In the House of Women

These days many people from the east wing are finding their way to the west, where the fate of their sisters back home is often forgotten. And while the girls in the west are preoccupied with creature comforts, men from the east claim rooms for themselves where they practice eastern habits.

In Davos—high on a pristine mountain in the manicured gardens of the west wing—words like "Sharia" are as exotic as fairy tales. But in Birmingham, Berlin and the banlieues of Paris, the house of women's liberation is being hollowed out from within.

Suppose that the men and women who gather in Davos in 2009 could see the sharp differences between the two wings of the house that we all share. Suppose they could grasp the magnitude of the suffering of those on the unfinished side, or open their eyes to how tormentors of women are chipping away at the keystones of the west. Suppose this led them to make it a top priority to preserve everything people in the west side have accomplished and to improve matters in the east. Imagine if women's liberation were a task to be carried out with the same unwavering conviction as the abolition of the slave trade, the demolition of apartheid or the pursuit of civil rights.

Imagine what would happen if world leaders committed themselves to the cause of equal rights for all women; staunchly refused to entertain cultural and religious arguments that violated female rights; and knocked over the obstacles put in their way by those who have a vested interest in the oppression of women. Imagine the number of lives they would save. Imagine how many prison doors would fly open. Imagine how many girls would be saved from death or punishment at the hands of their judges or their fathers. Imagine what the pent-up energy of those freed girls and women would do for the world. Davos Man doesn't have the imagination. Or does he?

Hirsi Ali is a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and the author of "Infidel."

© 2008