Politics, Religion & Ideology For Peer Review Only DECONSTRUCTING AYAAN HIRSI ALI: ON ISLAMISM, NEOCONSERVATISM AND THE CLASH OF CIVILIZATIONS Journal: Politics, Religion & Ideology Manuscript ID FTMP-2016-0021.R1 Manuscript Type: Research Paper Islamism < Keywords, neoconservatism, ideology < Keywords, biography, Keywords: Hirsi Ali, Orientalism URL: http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/ftmp Email:
[email protected] Page 1 of 44 Politics, Religion & Ideology 1 2 3 DECONSTRUCTING AYAAN HIRSI ALI 4 5 6 ON ISLAMISM, NEOCONSERVATISM AND THE CLASH OF CIVILIZATIONS 7 8 9 10 11 In The Evidence of Experience , a notable essay by the historian Joan W. Scott, she 12 13 14 questionsFor the naturalness Peer attributed Review to subjective experience. Only Experience as 15 16 personal testimony is commonly conceived as authentic and true, and the 17 18 authority granted to experience powerfully buttresses claims to knowledge. 19 20 21 Emancipatory projects – whether centered around the identities of workers, 22 23 minorities, feminists, or gays – have often relied on subjective experience to 24 25 question dominant, ‘objective’ paradigms. But the appeal to experience, Scott 26 27 contends, leaves aside ‘questions about the constructed nature of experience, 28 29 30 about how subjects are constituted as different in the first place, about how one’s 31 32 vision is structured’.1 Therefore the ‘evidence of experience’ can end up 33 34 essentializing identity and reproducing rather than contesting given ideological 35 36 systems. 37 38 39 In the case of Ayaan Hirsi Ali, arguably those very qualities lend her writing its 40 41 42 persuasive power and impressive popularity.