would-be censors many people, including politicians who might make a difference, find that the price of entering the debate is off-puttingly high.

A pattern has emerged in which whenever somebody raises the issue of whether or not there are any consequences that result from importing large numbers of mainly male migrants from culturally – ahem – different cultures, the person raising the question is accused of being ‘far-right’ or bigoted.