Joe Rogan Experience #1613 - Ayaan Hirsi Ali

1. 0:00 – 15:00

   (drumbeats) Joe Rogan podcast,…

   1. JRJoe Rogan0:00

      (drumbeats) Joe Rogan podcast, check it out. The Joe Rogan Experience. Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night, all day. (instrumental music plays) Uh, so first of all, thanks for doing this. I really appreciate it.

   2. AAAyaan Hirsi Ali0:17

      Thank you.

   3. JRJoe Rogan0:17

      Thanks for being here.

   4. AAAyaan Hirsi Ali0:18

      Yeah. Thank you so much.

   5. JRJoe Rogan0:19

      So, you were saying, um, that you're having a hard time getting people to talk to you.

   6. AAAyaan Hirsi Ali0:27

      Uh, not exactly. I'm saying that, uh, when I had m- other books published, uh, my publisher would say, "Here's a list of, uh, places you are going to to promote the book." And it was quite striking that this year, it wasn't. Um, uh, I, I published my last book in 2015, it's called Heretic, e- and I was sent to, uh, you know, MSNBC, all of the mainstream media agencies, CNN, it was, it, it was all over the place. Th- they said, "We want you to go there." Uh, and, and I went there. And this year, uh, uh, I just have to do podcasts, it looks like.

   7. JRJoe Rogan1:14

      So, what has been the response from these, uh, mainstream sources? Whether it's M- MSNBC or CNN or any of these places, they just aren't interested?

   8. AAAyaan Hirsi Ali1:24

      I don't know exactly what the communication is between them and HarperCollins, and HarperCollins is my publisher, uh, but we, I had one invitation from a magazine called Bust, B-U-S-T, it's for girls and women-

   9. JRJoe Rogan1:39

      Is that about breasts?

   10. AAAyaan Hirsi Ali1:40

       Uh-

   11. JRJoe Rogan1:40

       Bust as in breasts? Is that what it means?

   12. AAAyaan Hirsi Ali1:44

       Sorry, what does it mean? I, I don't know. Uh-

   13. JRJoe Rogan1:46

       Okay.

   14. AAAyaan Hirsi Ali1:47

       ... I've been told it's a magazine for very young people and it's widely distributed so i- it's something that's popular and if you come out with a book about women, well, Bust would be a, a, a, a good place to go to. A- and then I was told, uh, so they had a journalist, uh, lined up and a photographer, it was going to be a big deal. And then we got, um, a story saying, "Sorry, it's not going to happen after all." Because Ayaan supported J.K. Rowling, the author of Harry Potter, um, when, in my view, J.K. Rowling came out in support of women. Um, but, uh, I'm told that I make the people who read that particular magazine unsafe, or there's a potential that I could make them unsafe.

   15. JRJoe Rogan2:41

       Yeah, that's the phrase that gets used, "make them unsafe" or "make them feel unsafe" or "put them in danger." And I, first of all J.K. Rowling's statements, um, they were not nearly as controversial as people made them out to be, for whatever reason. Do you remember exactly what she said?

   16. AAAyaan Hirsi Ali3:03

       She said a number of things. I think she challenged, um, people like she and myself being called people who menstruate.

   17. JRJoe Rogan3:12

       Yes.

   18. AAAyaan Hirsi Ali3:13

       A- a- and sh- and she did do it, you know, with that British sense of humor, "So what are we called these days?" A- a- and she had w- woman spelled in different ways.

   19. JRJoe Rogan3:26

       Yeah.

   20. AAAyaan Hirsi Ali3:26

       Uh, I'm not quite sure how to pronounce it because I only saw the spelling. (laughs)

   21. JRJoe Rogan3:30

       I like when the put the X.

   22. AAAyaan Hirsi Ali3:32

       Yes. Womxn.

   23. JRJoe Rogan3:33

       Wom-X-Nn. (laughs)

   24. AAAyaan Hirsi Ali3:34

       Yeah, womxn or whatever. Aren't we even allowed to have a name?

   25. JRJoe Rogan3:37

       People who menstruate, I'm sure there used to be a word for these people, someone help me out.

   26. AAAyaan Hirsi Ali3:42

       Yeah, womdn-

   27. JRJoe Rogan3:42

       Wombyn, wompund-

   28. AAAyaan Hirsi Ali3:43

       (laughs)

   29. JRJoe Rogan3:44

       ... womud.

   30. AAAyaan Hirsi Ali3:44

       Womud. (laughs)
2. 15:00 – 30:00

   So, I was born…

   1. JRJoe Rogan15:00

      and how you had to literally risk your life to escape that.

   2. AAAyaan Hirsi Ali15:07

      So, I was born in Somalia in 1969. And growing up in the 70s, my family went to Saudi Arabia, we went to Ethiopia, we went to Kenya. That's where I learned English. And then finally, in 1992, I ended up in the Netherlands. Uh, but if you ask me, in the context of science, to tell you about those years between, uh, you know, when I could walk and talk and understand what was going around me, until about 1992 when I left, uh, I come from territories where superstition is, it's the thing to do, you know. Um, my father left us in 1982. Uh, he left us in Kenya. He went back to Ethiopia to fight, uh, for what he felt was, um, his calling. Uh, democracy and a just system for the Somali people. But in Kenya, my mother, who was with my grandmother, her mother's mother, th- they felt abandoned in a strange country, and they didn't understand what was going on, and they had the three of us. The three of us, that is my older brother and my younger sister. And as children go, we were terrible. And I remember my mother going off to see witch doctors and ask them, "How, how, how do I, how do I deal with my daily life?" And those witch doctors would want one thing, which was whatever money she could give them, and if she couldn't give money, then it would be her goat or it would be something that they treasured. And in Kenya, I'm 10, 11, 12, 13, 14 years old, and all the time when she goes to these people, all I want to say to her is, "This is superstition. You're wasting your money. You're wasting your time. Leave them alone." My mother couldn't read or write, so I didn't know a way of expressing that. And then soon after, in 1985, I was 15 years old when members of the Muslim Brotherhood came along, and they finally convinced my mother and grandmother and all the women in our neighborhoods, "Do not reach out to the, to the superstitious. Don't go to the witch doctors. Come to God, the one and only. Read the Quran." They can't read the Quran, so they have to trust in what he tells them, the Hadith, Mohammed's way of doing things. And in a way, I felt... I felt grateful to the people who had shepherded the women of... the grown-up women of my life away from these superstitious people to the one and true and only God. It just happened to be another superstition, better organized, more slick.

   3. JRJoe Rogan18:12

      But at the time, you didn't think so?

   4. AAAyaan Hirsi Ali18:14

      At the time, I didn't think so. Of course, at the time, I completely believed in it.

   5. JRJoe Rogan18:19

      Why did you, uh, why did you know that the witch doctors were just superstitious and that it was nonsense-

   6. AAAyaan Hirsi Ali18:29

      So-

   7. JRJoe Rogan18:30

      ... at such an early age?

   8. AAAyaan Hirsi Ali18:32

      I'm in fourth grade. I had the fortune to actually go to school and be taught such things as science, so the science class, biology, cause and effect, the way things happen. One of the things that ravaged us was malaria. I got malaria. Everybody I know got malaria. Most people, uh, had families where people died. Uh, people got sick, really very sick, and then died. And the witch doctors were supposed to make these people well, and they were, uh, at any rate, supposed to stop them from dying. So going to the biology class, when we were told, uh, the, the, literally to look at an insect called a mosquito and dissect it and look at its behavior and how it seeks still water, lays its eggs, and what happens when that mosquito comes and, uh, injects its ... m- what do you call it? It's n- that little, um, piece of itself into you, draws your blood, and leaves something in you, which is the parasite. Once you understand that, and this is, I'm in fourth grade, fifth grade, once they teach that and they show how it works, you go home and you say, "Don't give any more money to the witch doctor. Actually, what we should do is go around to all the little puddles and pools of water around us. Let's drain those, dry those, keep our windows shut." Um, we had this big can of pesticide called Doom! (laughs) And I would say, "Let's spray those after we have done all of that, and we won't have malaria," because that's how it had... So, I found myself even at that age confronting grownups who were established, who were well-respected, and who were taking money from my poor mother because they would cure malaria. And I come in, e- I mean, with the most superficial level of education you can think, but objective e- education to say, "I actually get what's happening." And that, uh, I, I can't explain to an American audience the confrontation, the, just the boundaries that you're crossing a- a- and, and the people you're making angry, the toes you're stepping on w- when you, you know, you breeze into the house and say, "And now I know how it works."

   9. JRJoe Rogan21:15

      Mm-hmm. So, you, as a, as a, a young woman, were going to be forced into an arranged marriage, and this is what made you flee and, and head to Europe and, and, uh, wind up in Holland, correct?

   10. AAAyaan Hirsi Ali21:34

       That's correct. Yeah.

   11. JRJoe Rogan21:35

       Can, can you explain how that, that was going down?

   12. AAAyaan Hirsi Ali21:38

       So, this is 1992, and by then I'm 22 years old. So, we've been in Kenya from 1980 to, in my case, 1992. My father left us in 1982. And I was about 12 years old. And all this time, he was gone. He was gone for 10 years. And he comes back and he says, "It's time for you to get married."

   13. JRJoe Rogan22:02

       You hadn't seen him in 10 years?

   14. AAAyaan Hirsi Ali22:04

       I hadn't seen him in 10 years.

   15. JRJoe Rogan22:06

       Had you communicated with him at all?

   16. AAAyaan Hirsi Ali22:08

       He, he used to write letters and after a while the letters stopped. Uh, but the point in terms of, uh, these, uh, him taking the duty upon himself, it's his duty. So, the way it works in Somali culture, in, uh, many parts of the world, that culture is the father's responsible for who y- he's your guardian. He's your male guardian. He's responsible for who he's going to pass you onto. Um, that's finding you the right husband. But because he was gone from '82 to 1992, A, I was able to get on with age and get stronger and wiser, but also see some of my classmates and my friends who were forced into these arranged marriages, and my takeaway from looking at their lives was, "I don't want my life to unfold that way." Because it was really a replication of my own mother's life. And my mother's life was miserable. Um, every country we went to, my mom didn't speak the language. She didn't want to learn the language. But she felt betrayed. She felt out of depth. She was angry, she was full of resentment, and she took it all out on us. So, watching what was happening to these young women, I thought, "Surely life must offer more than that." And I, to this day, say I am grateful that my father left us when he did and came back when he did, because had he been with us earlier, he might have taken this initiative to force me into marriage at the age of 15, 16, 17. And at that age, I'm not sure I would've accomplished what I did at 22.

   17. JRJoe Rogan23:58

       Mm-hmm.

   18. AAAyaan Hirsi Ali24:01

       And when he was gone, I missed him and I was miserable. I wanted him to come back and be with us. But then again, everything is about hindsight. In hindsight, I think, "What if he had married me off at 15 or 16 or 17 or 18?" Uh, you know, what kind of future would I have had?

   19. JRJoe Rogan24:25

       The environment that you lived in, you felt like women were second-class citizens, and you felt like they were the property of men, and they were at the beck and call of men, and they were, they weren't allowed to speak up, they weren't allowed to do many things that men were allowed to do, and they had to know their place.

   20. AAAyaan Hirsi Ali24:49

       Yes.

   21. JRJoe Rogan24:50

       How frustrating was that?

   22. AAAyaan Hirsi Ali24:52

       It was hugely frustrating. Um, also, uh, I'm not trying to defend where I come from (laughs) , but, uh, Joe, when I listen to you talk like that, what I want to say is, I know you've got an American, Western, um, attitude, so you're observing them through that prism, through the lens of, "Oh, these women are oppressed. Uh, they aren't allowed to do anything." A- a- and it's, it's objectively true. I, I wholeheartedly agree with you, and there are so many women in that, in those positions who agree with you. But, being on the inside, being raised within that culture, when you complain about the absolute obedience that you have to show to your father and other male relatives, um, uh, when you talk, when you object to the fact that you're not supposed to have a will of your own, or desires of your own, or things you want to do, the put-down was always that, "You are the rebel."

   23. JRJoe Rogan26:04

       Yeah.

   24. AAAyaan Hirsi Ali26:04

       "You are sinning." Uh, "You are, uh, uh, you're breaking the rules and the laws and the norms and the customs, so you are wrong," and there would be conversations between my mother and her relatives on, "How can we bring her back into the straight path," if you will. Uh, the religious edicts, the tribal and clan edicts, and that's where things, when things get out of hand, because from one day, y- you are the insider. They try to mold you into the insider's beliefs and norms. You fail to do that, and if you're not careful, you will be made the outsider.

   25. JRJoe Rogan26:50

       Were you unique amongst your friends and the people in your family in your beliefs that this was wrong?

   26. AAAyaan Hirsi Ali26:58

       No. I was not alone. Uh, there were girls and women around me whom I li- I, I really consider them to be so much smarter, stronger, uh, more informed, in many ways wiser, who I would look up to. They might be two or three years older than me, and I would say, "Well, I'm really having a hard time right now with my mother, and sticking to the rules. How do you do it? How have you done it?" And the answers I would get most often would be, "You're young. You will learn. There's no way out of here. So, what you need to do is show willpower, show strength, show commitment. Everybody goes through this. For some, it will be harder than others." But, the cons- the thing I was told constantly is, "It's as hard as you make it." In other words, "The sooner you submit, the sooner all these hardships go away, and then you're just one of us and you're doing what you are supposed to do, what you were created to do by God. You are taking your place." The more you say, "I'm not going to do this. I'm going to read this novel. It's not my turn to do the dishes, it's someone else's turn," you start fantasizing about where you think you could be, then you are stepping on so many toes at that point. And you know there's nobody who's gonna be on your side, so you can make the pain as long as you want it to be.

   27. JRJoe Rogan28:36

       What did you know about the rest of the world outside of the community that you lived in? Like, what did you know about the way women were treated in Europe or in the United States or, or anywhere else in the world?

   28. AAAyaan Hirsi Ali28:49

       I knew what I got out of literature, out of reading books. Um, I knew what I got out of movies, out of music. Um, uh, I want you to, I don't know how old you are, but the 1980s, uh, uh, kids, um, in Nairobi, and kids my age, um, I'm in my teens, we're listening to Michael Jackson, we're doing breakdance, um, we're watching very trashy, what, what I've now come to call trashy movies.

   29. JRJoe Rogan29:21

       Like what trashy movies?

   30. AAAyaan Hirsi Ali29:22

       Uh, gosh, uh, many trashy movies. Uh, you, uh, there were these movies at some points where the two guys would come at the cars, o- one from the other side, and then they would miss, um, what was that, uh-
3. 30:00 – 45:00

   Yeah. …

   1. JRJoe Rogan30:00

      uh, I guess, it's a weird phrase. Trashy's a weird phrase. Like, you say trashy to people, they know it's not good.

   2. AAAyaan Hirsi Ali30:07

      Yeah.

   3. JRJoe Rogan30:07

      But they're like, "What does that mean?"

   4. AAAyaan Hirsi Ali30:08

      Well, uh, it's a kind of-

   5. JRJoe Rogan30:10

      They're stupid movies.

   6. AAAyaan Hirsi Ali30:10

      It's stupid movies. You, you-

   7. JRJoe Rogan30:12

      Yeah.

   8. AAAyaan Hirsi Ali30:12

      ... you go to a lot of trouble to get out of the house.

   9. JRJoe Rogan30:16

      Mm-hmm.

   10. AAAyaan Hirsi Ali30:17

       And lay down this whole, you know, "This friend is gonna look, be on the lookout for you. This person is gonna tell a lie on your behalf. We're gonna tell my mom she went to the mosque. Everybody's gonna stick to that story." And then you go to the movies and you watch A Fish Called Wanda.

   11. JRJoe Rogan30:34

       (laughs)

   12. AAAyaan Hirsi Ali30:36

       (laughs) You know, so you-

   13. JRJoe Rogan30:39

       What did it seem like to you to watch a movie like that though? To see this completely different world in these films?

   14. AAAyaan Hirsi Ali30:45

       We were m- I, I mean, my sister and I and all the young women, we were sitting in a cinema and we were mesmerized. Absolutely mesmerized. We just couldn't believe that, uh, these were actual human beings who lived like that. Um, again, talking of trashy, we read John Collins, we read Robert Ludlum, we read all of those spy stuff, so i- i- i- if you're in a bo- you're really in a book into any of these thrillers, you imagine yourself to be the hero of the book. And then, uh, after you've solved one of the most complex mysteries, confrontations between the Soviets and the Americans, you close the book and you look around you and everything says, "You need to do these dishes before your mom comes here and whacks you on the head." (laughs)

   15. JRJoe Rogan31:41

       (laughs)

   16. AAAyaan Hirsi Ali31:42

       So there's this, there's the reality on the ground, which is not what I would call, um, uh, uh, I'm just trying to see how I ... 'Cause I don't want to, uh, to diminish that, but I also want to explain to an American audience, i- i- it's not easy, girls and guys. And for us, reading that type of literature, going to these movies, listening to Michael Jackson and Lionel Richie and doing break dance, those were the escapes. Those were our drugs.

   17. JRJoe Rogan32:17

       Mm-hmm.

   18. AAAyaan Hirsi Ali32:17

       We didn't have ... Boys, because boys could get away and go find, hide somewhere. I'm sure they were exposed to some sort of drug. Uh, but as a girl in my teenage years, I don't remember anything that was mind altering except that stuff. And you know, uh, e- the neighbors, uh, a girlfriend, a best friend, uh, they would have TV and then later on the video, the VHS stuff came along, and you could come and watch movies in their house. And those were the escapes, the escapades. And as you do that, you're telling your mother, "You know what, mum? I'm heading to the mosque." But you're not heading to the mosque. You're watching this, this stuff. A- and why do I call trash, rubbish? I don't know what ...

   19. JRJoe Rogan33:11

       Well, they're definitely rubbish.

   20. AAAyaan Hirsi Ali33:13

       Yeah.

   21. JRJoe Rogan33:13

       Yeah.

   22. AAAyaan Hirsi Ali33:14

       But in what way have they helped me? Um, I don't know. (laughs) I've actually forgotten most of the stories. (laughs)

   23. JRJoe Rogan33:22

       Was there any that particularly stood out? I mean, a- was, I mean, obviously the just, the cultural differences were probably very-

   24. AAAyaan Hirsi Ali33:29

       Yeah.

   25. JRJoe Rogan33:29

       ... mesmerizing, but were there ... Any of the movies, s- did they, they reach out to you and give you hope that there was something better somewhere else?

   26. AAAyaan Hirsi Ali33:42

       Um, sometimes. Yeah. There were some really ... I- if movies were made for teenagers, I'm not sure they gave me that sense. But the, you know, people in the military, dying for something, that could leave you with a sense of, "Yeah, this, this, this stuff worth fighting for." Um, um, here I'm like 15 or 16 years old. I'm a teenager in Kenya. We have death all around us. We have civil wars all around us. We have refugees all around us. So w- to go to a screen would be to just escape that stuff. Um, I read Nancy Drew's-

   27. JRJoe Rogan34:30

       (laughs)

   28. AAAyaan Hirsi Ali34:30

       ... and you know, be on a journey with her trying to figure out who the bad guys are, uh, it was fun, it was interesting, it plays on your intelligence because you're trying to help her solve the mystery. Uh, but then you are her, and so you imagine a world where women can go around solving mysteries.

   29. JRJoe Rogan34:52

       Mm-hmm.

   30. AAAyaan Hirsi Ali34:53

       Uh, i- i- there's stuff like that. But we always understood, like I said, as soon as that thing goes off, you go back straight to your reality.
4. 45:00 – 1:00:00

   Mm. …

   1. AAAyaan Hirsi Ali45:00

      her telephone number. And I told him, "I'm just going to go visit those relatives of ours before I go off to Canada."

   2. JRJoe Rogan45:08

      Mm.

   3. AAAyaan Hirsi Ali45:09

      And he helps me with the whole process.

   4. JRJoe Rogan45:11

      So, he doesn't know what your plan is?

   5. AAAyaan Hirsi Ali45:13

      No, he's 14.

   6. JRJoe Rogan45:14

      Oh, okay.

   7. AAAyaan Hirsi Ali45:15

      I don't tell him anything. I just want, I just want to know, how do you go from here to there? And the UK plan was frustrated, so now it, it becomes the Netherlands. And I call that woman, Fadumo, who's somewhere in the interior of the country in an asylum seeker center, because she had asked for asylum. And when I, I'm in the train she says, "What you do..." This is what you do. Don't come to me first. Go to that other cousin of ours who lives in a place called Volendam, Volendam. And so, when at 11:30 PM the train arrives, uh, she had instructed me how to get off the train, cross the street, go to where the buses are, take the bus to Volendam, and then, uh, call this cousin. And the cousin sent her husband, who by the way is white, uh, m- that cousin of mine married a white man, and had been shunned herself by the family. And so, this guy picks me up from Volendam, which is, it felt like an age. I mean, it, it felt like an eternity to go from Amsterdam to Volendam, but I think it was all of an hour and a half. And he picks me up and he takes me to her. And from there, she starts explaining to me how things work.

   8. JRJoe Rogan46:37

      How so? In what way?

   9. AAAyaan Hirsi Ali46:41

      Well, if you ask for asylum... So far, as I said, "I just wanna get a job. I don't want to ask for asylum." And then she says, "You can't. Uh, you have a visa on your passport. And when that visa expires, you have to get out of the country. So, you ha- you have a very short window of time to make up your mind what you want to do." And she urged me to ask for asylum. And she said, "If you ask for asylum, then you get into the process. They forget about that document and it's all about what's happening to you." And when I do that, I go to Zwolle, the place she said would be the best place for me to ask for asylum. She says it's the best place, because that's where Fadumo, the other woman whom I'm on my way to, asked hers. Uh, and that's where, for the first time in my life, someone comes in uniform, what looks to me like police uniform or military uniform. And I think, "It's over." I think he's telling me, "You're going to get out of the country, you'll be shot. Something bad is going to happen to you." And he comes over and he says, "Would you like a cup of tea or coffee?" And I can't believe my senses, that there is a place in the world where people in uniform ask you if you want tea or coffee. Because where I came from, Kenya, Ethiopia, Somalia, Saudi Arabia, that's not what police do.

   10. JRJoe Rogan48:10

       So, was it a feeling of relief? Was it a feeling of just complete disbelief? Like...

   11. AAAyaan Hirsi Ali48:16

       It was disbelief combined with awe. "Is it, is this all for real? Am I dreaming it?" And the guy actually arrives with the beverage.

   12. JRJoe Rogan48:30

       (laughs)

   13. AAAyaan Hirsi Ali48:30

       I, I mean it (laughs) . Yeah. A- and so, it's things like that, small things like that, that I try and tell my European friends and my American friends is, you know, when you guys, you just say, "Rule of law, rule of law." It's not like some kind of poem by your grandfather. Th- there is-

   14. JRJoe Rogan48:48

       (laughs)

   15. AAAyaan Hirsi Ali48:48

       ... it's real.And the person in uniform, who later on I discovered wasn't even a policeman, but he was in uniform, he was one of the security people at the center, he directs me to the reception area and he says, "Talk to these people." And I do and they say, "You, uh, there's something called a Strippankarte, it's like a bus card that they put in your hands and they say, "You have to take this bus and it'll take you to the next place. Little haste and they'll take care of your paperwork." And I do that, and then they send me somewhere else. And after criss-crossing the country in buses that the Dutch paid for, with the help of people in uniform who guide you from A to B, um, they grant me asylum. I become a refugee. And so I don't need that piece of paper that I came in with, which I had shred.

   16. JRJoe Rogan49:47

       Are you in any way concerned that someone from your th- this, whether it's your father's side or this man who you're supposed to be married to, that they're gonna come and get you?

   17. AAAyaan Hirsi Ali50:03

       Yes.

   18. JRJoe Rogan50:04

       So how do you, how do you prevent that or what?

   19. AAAyaan Hirsi Ali50:07

       There's no preventing it. The only, the way I think of it is I, when I go to the authorities and say, "We're going to put down your name and your date of birth," I say to them, instead of telling them my name is Ayan Hirsi Magan, I tell them my name is Ayan Hirsi Ali. I give to my date br- date of birth November 13, but instead of '69, I tell them '67. So with Ali and '67, I hope not to be found.

   20. JRJoe Rogan50:35

       Right.

   21. AAAyaan Hirsi Ali50:36

       Which was naïve and stupid, um, because I, I, in the end, they do find me because in, the way it works with Somalis is no one is looking for your name or your date of birth. They are looking for this girl who looks like that, talks like that, and so on. And so it goes through the clan, uh, i- i- i- it's, it's the clan way of finding things. Again-

   22. JRJoe Rogan51:07

       Yeah.

   23. AAAyaan Hirsi Ali51:07

       ... very difficult to explain.

   24. JRJoe Rogan51:09

       I understand.

   25. AAAyaan Hirsi Ali51:10

       So-and-so knows so-and-so, and so-and-so knows so-and-so. And so they say, "Oh, yes. I think I've seen this girl somewhere. I think she was with Fadumo."

   26. JRJoe Rogan51:17

       How-

   27. AAAyaan Hirsi Ali51:17

       "No, then she left Fadumo, then she went to Marin. Oh, yeah, I think that's where she is." So somehow they found me after four months.

   28. JRJoe Rogan51:23

       Four months?

   29. AAAyaan Hirsi Ali51:24

       Yeah.

   30. JRJoe Rogan51:24

       So during that four months, what had you been doing?
5. 1:00:00 – 1:15:00

   Oh, we were talking…

   1. AAAyaan Hirsi Ali1:00:00

      how old you are, but we used to have-

   2. JRJoe Rogan1:00:02

      Oh, we were talking about it, I'm two years older than you, remember?

   3. AAAyaan Hirsi Ali1:00:02

      So, to call home... (laughs) Okay. Yeah, but for us, to call home was four gilders and 99 cents, that's five gilders. So, that's, uh, almost the equivalent back then was, uh, $5 to call home for one minute. So in, whatever you said in one minute cost $5. So, I would call my sister sometimes and, uh, sometimes I'd rant about, "Oh, my God, it's raining, it's raining." And she's like, cursing and saying, "I don't care to hear about the rain. Have you got anything else to say?" And it's like, "Okay, the women here, they're running around in, like, like, half naked."

   4. JRJoe Rogan1:00:45

      (laughs)

   5. AAAyaan Hirsi Ali1:00:45

      And, uh, a- and, and the men too, and this... I- it's, it's different here, things are crazy here. A- and then your money would run out.

   6. JRJoe Rogan1:00:55

      (laughs)

   7. AAAyaan Hirsi Ali1:00:56

      (laughs) And so you, you... Like, I wish I- I wish I kept a journal.

   8. JRJoe Rogan1:01:01

      God, I wish you did too.

   9. AAAyaan Hirsi Ali1:01:02

      ... yeah. But then there were the other Somalis, uh, who came from Somalia, and there were people who came from Iraq, they came from Afghanistan, they came from Iran, they came from every which way. And we would huddle together in the dining room and say the exact same things. And as women, men from those parts of the world would actually start harassing us and treating us badly. And I would constantly go to w- we call the tables, 'cause the people sit, uh, like, that's the white table. The white table means white people are sitting around a table. So I'd go to the whites table and tell them, "This is how the men are treating us. And your men are treating you differently. Like, can you talk to them?" (laughs)

   10. JRJoe Rogan1:01:49

       (laughs) Wow.

   11. AAAyaan Hirsi Ali1:01:49

       And th- th- there were things like that. And they would say, "But why do they do that? Where do you guys come from? Is that normal?" And in that, I don't know what you would call it, you could, you could even call it, like, a human lab because you have, you've thrown these people from all over the world at one another in a small place. And there are expectations and our expectations are not being met. There are things that surprise us. There are things that we go, "Oh, u- uh, I- I didn't think that things were done that way." And it- it's all, it's all there. And i- i- i- it's one of... I- I don't wanna say it was a good memory in the sense that it was pleasant, but in terms of teaching moments, uh, best time, best teaching moments in my life.

   12. JRJoe Rogan1:02:40

       'Cause it's a complete paradigm shift.

   13. AAAyaan Hirsi Ali1:02:42

       Complete paradigm shift. All these human... Uh, there was a man from Iran who kept looking at my skin and staring at it. And he would stare at someone else's skin and he'd say, "Does it really get that dark?"

   14. JRJoe Rogan1:02:57

       (laughs)

   15. AAAyaan Hirsi Ali1:02:57

       And you think, "But you're from Iran." People in Iran at that point, what this man was telling me, some of them were shut out of everything, that they had no idea that there were actually black people alive.

   16. JRJoe Rogan1:03:13

       Wow.

   17. AAAyaan Hirsi Ali1:03:13

       This is in 19- uh, uh, 1993, 1992, 1993. So there were-

   18. JRJoe Rogan1:03:21

       Wow.

   19. AAAyaan Hirsi Ali1:03:21

       ... people arriving. I met people from-

   20. JRJoe Rogan1:03:23

       They'd never experienced black people.

   21. AAAyaan Hirsi Ali1:03:24

       ... never experienced. I walk out of, uh, y- you know where you have to go turn your laundry in and get the fresh laundry? And I would meet someone. I said, "Where do you come from?" And she says, "Azerbaijan." And I think, "Hmm, is that a place?" Like, that's how we were.

   22. JRJoe Rogan1:03:42

       Wow.

   23. AAAyaan Hirsi Ali1:03:43

       We didn't know... I knew reality where I came from. I knew a little bit about Europe. I knew a little bit about America. But there were so many places that we didn't know anything about. Uh, uh, some of my asylum... You know, and the, the camp, camp mates, they came from... So, I knew there was a country called Yugoslavia. But when you meet these people, they never said they came from Yugoslavia. They said, "I'm from Croatia or Bosnia or Serbia," or, and you say, "Are those countries?" They weren't at that time. They weren't countries.

   24. JRJoe Rogan1:04:23

       Wow.

   25. AAAyaan Hirsi Ali1:04:23

       But that's how these people saw, that's how they identified.

   26. JRJoe Rogan1:04:27

       Mm-hmm.

   27. AAAyaan Hirsi Ali1:04:28

       You, you shouldn't mistake a Serb for a Bosnian or the other way around, or you'll be in big trouble.

   28. JRJoe Rogan1:04:34

       Wow.

   29. AAAyaan Hirsi Ali1:04:35

       So it's stuff like that. And so in terms of... And I was there for 11 months and I wish I was an anthropologist. I wish I had a book with me. I wish we were just recording the whole deal. Uh, there were Somalis who were just having in- right in the middle of civil war, slashing each other's throats put in the same asylum seek- uh, center, in the same compound.

   30. JRJoe Rogan1:04:58

       Wow.
6. 1:15:00 – 1:30:00

   (laughs) Terrified into learning…

   1. AAAyaan Hirsi Ali1:15:00

      Being sold into this and sold into that and i- m- you know, get on with it. And in two and a half years from that moment, so 1994, I was enrolled into a vocation school. 1995, September, I was enrolled into the University of Leiden. And that's, it was, uh, that I was literally terrified into it. (laughs)

   2. JRJoe Rogan1:15:27

      (laughs) Terrified into learning Dutch and joining a university?

   3. AAAyaan Hirsi Ali1:15:29

      And going to university and making some... You said, I said, I was gonna make something of myself. Well, then you better do it. And the alternatives, you know, the cleaning jobs, the translation jobs, the, uh, stacking of... I, I worked in, uh, I, I don't know if we still have those. I think maybe now machines do that sort of thing. But the packing industry, uh, where all these, uh, items come at you in a factory and you just put them in a box very quickly as fast as you can.

   4. JRJoe Rogan1:16:00

      Hmm.

   5. AAAyaan Hirsi Ali1:16:01

      And they pay you a minimum wage. And obviously, I didn't like that. And so, if you combine all of that, I thought, uh, uh, I, I've actually no choice but to get on with it.

   6. JRJoe Rogan1:16:15

      So, how quickly did you learn the language?

   7. AAAyaan Hirsi Ali1:16:19

      In, uh, August of 1992, I didn't speak any Dutch. Zero. And in April, May, June, July of 1994, I was translating in Dutch.

   8. JRJoe Rogan1:16:34

      Wow.

   9. AAAyaan Hirsi Ali1:16:35

      Yeah. So you can do... If you want it, you can do it.

   10. JRJoe Rogan1:16:38

       If you're worried about being sold away to slavery-

   11. AAAyaan Hirsi Ali1:16:40

       (laughs)

   12. JRJoe Rogan1:16:41

       ... and prostitution, yeah. (laughs)

   13. AAAyaan Hirsi Ali1:16:43

       Yeah. (laughs) Yeah.

   14. JRJoe Rogan1:16:44

       Wow.

   15. AAAyaan Hirsi Ali1:16:44

       Yeah.

   16. JRJoe Rogan1:16:44

       That's incredible.

   17. AAAyaan Hirsi Ali1:16:45

       And I was embraced.

   18. JRJoe Rogan1:16:46

       That's an incredible story.

   19. AAAyaan Hirsi Ali1:16:46

       So i- it's an incredible story in the se-... If you, I, I just wanna caution people, it wasn't just me doing this for me. There were also the friends I made, like Sylvia, the woman I told you about. All of those people who then were a witness to this story, uh, who were cheering for me, um, a- and helping. And I went out of a network and I went straight into a different network.

   20. JRJoe Rogan1:17:14

       Mm-hmm.

   21. AAAyaan Hirsi Ali1:17:14

       And those people really embraced me and I'm really grateful to them.

   22. JRJoe Rogan1:17:19

       And so, you enrolled in this university. What did you study?

   23. AAAyaan Hirsi Ali1:17:23

       (laughs) I, I studied political science. My professor used to say, "Never call political science, political science because it's not a science."

   24. JRJoe Rogan1:17:30

       Hmm.

   25. AAAyaan Hirsi Ali1:17:30

       So it's the school of government. It's politics.

   26. JRJoe Rogan1:17:34

       So politics in Holland?

   27. AAAyaan Hirsi Ali1:17:35

       In Holland.

   28. JRJoe Rogan1:17:36

       And how... It's much different than politics in America, right? Didn't they have like...

   29. AAAyaan Hirsi Ali1:17:40

       The theory part, so what you learn in university is different (laughs) because it's well organized and well ordered, and it always has a happy ending. (laughs)

   30. JRJoe Rogan1:17:52

       (laughs)
7. 1:30:00 – 1:38:32

   You said Medina twice.…

   1. AAAyaan Hirsi Ali1:30:00

      But then the Prophet Muhammad had two careers, one in Mecca and one in Medina. When he first established the religion in Mecca, he went around the city asking people to give up their gods and come to his one god, and he did it by asking. He did it by persuading, talking to people, and preaching charity and goodness. And then, 10 years later, he moves to Medina and he establis- he establishes a militia, and then things change. He starts to give people a choice. "You either come to my one god and you give up your gods, or you die by the sword." And any time from Medina, the religion becomes incredibly successful, and he goes beyond Arabia into the rest of the world. And so, if you're a Muslim in the 21st century and there are 1.6 billion Muslims in the world, if you're a Muslim and you say, "I'm a peace-loving Muslim, I don't want to impose my religion on anyone else," you're invoking Muhammad in Medina. If you say, "Well, I think jihad means that we must take our religion seriously and convert other people, and if they refuse to convert, then we'll use violence," then you're invoking Muhammad in Medina.

   2. JRJoe Rogan1:31:27

      You said Medina twice. You said Medina the first time as well.

   3. AAAyaan Hirsi Ali1:31:31

      Okay. I'm sorry.

   4. JRJoe Rogan1:31:32

      D- the fir- the peaceful Mohammed is not Medina, it is-

   5. AAAyaan Hirsi Ali1:31:35

      I- the peaceful Muhammed is Mecca.

   6. JRJoe Rogan1:31:36

      Mecca.

   7. AAAyaan Hirsi Ali1:31:38

      So, Mecca is where he first came out. And so, if he says... if, if a Muslim today says, "Unto you your religion, unto me mine, I'm tolerant," all of that, you are invoking Mecca. If you're invoking jihad, you know, the Islamic state of Iraq and Syria, ISIS, Al-Qaeda, uh, and some who are sometimes violent but not all the time, the Muslim Brotherhood and other organizations and movements, they're invoking Muhammed in Medina. Because in Medina, Muhammed made it very clear, you spread the religion by word of mouth, by example, but also by the sword, by violence. That's Medina Islam. So, I think it would be more accurate to say there's just one Islam at this point that's unreformed and there's a third group that I describe in Heretic, which is, uh, th- the people like Maajid Nawaz, who are actually trying to bring about a different Islam, to shed Medina, bring some stuff out of Mecca, adapt it to our times. They want to modify stuff. They want to reform. So, th- there is that group too who are actively trying to change things for the better, but they're a minority. I think the majority are Mecca Muslims, the people who are just Muslim, they go about their daily business, they don't wanna harm anyone. But then they have to deal with these jihadists who challenge them and who say to them, "You can't possibly be a true Muslim if you only adhere to Mecca, because the prophet said what happened in Medina abrogates or voids what happened in Mecca."

   8. JRJoe Rogan1:33:27

      What is stopping, particularly, uh, people from the left, including intellectuals, from recognizing the differences, that there are differences in people that follow the, the peaceful version of the religion and then people that follow the m- the more radical version of the religion that wants to convert people? Like, what, what, what is stopping them from recognizing that this is an issue? Because it's, it's almost like an agreed upon reluctance to discuss it, to acknowledge it, and to automatically classify any discussion of it-

   9. AAAyaan Hirsi Ali1:34:13

      Mm-hmm.

   10. JRJoe Rogan1:34:13

       ... as Islamophobic. And that I've, I've seen this labeled, this l- this label put on you, that you are Islamophobic.

   11. AAAyaan Hirsi Ali1:34:23

       Yeah. Uh, so the term Islamophobia is obviously very much a Western term. It's an opportunity, opportunistic term. Um, the West has gone woke and they, uh, um, uh, uh, they feel, um, uh, an intense regret for some of the things that were done by their ancestors. And so, you have names like homophobia, uh, sexism, and so on. And Islamophobia is, I would say, a term that is put right in there to exploit that situation. It's, it's, uh... in my... the way I see it is it's an, it's an artificial term. But let's set that aside, and let's see why it is that Western leaders go along with the assertion that Islam is a religion of peace, there's nothing to see here, it's just a small group of people who, uh, have lost their way, and they would have been violent anyway, um, but in, in general, Islam is a religion of peace. Number one, a lot of leaders, uh, uh, contemporary Western leaders, they don't know much about religion, even their own, and they don't want to. I mean, you could find out. You could be ignorant of something, pick up a few books and just find out. I think, number two, there is a sense that because the West is really powerful where it matters, economically powerful, more powerful than any Islamic country, militarily more powerful, diplomatically more powerful, uh, there is almost that parent-child relationship where it is, "We'll just, um, let them come along. They'll grow up. They'll come to our way of seeing things. Uh, if they want to believe that Islam is a religion of peace, let's, let's say it along... let's come... let's do it along with them." With some people, I think that is the case. And then along came ISIS, and they saw that you couldn't do that, and you, you are now dealing with people who truly believe. And I think it was a matter of time before people in Washington and Berlin and London and so on thought, "Wait a second. It's not only that they believe it, it is in the Quran, it's in the Hadith, it's in the history of Islam. We better do something about that." That's when you start to see a shift in how, uh, the confrontation or the, the clash of values is approached. The latest example, if you will let me, is the president of France. In France, for the last 20, 30, 40 years, they were saying, "There's nothing to see here. Islam has evolved. It's just like Christianity. It's either a religion of peace or it's irrelevant altogether. All religions are going to go away."... uh, uh, eh, eh, we are, we are, we're now living in the post-religion age. In 2021, there is a law right now that has gone through the Law House of France and it is being debated in the Senate, where they're talking about, in, if that law gets passed, then Muslims who are accused of trying to separate their communities from the rest of France along religious lines are going to be stopped by that law. There'll be no more homeschooling. They will be told, uh, y- y- the values of the republic prevail. Anywhere there is a clash between Islamic values and values of the republic, the values of the republic prevail. And he is saying, if that law passes, that's all going to be enforced. Think about that.

Episode duration: 3:17:07