Ayaan Hirsi Ali on the mosque in the Ground Zero zone...

... and on other "religious tolerance" issues in the news lately (such as "the eviction of American missionaries from Morocco earlier this year, the minaret ban in Switzerland last year, and the recent burka ban in France"). She'd like to reframe these issues in terms "of what the late Harvard political scientist Samuel Huntington called the 'Clash of Civilizations.'"

[T]he survival of the West depends on Americans, Europeans and other Westerners reaffirming their shared civilization as unique—and uniting to defend it against challenges from non-Western civilizations....
President Obama, in his own way, is a One Worlder. In his 2009 Cairo speech, he called for a new era of understanding between America and the Muslim world. It would be a world based on "mutual respect, and . . . upon the truth that America and Islam are not exclusive and need not be in competition. Instead, they overlap, and share common principles."

The president's hope was that moderate Muslims would eagerly accept this invitation to be friends. The extremist minority—nonstate actors like al Qaeda—could then be picked off with drones....

The greatest advantage of Huntington's civilizational model of international relations is that it reflects the world as it is—not as we wish it to be. It allows us to distinguish friends from enemies....

Our civilization is not indestructible: It needs to be actively defended. This was perhaps Huntington's most important insight. The first step towards winning this clash of civilizations is to understand how the other side is waging it—and to rid ourselves of the One World illusion.

I question whether either model is really "the world as it is," but I certainly agree that it's crucial to face reality. Nevertheless, our ideals form a part of the reality that exists now and the reality that we are making for the future.  Ali never explains why the "Clash of Civilizations" template works better in the real world than Obama's idea. I'd guess that one needs to check one's perceptions alternately with both templates and that Obama does that and more as he decides what actions to take and what to say in speeches. He may do that badly on many occasions, but it's inconceivable that his aspirations toward mutual respect and shared principles blot out his awareness of the discord and disconnect.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali.

Video of her entire speech and Q&A at the University of Wisconsin last week.

IN THE COMMENTS: Chip Ahoy said:

Great reception. She was reading form cards! CARDS! That proves she doesn't know what she's talking about, and LOOK! Now, there's this:

Did any newspaper report what Ayaan Hirsi Ali actually said in her lecture at the University of Wisconsin last night?

If I had attended — and I'm sorry I didn't — I would have taken copious notes and reported details of the things she said. I would like to read a report like that, and I certainly can't find anything in the local papers. The stories all report what they reported before she spoke, that she's controversial and various people don't think she should have been invited at all:

The decision to invite Hirsi Ali and pay her $10,000 speaking fee drew criticism from both Muslim student organizations and other groups.

"I see this as people slowly becoming suspicious of Islam, and suspicion leads to hatred and much worse things," said Rashid Dar, president of UW-Madison's Muslim Student Association.

"You shouldn't take Muslims as a subversive fifth column group that is planning to one day take over and start cutting hands off. We're normal people, too."

I think that article has more about what the students think than what the distinguished lecturer thinks. And it's not even what the students thought of what she said in the lecture. It's what they thought all along. And, ironically, what they keep saying is that they are afraid of generalizations and stereotypes. Why don't they pay attention to specific things that she, an individual, said in the particular talk that she gave to them?

ADDED: Isthmus has some detail about the talk:

She said there is a distinction between Muslim believers and the ideology of Islam, the latter of which she finds fault with. But she said that in the West, Islam has attained a special sort of protection, with intellectuals afraid to question or criticize the religion’s beliefs.....

She said that Islam would benefit from scrutiny and criticism and looking at other cultures and belief systems. “The Muslim mind can be opened by looking outside of Islam and then retaining what people find valuable about Islam, like hospitality,” she said. “I don’t think gazing at the Koran for hours and hours can help that.”

And she, added, “The emancipation of the Muslim woman is the key to reforming Islam.”

AND: The Badger Herald embedded the video of the entire lecture, which you can watch here.

ALSO: The Badger Herald has a pretty detailed report.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali comes to Wisconsin.

She'll speak on campus tonight as part of our Distinguished Lecturer Series... and it hasn't been uncontroversial.