Islamists threaten Western civilisation, says author Hirsi Ali

London: An alarming warning from author Ayaan Hirsi Ali has galvanised conservatives at a London gathering that is seeking to revive traditional values – and build support for the political right.

Ali, who fled Somalia for Europe to escape a forced marriage, warned that Western civilisation was being weakened by Islamists and that the danger could turn their societies into the country of her birth.

Her message dominated the opening sessions of a conference that has drawn 4000 delegates to talk about restoring Western society by tackling challenges such as a crisis of masculinity, falling birth rates and the impact of social media on the young.

Ali, who gained asylum in the Netherlands in 1992, said she had seen Western societies being “deconstructed” over the past three decades by those who sought to introduce Islamist values or advocate communism.

“The Islamists among us, the communists among us, are saying let’s shift all these institutions away from this focus on the individual towards the collective,” she said.

“And the result, to be quite clear, is just going to be where I came from.”

Ali said she was amazed at the personal freedoms in the West when she moved to the Netherlands, including the liberty to walk safely at night regardless of what she chose to wear.

Now, she said, women were not safe in parts of the west when they were alone at night – and, as proof, she pointed to a long scandal in Britain over migrant rape gangs that preyed on girls.

The answer, she told delegates to the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship event, was to assert Western values.

“We can explain the deconstruction that’s been happening in the last few decades – and now it’s time to reconstruct all of these institutions back to focusing on the individual well-being,” she said.

“And, brick by brick, piece by piece, prevail. I would say to all of these institutions: do not give in to the demands of the Islamists. Confront them with the question: Why are you here if Sharia law is so fantastic? Why are so many people in Muslim countries moving to the ‘inferior’ West?”

Now in its third year, the ARC event is giving voice to opinions that might be discouraged in parts of the mainstream media but are strongly felt by members of the public who fear the erosion of traditional values such as personal responsibility, individual liberty, Western democracy and Christian teaching.

This meant the summit engaged in humour that might not raise a laugh in other forums. When Ali aired her fears about risks from other cultures, moderator Konstantin Kisin joked that she was his favourite white supremacist.

“If accountability is white supremacy, and if individual responsibility is white supremacy, then I want to be a white supremacist,” Ali replied. She added that superficial accusations were often used to silence debate.

The gathering comes at a time of crisis in British politics as the Labour government prepares to replace Prime Minister Keir Starmer, while right-wing party Reform UK and its leader Nigel Farage rise in the opinion polls with their pledge to halt migration and cut welfare.

But the conference also addresses global issues and has a strong Australian connection, based on support from former Nationals leader John Anderson, the deputy prime minister from 1999 to 2005.

Australians at the ARC event this week include former prime ministers Tony Abbott and Scott Morrison as well as One Nation senator Barnaby Joyce. Those moderating some of the sessions include Sky News host Peta Credlin, journalist Greg Sheridan of The Australian and former ABC and Nine Network political editor Chris Uhlmann.

One of the founders of ARC, Paul Marshall, a wealthy investor, said the event sought to be “upstream from politics”, but his speech highlighted how philosophy and politics are chained together. He targeted progressive beliefs, including net zero climate targets and the use of “diversity, equity and inclusion” in employment and education.

Another founder, Conservative Party peer Philippa Stroud, hosted the sessions, but one of the instrumental figures in the event, Canadian psychologist and author Jordan Peterson, is seriously ill and could not attend. His wife, Tammy Peterson, told the audience he was suffering from a severe neurological condition, but that there were signs of hope for his improvement.

Opponents of the event posted signs outside the venue criticising Marshall for investing in oil and gas companies, but this had no impact on delegates as they spoke about releasing more fossil fuels to ease costs for households.

Young men ‘emasculated’ by the Left

American politician Nick Freitas, a Republican from Virginia, issued a rallying cry against left-wing ideas that he said “emasculated” young men.

“We’re not going to convince the young men of the West to fight for a civilisation that is complicit in their own destruction,” he said.

In a sign that the gathering was as much about culture and religion as politics, the sessions were interspersed with classical music and a defence of Christian faith.

Sculptor Sabin Howard, who created the First World War memorial for the US government in Washington, issued a passionate defence of faith and Renaissance values in art, contrasting this with sterile modern art.

“I refuse to be represented by a cold pile of bricks on a cement gallery floor,” he said.

While there was at least one Labour politician on the podium – political theorist and life peer Maurice Glasman – the audience appeared to be a mix of Conservative Party and Reform supporters.

Migration was a key topic that merged the cultural and political threads of the event. Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch told the gathering she wanted Britain to change course and impose border controls that ensured higher economic growth and lower migration.

“People in this country were very welcoming of immigration – I mean, I’m a testament to that,” she said. (Badenoch was born in London to parents from Nigeria).

“But the scale and the pace of immigration in recent years, dare I say in recent decades, has meant that the social fabric has been frayed.”

The political impact of the ARC is uncertain when its supporters appear divided between the Conservatives and Reform, in a dynamic that would split the bloc at a general election and might help Labour hold power.

‘We’ve never been as fractured … we’ve never been as deeply in debt. We’ve never flailed around so much looking for leadership, and we can’t possibly know where to go if we don’t know where we are, and we can’t know where we are if we don’t know where we’ve come from.’

John Anderson, former Nationals leader

But the arguments on the ARC podium also figure strongly in the political messages from the Liberals and Nationals as well as One Nation leader Pauline Hanson.

“The goal is not to be a political movement or a religious movement or whatever,” Anderson told this masthead.

“The goal is to defend the classic liberalism that gave rise to our freedoms and our prosperity.

“No one argues that Western society has changed massively. No one can argue, either, that we are not in a good place now.

“We’ve never been as fractured, as atomised, and as distrustful as we are. We’ve never been as deeply in debt. We’ve never flailed around so much looking for leadership, and we can’t possibly know where to go if we don’t know where we are, and we can’t know where we are if we don’t know where we’ve come from.

“Not understanding that kills civilisations.”

Anderson said it was wrong to regard the gathering as a meeting of the “far right” when people at the event came from across the spectrum of the centre right, including some from Labour. He declared, however, that left-wing leadership had eroded traditional values in Australia and led to some of the country’s problems today.

“I’m sorry, Mr Progressive, you’ve had 20 years at least of dominating the debate,” he said. “And Australia is a weaker and more divided nation for it.”

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