bari weiss. miss ali is a research fellow at stanford university's hoover institution and author of the new book "prey: immigration, islam, and the erosion of women's rights". in this her third book she examines police and immigration data to consider the sources of increased sexual violence against women in europe. she makes a number of recommendations about approving asylum and immigration policies and emigrating new migrants into the host country societies. miss ali is the recipient of more than 20 prizes for him her writing, public-service and human rights advocacy including the simone de beauvoir prize and goldwater award and is one of "time magazine"'s 100 most influential people in the world. joining miss ali in conversation is bari weiss, a journalist most recently of the new york times and author of the best-selling book how to fight anti-semitism. after their initial conversation i will be asking miss ali and miss weiss questions. please write your questions in the text chat area on youtube and we will get to them later in the program. now i'm very pleased to welcome ayaan hirsi ali and bari weiss and i'll return later for the questions in the program. >> thank you doctor duffy.y. imagine if you're in the conversation you might have seen some of the noise surrounding tonight's event and i guess i want to speak briefly before we get into the conversation about that controversy and speak directly to all of you. we've been in a world in which we insist that women are to be believed. that their lived experiences should be trusted and yet those same people want to silence ayaan for sharing hers, never mind she's survived the most evil forms of violence against women and actionable. we live in a moment in which we declare that black lives matter yet ayaan is a black woman who's traveled under armed guard for more than a decade and a half due to credible death threats and she's now being told your voice puts people's lives in danger. we live in a world in which we are told speeches by and yet sounding the alarm on actual violence perpetrated against women and girls is met with accusation and denunciation. this isn't just hypocrisy. these are the tools that liberal ideologues that masquerade in morally fashionable language use to bully and silence those they disagree with. those that want to shut down conversation are interested in speech or freedom or safety, they're interested in eepower but thankfully we still live in a country with a bill of rights and the constitution and a culture of liberalism where we get together at forums like this and freely discussed on subjects with respect and decency. those are the priest principles of an open society and they are worth fighting for and i want to sincerely thank the commonwealth club and doctor duffy for their refusal to capitulate to the censorious mess and deeply un-american mob to try to get this event canceled . and with that but get to the reasons you are all here which is ayaan hirsi ali and her book which is called "prey: immigration, islam, and theerosion of women's rights" . ayaan, as always it's a pleasure to be with you and i want to start with something you write early on in your book . you write early on it's one of the rich ironies of early 21st-century history a single decision that has done the most harm to european women in my lifetime was me by a woman. i wonder if you could talk about who that woman is and what her decision is, her decision was how it informs what you write about. >> thank you very much for that fantastic introduction. i like you want to thank the commonwealth club for hosting me and you and for refusing to capitulate to the mob. i also want to thank especially doctor gloria duffy for insisting that this is a case, thank you very much for your courage. the feeling is entirelymutual . i think really it's one of the most courageous voices who defend freedom in your generation. the question that you asked who is that woman that is angela merkel. and what is the rich irony? the rich irony is that she in a moment of falseness in 2015 decided that it was time to open the gate to immigrants from syria at that point. that was the question. the context was a young woman n decried and the cameras were on and she said what am i going to do and that first miss merkel said i have to think about this, we can't accept everyone and the child cried and she said okay, everyone is welcome . and that moment of compassion once large numbers of people came in and when i say people , these are people who are dispossessed. these are people running away from civil war and their people who've been exposed to the worst kinds of violence imaginable but a lot of them are also young men and so germany and other countries who are not prepared for that kind of influx, they too were not prepared for the context that they came into and i think if that event was handled more thoughtfully things would have been i different today. >> not to jump ahead but what wouldn't more thoughtfully have looked like in your estimation ? >> in my estimation i think leaders like angela merkel and others, the prime minister of the uk, other leaders who were struggling in their countries with the process of ssintegrating in the united states of america, we call it assimilation and struggling with the assimilation process of immigrants from muslim majority countries would have anticipated after some events like the arab spring and before that orcountries in africa and south asia in the middle east, that things were turning around and there would be a huge influx of immigrants and they would come to europe sooner or later i think they should have anticipated these events . even to this day i don't think they're having those conversations so true leadership what it looks like tis to say we're seeing events, where having difficulties today on the ground. in this context, it is a failure of assimilation. five years from now, 10 years from now what things look like and then if that moment arrives and you're overwhelmed and you have all the cameras gazing at you, in other words the eyes of the world if you want to look good and compassionate and you make a thoughtless decision, what then happens is it starts to affect other people and now they're having probably the greatest social volatility and political volatility that europe has known since thecold war . so i will out myself as one of those bleeding hearts who cheered in my heart when angela merkel made that decision and famously said we will manage and like a lot of people wanting this event i think about the refugee crisis in europe and i think about a little boy, remember alan kearney in the white t-shirt who washed up on the beaches. you write in your book to give people context for the amount of numbers we are talking about, since 2009 you write in your book 3 million people have arrived illegally in your. more than two thirds of those immigrants are men and the overwhelming majority of them are coming from countries where men and women not just culturally but according to the law are not equal and that's really the subject of your book is how to square the understandable compassion i would say that a lot of us don't the sympathy for people fleeing countries like syria twith the ideas that people bring with themselves when they cross over the border so take us a little bit more deeply into the book. the subject of your book, the subtitle is the erosion of women's rights. tell us how this influx of immigrants in your view has changed from the lives of women and girls both muslim inside these communities and also non-muslim in cities like paris and amsterdam and berlin. >> i will start with the components of compassion. i think we should absolutely yes, without fail we should start. you call it a bleedingheart, i just think of it as pure compassion . human to human. i think what's going on in parts of africa, parts of the middle east and south asia even right now in china is a community women in the community being subjected to the greatest violation of human rights, i would just call that genocideand my heart was out to them . i feel compassion for them. if you are a world leader and it is your job to be elected to express judgment, to take the time, to make the trade-offs, what is attainable, how do you turn that compassion into a win-win, not a zero-sum game. what would you do? that requires a lot of thought. it requires a lot of hard work. it requires the convening of a lot of world leaders. it requires you to compel others to say this is a burden worth adding and let's share that burden when it comes to resources, when it comes to who are we going to allow him but what are we going to do in the countries of origin from towns stabilizing them politically, militarily, economically. that's not the conversation that european leaders and world leaders, western thleaders of rich countries were having. the conversations they were having in the pastdecade , maybe further was i'm going to go after my own self interest. people move around. economic disruptions and so on and somebody gets hurt in the process. and the subject is as these large numbers of people move from poor unstable countries to supposedly rich countries, somebody gets hurt and that first it was immigrant women that were brought in and subjected to such things as genital mutilation, child marriage and so on but today there are neighborhoods with labels such as working-class or low income or social housing, they've got all sorts of euphemisms to say these arethe lower-class incomes . again, lower-class communities. they are bearing the burden of the unintended consequences of migration. and the leaders, the angela merkel's of this world are standing in front of the cameras and virtue signaling that we showed a sense of compassion, we let everyone in but when things get disrupted, when people's lives get disrupted who is bearing the burden and what are we doing about that? >> i think your your your book would argue it's not just immigrant women inside communities it's all women and girls in the surrounding society who are pulling themselves back from the public square so even though the laws have changed a lot of these countries you seem to be making the case that the cultural shift is so tremendous that law is sort of neutered in the face of so maybe you could tell us, give us a little bit of color or some examples. one comes to mind to me is what happened i think it was new year's eve in cologne in 2015. tell us what happened and give us a few examples so people who have read the book a sense of the extent of what you mean when you talk about the erosion of women's rights as are not just talking about calling or groping in public although that happens to . >> with your permission i'll give you some color. i will read a passage from the book that is an infamous incident that i think a lot of people in the audience are familiarwith . but they may have forgotten. this is page 64. a reckoning came in the german city of cologne on new year's eve december 31, 2015. around 1500 men, mostly newly arrived asylum-seekers are more american backgrounds versed in the area between cologne central station and the cities same gothic cathedral to ring in the new year on what germans called after the fourth century pope sylvester. the men were drunk and unruly and soon became clear beyond the control of thecity's police . a mom together and attract women in the square. sexually harassing and assaulting any could get their hands on. often stealing their wallets and mobile phones in the process. in the following months 661 women reported being victims of sexual attacks not. one of germany's leading feminists and a cologne local investigated the events of that evening interviewing many of the women who had been. they described being separated from their husbands and male friends and put inside circles of young migrants met. the men groped women and girls no matter their age appearance or circumstances, grabbing their breasts and between their legs. one woman described several men trying to insert their fingers into her giant. the only thing blocking them was the thick winter heights she was wearing. some women were held by swarms of men for 30 minutes of continual assault. when they were eventually shut out of the ground some reported and here's what kills me, the police had deliberately looked away. many women reported ongoing trauma and fear many months after theevent . yet those who have spoken about what happened to them in public forums have been labeled racist for pointing out the messy or migration status of their perpetrators and now often use syrians when speaking about their experience. that is the old leadership and win as a leader you stand there and say i have shown compassion, in fact you have not. you have shown incompetence. >> ayaan, inside that specific instance which is resonated with me, the scene that this disturbed me the most is that police at the event were largely peaceful and that a scene itself throughout the book. two years later another german city also on new year's eve you write about an incident or kind of a party, a gathering for new year's eve in an area near the brandenburg gate and you write about how the police is typically set up an area, a women's safety area and the police spokesman wasn't ashamed to say publicly this is a good opportunity to offer women a place toretreat to if they feelharassed . what is going on here ? why is our police and law enforcement to say nothing of the leadership you talked about failing at their most basic duties which is to provide public safety for people? >> that is the question really, the subtext of the book is this failed leadership that is the question i ask myself. why were we surprised by the events of 2015 and beyond when in fact we have seen some of these things happen in various countries in the past decade? at a smaller scale so we have seen it happen. we have seen this happen in egypt, we've seen it happen in syria and variousother countries . it's called the rate game so we knew that if we had allowed a large number of men , very young men to come in unguided, not socialized into the new context that they were coming into, that we were going to run into problems like this one and then the response itself where the onus, the burden of putting up with this is put on the women and it puts on women in poorneighborhoods . and i think that is really, it's outrageous. it's absolutely outrageous. so if you want more color as you read the book you see example after example. i've spoken to so many women who literally say i'm not, i want to display the same compassion angela merkel display for the people of syria and for the people of afghanistan . they feelsorry for the people of somalia and elsewhere . i want to welcome them. there are so many volunteers in many of these european countries who want to do good things or people in the physical places. most of them both on the left parties but they also describe how the streets is changed, how their schools have changed and the continuous assault on their bodies that, there are scenes of how they are assailed on a daily basis and how the authorities leave them to themselves because when they go to the city council to say look at what's happening in my neighborhood there just dismissed azucena forbes and racists . that is where the russian trolls coming and that's where the radical islamists come in and all other fringe groups and extremists with an agenda because the mainstream parties don't want to deal with these issues . >> you make a powerful argument in the book the that because the centerleft, even the center is so scared to touch this issue that basically gets exploited by the populace that says, look at these horrible things that are happening and use it to make arguments for mass deportation and things like that. is that one of the reasons you felt the need to write this book and i love for you to speak to critics that claim that even by writing a book like this and shedding light on the stock you are somehow offering father to right-wing nationalists for example. >> i think if you said we were offering father to right-wing nationalists and not cases 20 years ago that was excusable because you know, that made sense. you thought that's what feed these extremists. but over time we've seen that when mainstream parties and when mainstream leaders silence everyone and everything and put this taboo and say your a, you're full of hate speech there's this censorship around this topic, it's extremists who benefit and sometimes they go from, they come out of nowhere and just occupy, take occupation of relatively large structures.re if you look at this book, it zooms in on women and how they're being elbowed out certain neighborhoods and other public spaces. cafcs, passport systems, etc. and now they're trying tocope and adapt to the circumstances but it's not just women . you can go to europe and talk to jewish minorities andthey will say the same thing . they lived here for centuries and we suffer and today we can't anymore. jennifer goldberg of the atlantic did a piece. >> it was 2014 i think. >> i think it was 2014 and he did a similar sort of journey , a similar analysis where he talked to a lot of jewish leaders who were saying we've lived here all our lives. these changes are taking place because of immigration especially from muslim countries and now we're being faced with islamist driven anti-semitism but not only that the old extreme right wing anti-semitism is coming out of the past now because it's become okay to be anti-semitic. and they were responding by leaving their neighborhoods if they could. by leaving to go to israel or to come to america. or most who are jewish, which is what the women are doing. they are covering themselves not to look desirable or attract attention. you could do the exact thing of what is going on when it comes to homosexuals. they are not holding hands, they're not looking day because they're being attacked and what is ehappening? because there are immigrants who are coming from countries where there is intolerance told towards homosexuality. and when they see they don't, they act on that hostility when it happens over and over again in your neighborhood, people want to feel safe. they're scared so they start to believe themselves. they raise themselves out of their neighborhood cafcs. and there's more fear, more silence. it's not just women is what i want to say. >> that lead me to a question i've been thinking about a lot and not just in the context of your book more generally in the west right now which is i wanted to ask if you feel that intersection alley, multiculturalism, cultural and moral relativism, the idea that all cultures are created equal . they trumped the old notion of, when i've been raised to think of as feminism or women's rights ? >> i think if you're a feminist and you knew about the subject of today you would be raising more than holy hell. the question is do they know or do they want to know? now, it's interesting, i thought it was inspiring because there were powerful men who were taking advantage of their positions on women in the working place and for women to come out and then say this happened to me, this happened to me and that conduct have to stop, that was a good thing but it came to a screeching halt . bdid get to the women that i discussed in prey. that is working-class women. so right now, there is no feminism that is defending working-class women. number one. number two, yes. there is another kind of feminism i don't object to it but i wish it would become a bigger tent. it is a feminism that's being about shattering the glass ceiling.we want women presidents, we want women chancellors. i think that's all fine. but right now you know what i want? i want a feminism that goes to discuss and start and activism to say don't touch us in the public space. don't grope us. we don't want to hear those noises. we don't want to be raped. we don't want to be gang raped and i don't care what our income is and i don't care if where immigrant women or white women, i don't care if were working-class or what the heck . tand i don't get to groups about who the perpetrator is. a rapist is a rapist and i don't care if he's a rich white man and i don't care if he's a poor syrian refugee. a rapist is a rapist and you can't explain it and you can't excuses. we need that kind of feminism and i'm compassionate enough and i know you are and happy to socialize with young men who are not being violent. i'm not arguing for these men . to be punished in ways that are disproportionate. i would love them to be socialized. let's get going with those problems of socializing them, symbolizing them. >> are there programs in particular, countries you would point to as places that you see for growth, optimistic? tell us about who's doing integration or assimilation, whatever word you want to use right. now that you have these 3 million people in europe, they're not going anywhere. give us examples of countries or cities or towns even that are doing right and if you were the head of the european union, what you would be doingstarting tomorrow . >> two different questions, one is are there countries or leaders of countries that are doing the right thing ? reyes, there are leaders in countries such as denmark, austria and quite recently the president of france who are suggesting this whole concept of biculturalism, intersection alley, cancel culture, their suggesting that whole umbrella of ideas or ideology and there's a way a second. not all cultures are created equal. some cultures are better than others and our cultures of freedom and equality are better and they're insisting on integration problems and there making the resources available and they have that carrot and stick approach. you need to integrate or assimilate, if you fail to do that then you have to think about the consequences and live with those consequences and i've seen that is .ctually working that comes away from an idea that has been declared which is think about national identity and borders and if you say to someone if you want to be in this country then you have to abide by the laws and the values and the norms of this country and if you refuse to do that you will be evicted. you will be moved from this country so you do have to have borders.e that position is coming back and the second part of the question if i were, you say in the commission. >> or head of the countries, what you want to do. i want to hear some solutions . >> the head of the commission of the eu is a different position because you have to greet all of these countries where then you can selectively do things together. that takes us into the big picture and the big picture is things are happening in africa, things are happening in the middle east . and european countries really check out of that scenario. when things go bad, the united states of america takes care of it, that whole approach of uncle sam is tthere before us and all just fits into our own s living and we will drink our fine wine until some president knocks on the door and says,, we need an alliance to join us here there and everywhere and i think they need to know it is in your backyard that all this keeps happening and if you don't do something about it, you are the one who's going to be affected and this is what's driving immigration or migration, the movements of hundreds of thousands if not millionsof people. that's what's happening . so the commissioner of the eu means you convene all of these countries and the leaders of these countries and you start thinking in those terms. what can you do to stabilize the economies, talk about the politics of those countries people don't feel compelled to cross and actually take this very dangerous journey to make their way to europe. >> what do you say to women andyou've interviewed so many from this book . some of whom are bravely speaking out on the issues you're talking about but a lot of them are positive about it because frankly for totally understandable reasons. what do you say to women who are scared to speak out about this issue because they are understandably nervous about y being smeared, being called at the things you are called regularly. i'm sure at this very moment on social media and for you is not just social media. it's real life. i'm wondering how you advise them and what advice you give to those maybe you are watching this who want to speak out on this issue but are scared to. >> i would say stand together like you and i have done today and yesterday in the past few weeks. you have been scared and you've had, you've been bowling out of your job and you had to face a great deal of pain, but it's made you stronger.it's made me stronger and i think this is the message. let's find all those women and let stand together and let's not make the mistake that many of my fellow feminists make is i am out that. i'm out of that pain and problems and i'm going to forget about the other girls. i'll give you a bit of color. i looked into the issue of what's happening in the uk and i ask myself why would those children betrayed? why didn't people do anything, not just the authorities of other women, why didn't they do anything? this one phrase that i find so painful that i had over and over is the victims of the pakistani grooming gangs were expressly white trash. just think about that. white trash. these are fellow human beings . so if we think of fellow girls and human beings as white trash or black trash then feminism is not worth its name. >> go deep for me on this. what is at the root of the ability just between lack of courage, is it a crisis and i think maybe this is beyond this issue of crisis in confidence, in the western culture, and western civilization. what's at the root of what's going on here that explains so many people at every levels and ability to stand up for what is obviously a kind of the most basic human rights. >> it's not everyone. it's people who are standing up and fighting, people are saying enough is enough now. let me just zoom in on the cancel culture it's you have to make a choice between you fear for your life, you fear for, if it's college fees for your kids, if you want to be invited to also to things for your colleagues in your neighborhoods, you don't want to come out and be the spoilsport. the rabble-rouser. so i think between others that have to do with you know, being socially ostracized and sometimes even physical fear. this is what i've adored and others do, i think if you combine all of these there is a sense that it is rational that someone else should do and if i think someone else should should do it and you think someone else to do it and weall think someone else should do it then no one . besides that there is undoubtedly a crisis of confidence because there's this demand that we in the western civilization tone for what happened in the past. that is a good thing to reflect on the past and to grapple with it and use the past as a lesson to include things in the present and future if you only tell us select story and you're not really truly grappling with the past and the story we hear over and over again is that we just did terrible things. we committed genocide and colonized people and you hear that ground into your day and in and day out. that's what kids are told out about these days so the conclusion is also the complete trauma when it comes to national identity, how should you as a young person regarding the institutions that we have and they have inherited when they committed so many sins and they done so many bad things. if the conclusion is as black lives matter says it's let's destroy the whole thing, criticize the past, that also resonates so i think a lot of it is by apathy or the activism you and i are against or the kind of leadership we were talking about, others who can either virgin signal or just avoid censorship issues, issues that have to do withthe issues of our day . >> your someone that's endured every name, every time i've met you you had armed guards and that's been true following the murder of new mango and i guess for the people, hundred people or more watching this i wonder if you can give people a little bit of your courage or a little bit of a sense of what drives you and how you are articulating to yourself what's at stake. that allows you to keep making that choice over and over again at great cost not just to your name but to your physical safety ability to move around the world freely and i wonder if you could offer that message to people and i'll take it one more question before you bringback doctor duffy . >> so much has been given to me. again like i said if i decide to just wallow in what went wrong with my life, then mei will take a long-term and i will live a life of dissonance and anger and resentment but if i reflect on all the kindness and grace that i've received, the generosity that people have given me, the friendship, love and every step of the way then i can't let those people down. i have to keep that, i also have to get that back. i have to give it to my children, give it to my husband and give it to my friends but also to the people that i talk about in other books. it makes me very very upset to hear phrases like white trash or to see a child bride or to hear a stream of another child being mutilated and to say nothing. i know i can and i would choose to say something because someone said something to call me, someone held my hand and someone pulled me up and they just wanted me to do it for someone under those circumstances. >> i wanted to relate a story for you that struck me. this in my own life is the ayaan hirsi ali litmus test which is where i know how someone falls on key issues depending what they think of you but i recently met the actress amber heard and she had something which she referred to as the ayaan hirsi ali challenge which is in every single interview she gives with every women's magazine she's asked for her hero is or her favorite author is and she always says you every single time. the challenge is to see if anyone will ever printed and until now and this is two weeks ago no one has ever printed her name in response to that question and to me i would simply say first of all i wanted to give her a shout out because she's a very big fan of yours . to me that speaks to exactly what you talked about earlier which is we need a feminist movement in america and the west and around the world that does more than simply stand up for people that are famous but looks out for the kind of people that you write about in prey and that has you in the pantheon of feminist heroes as you rightly should be so i had to relay that and with that i think we want to bring back in doctor duffy. >> i hope i'm heard and seen as i want to thank you both for a great conversation. i also want to just comment on your kind words of giving of the event and i want to say that the commonwealth club understands the sensitivities in our community especially after what we've been through as a country over the last months . so we're hundred 18 years old here at the commonwealth club and we've been having respectful dialogue . all of that time and we're convinced that that's possible and committed to and we're having such a dialogue tonight. we're delighted we can talk about the toughest of subjects with great mutual respect so thank you everybody . audience and speakers. we do have quite a few questions. some of them have to do with the relevance of this discussion about immigration and integration to the us and there's so much in your book ayaan. you discussed how integration worked better. there were large influxes of immigrants into the us coming in the mid-19th century and into the 20th century heespecially. different groups from different parts of the country. what conclusion would you draw from the us example about how large waves of immigrants can be accommodated and become functioning members ofa new society ? >> i think gloria, thank you once again for those kind hawords . in the period's that you describe, immigration to the united nations, integration to the united states was selective. it was selective first because only the fittest and strongest and those that could withstand that crazy journey across the atlantic were able to do this and once they made it , can you imagine going back? they had to adapt. they had no choice but to adapt and many died. and as wave after wave came that selection continued and it became more formalized and i read about the ellis island late 19th century where those large cruisers were coming, ships that are no holiday ships bringing these people in and my gosh, we had to meet so many criteria. they had to pass through so many hoops and if they failed to do that they were returned . that is i think what's happening to call that immigration is a complete misnomer. this is just spontaneous for these people trying to cross into a different continent and that kind of selection is not happening. the natural selection is happening in customary training and making it to the other side and you're still alive. but when it comes to our you fit in, what are you going to do and who's going to advocate for you, that sort of thing that's not what's happening and i think those people who compare why american immigration is concerned and why immigration especially from muslim countries is a failure look the into thesedifferences . >> i like the latter part of your book when you talk about solutions and focus on better integration and better support for the immigrant communities. could you talk in more detail of the type of interviews that are done for asylum focusing more on how people are included to adapt to the new countries that they're cominginto opposed to where they came from or how they got there ? >> i think in europe we waste a lot of resources on trying to figure out whether you qualify for asylum or not . when in fact it is quite clear. let me give you an example. a country likesyria , but the us sitting two, three or four hours sometimes days with a civil servant who is asking you are you the victim of persecution by a government? you would think we have a civil servant, have you ever been abused? where do you live, how could you possibly be asking these questions so the questions were designed for people who were fleeing the cold war. they were onthe other side of the walls .and those exact same questions are still in place for situations such as syria or afghanistan or somalia where people are not saying they're personally persecuted by a particular administration, or that they are holding nuclear secrets, but there also is an instance, that's not thestory . the story is my entire government broke down. it's a man eat man situation. we all fled the strongest of us came here because we were told by family members that if you go to europe, there is a chance at something in your life. that is the conversation we should be having. you're welcome to start a new life but let's see can you do it. here are the conditions. i wish that they would stop demonizing what they call economic migrants which is what america did not do. actually america welcomes and still does, should welcome economic migrants. that is the difference so i think there should be a shift , a paradigm shift in ways that europe approaches immigration and do it more the way america does. and then for the larger the number of people who want to come to your, the number of people they can actually accommodate, that has been the subject of federal policy and not just foreign policy of one country, that isglobal policy . >> people in our audience are wondering what the impact of covid-19 has been, has a reduced migration or in a way improved or affected thelives of women ? >> so those are again two different questions and the first is about migration and it has caused, there were economies in africa and in all those places where immigrants are coming from that were struggling. and it has devastated those economies. there will be food shortages and food shortages there's going to be or conflict so again, now i can tell you today, we can anticipate large numbers of people ttrying to make their way, by some of this year and find the spring of next year and summer of next year, fleeing conflict and seeing famine and fleeing draft because of the consequences of covid and europeans should be ipable to anticipate that andstart doing something about it now . not when they all arrive and the cameras are on the leaders and say help. let them in. >> one person going back to your comments about policing and the lack of enforcement and protections of women. and the question is how you, what you think about the debate about defunding police or replacing police services with less traditional types of community safety. >> i think when you say things like defund the police, what you're saying is you want a total breakdown of law and order. and where there is nda total breakdown of law and order, you get intuitions like what we've been talking about. syria, somalia and sometimes i get so frustrated i say if you don't want tohave a police force , visit somalia for some time. lived there for a few months, come rightback . so defunding the police, is a desire, it's a desire that leads nowhere. it is a complete breakdown of law and order . now, an institution like the police can go around in some ways and instead of the slogan being defund the police i think it should be reform the police area and to reform the police then you have to absolutely articulate what it is the police are doing wrong there are so many people who are working at that. in the past few years we have seen demand for them to hold them accountable. so much as been done. but the cost to defund the police are just, it's just going to lead to anarchy. >> there are different views about that and i have mental illness in my family and one individual who's been in and out of jail all her life for things that are particularly well addressed by the llcriminal justice system so i think there are some people are thinking about creative alternatives but we all have bour views on this and i certainly respect yours. >> doctor david, i think you have a point there. i don't think that the police are the institution responsible for taking care of our mentally ill. there are other institutions. so this is again a failure of leadership a different kind. it's not a police who should be dealingwith the mentally ill . the police should be doing what the police need to do. but i think the idea of defunding them and doing away with thepolice is not a good idea . >> of course. could you tell us about your foundation, the ayaan hirsi ali foundation, what has it accomplished? >> the ayaan hirsi ali foundation defend the rights of women and i was just talking about that women who don't have a voice for themselves. these are victims of genital mute mutilation, child marriage, forcedmarriage . what have we achieved? we have lobbied, i'm not sure where allowed to use the word lobby. we've tried to get through legislation to outlaw female genital mutilation in all states. we have tried and succeeded in bringing edback children who are abducted from the united states of america and these children are being forced into marriages thatthey didn't want . we helped prosecute prosecutors to go after perpetrators of honor killings. these are fathers and brothers and other relatives who have murdered their female relatives because they claim that their honors were violated. we train service providers, that his social workers, people who work in a domestic violence sector. in two, we talked to them about these are specific domestic violence is that are affecting these women and it's a domestic violence that is justified in the name of culture and religion and that's what we do and we do it across the country. and to our audience tonight, please go to ayaan hirsi ali.org and check it out. give what you can. >> had there not been some recent success on the legislation i guess on genital mutilation at the end of last year if i recall. >> there has and not only that, there's also a process at all on going that i'm not here to talk about because it might affect the outcome. >> one other interesting approach to immigration i believe has been by the justin trudeau government in canada which is to favor women in immigration and asylum and human immigration to try to address the balance and add more women to the stream of immigrants. what do you think about a strategy like that. >> i think it's a great strategy to focus on a vulnerable. women, children, especially victims of sexual violence and i think i can tell you that if you look at the people fleeing civil war and turmoil, there are a lot of women there who have been subjected to the worst kinds of sexual violence and they survived that. i would give them a pass, let them in. and it's a great gesture. and it's welcome and i'm thankful for that . >> what about international and global organizations western mark we have a high commission from europe, what about the global structure of organizations that are supposed to be helping and protecting migrants and so on . what are they doing, do they have a role to play inthe problems like you identified ? >> they do have a role to play and they have been playing that role. they're overwhelmed. there under resourced and again i go back to world leaders having to really convene and come up with a plan where they can work with these organizations. the united nations organizations and other ngos to help people stay in their countries origins by helping them build the institutions that they need to get them to a place of political stability and economic stability so that you don't have these mass exodus as a people that not only come away from unstable countries but along the way the stabilize everyplace that they go to. so that's the big question of our time. of>> i think were getting close to the end of ourprogram and again, thank you both so much . unlike as both of you one last question which is what brief life-changing advice would you give to a little girl today. about her path in life and how to conduct herself. >> live your life out loud. you only have one life. and i think the choice to be out and proud about who you are regardless of what other people call you can bring incredible joy and meaning to your life and joy and meaning and being aligned even with a small group of people that share your values is way more important than being invited to sit with the popular girls. that's the advice i would give. >> that's very wise and the only thing i can add is the resilient. when truelove is given to you by people who really mean it and not a popular girls as #metoo said or the popular boys but the real thing, accepted and when you get an opportunity to ask that, do it. >> that you vote for that wise advice to your younger selves, my younger selves, all thelittle girls out there . my thanks to ayaan hirsi ali, author of the new book "prey: immigration, islam, and the erosion of women's rights" . and bari weiss, author of the book how to fight anti-semitism for joining us at the commonwealth club. both books are out and available where books aresold . make sure you pick up a copy to our audience thank you so o much for watching and participating life. if you like to watch more programs or support the commonwealth club's virtual programming , visit commonwealth club.org/ online. i'm gloria duffy, and i'm grateful for a respectful dialogue. every day tonight and every day at the commonwealth club. thank you, stay safe everyone . take good care. >> today we're brought to you by these television companies who provide tv viewers as a public service . >> there are programs to look out for this weekend on book tv. tonight on our author interview program "after words" , book review editor charles kessler says there are two competing views of the u.s. constitution and best-selling biographer walter isaacson here's a story of jennifer down who developed a method for genome editing and journalist gail romano reports on a british women fighting isis in syria. find a full schedule information online trinity or consult your program got. >> my names patricia krantz, executive director of the opc and we're delighted tonight to post a book not for david allen, a former president and longtime number. who wrote the book a red line in the sand. the policy strategy and the history of the wars that might still happen. and discussing the book with him is doug came as the treasurer and international correspondent at npr. so then we will talk for a while and t

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