Restoring the West by Ayaan Hirsi Ali: The World According to Ayaan

TWAA: To Keep Protecting the Vulnerable, Defend the West

Restoring the West by Ayaan — Sat, 18 Apr 2026 16:59:37 GMT

Like you probably did, I spent the last week closely monitoring the Iran situation. But my full viewpoint is likely to differ from many native Westerners, as I have lived under Islamist laws. That experience is why I inwardly sighed when Iran promised to re-open the Strait of Hormuz on a Tuesday but merely closed it again by Wednesday. Given Iran’s long history of treating agreements as tactical instruments rather than binding commitments, their behavior was perfectly predictable. As with most Islamist cultures, Iran knows its identity well — and remaining patient in order to win the long game against any “infidels,” as they see Western nations, is simply part of the plan.

What I’m Thinking About

The natural human impulse is that “might makes right,” AKA survival of the fittest. If you are strong, you are valued; if you are weak, you are discarded—or at the very least, ignored. That’s why women, children, the disabled, and the elderly have historically been at the bottom of the pecking order. The strong don’t usually require help or special resources, but the vulnerable do. Thus, Western civilization’s history of officially protecting society’s weakest—ending slavery, founding orphanages and foster care systems, normalizing hospice care, criminalizing the exploitation of the disabled, etc.—is tremendously unique. It’s a marked contrast from the rest of the world, where the idea of wasting precious resources on those who cannot give back is foreign or even derided.

TWAA: Scientific Inquiry Is a Keystone of Western Civilization

Restoring the West by Ayaan — Sat, 11 Apr 2026 16:59:41 GMT

My natural personality does not take special joy in pointing out errors. But my experiences as a girl raised in Islamic societies before escaping to Western ones has given me great impetus to speak where necessary—and it certainly has proved necessary to protect the values undergirding Western civilization. That is why I publicly rebutted conservative Tucker Carlson’s recent admiring remarks on Sharia law and Islamic identity. While there is something positive about nearly every culture, we must never be lulled into painting an incomplete picture of Islam, including how its longstanding oppressive practices must be halted before spreading further.

What I’m Thinking About

Instead of welcoming critique, questions and, curiosity, Islamic cultures usually discourage dissent, individuality, or doubts. Such a “tight” everyday culture often transfers to other areas, including scientific inquiry. That’s how you know something is built upon a shaky foundation—because the truth can stand on its own feet and doesn’t require protection from challenges. Western nations were built not only on individual freedoms, but on intellectual curiosity. Were this bedrock value nonexistent, Western-based scientists never would have discovered germ theory, man-made flight, or the cause of diabetes. Yet the COVID tyranny demonstrated that modern Westerners have forgotten about that curiosity-driven heritage, instead eagerly punishing anyone who disagreed or even questioned the official party line on origin and transmission.

TWAA: The Gates of Western Civilization

Restoring the West by Ayaan — Sat, 04 Apr 2026 16:59:39 GMT

The immense satisfaction derived from fulfilling your professional purpose is hard to describe. As Restoring the West approaches the end of its first full month of publication, I have been so encouraged to read the hundreds of uplifting comments from readers. “Thank you for this mission, for helping us put our thoughts into words,” wrote one subscriber. That clarity and direction is precisely why Restoring the West exists. With every article view and note left, our team unearths further certitude of the rightness of our positions in defending the values of the West. We are exactly where we are meant to be.

What I’m Thinking About

I love having deep conversations on topics that truly matter. In a world that is so often superficial and artificial, taking a deep dive on weighty issues affecting our world gives me hope for the future. That’s what AHA Foundation President Trey Dimsdale and I did recently when he interviewed me for “Ayaan Answers: Why Western Liberty Cannot Coexist with Islamic Law.” We discussed the current disastrous trend of Western societies assuming that all cultures are created equal—which, unless halted, can only result in the degradation of the very values that made Western society so great. Our conversation was no fatuous complaint session either, as we see what so many seem to be missing: the West is worth preserving.

TWAA: The Cost of Immigration We Refuse to Name

Restoring the West by Ayaan — Sat, 28 Mar 2026 16:59:12 GMT

A few weeks ago when I appeared on Fox’s The Will Cain Show, Will and I discussed immigration incentives, how modern-day immigration policies have largely benefitted leftist political parties, and the way Donald Trump and Brexit shook the center-left’s immigration status quo. Though I make media appearances like this one regularly and am used to them in a sense, I am not sure it will ever truly sink in that this is my job and my life. However improbable my journey, I am forever grateful and motivated to continue to preserve the Enlightenment principles that made the West into the freest society in history.

Just this week I had the opportunity to be interviewed by a hero of mine, Tommy Robinson. Though it was our first time to meet, I have long felt that he is a kindred spirit—a young man who understands the times in which we are living, the threats we in the West are facing, yet undeterred from fighting for what is true and right, regardless of the cost. People like Tommy, who consistently take slings and arrows for pushing back against the clear and present danger of Islamists, give me great hope.

What I’m Thinking About

Obviously, I am an immigrant—to Saudi Arabia, Ethiopia, Kenya, the Netherlands, and finally the United States. Several times over, I know what it’s like to be a newcomer in looks, language, religion, culture, and worldview. And given the way that immigration and immigrants have been featured prominently in the news the last few years, I spend a significant amount of time musing about the role of immigrants in any given society. I don’t think I should be the only one considering this topic, but I fear that non-immigrants fail to give it its proper weight.

When “regular Joes” leave immigration policy up to lawmakers, special interest groups and those who stand to profit the most shape the landscape and pass the laws. Similarly, when we only view immigration through Hollywood’s fairy-tale lens of hard work, perseverance, and eventual success, believing that free-for-all immigration can only be positive, we shouldn’t be surprised at the cultural unrest we are seeing in Western nations. That involves a slow-yet-steady erasure of Western values like human rights for all, including society’s most vulnerable (see the largely uncovered cases of female genital mutilation in Minnesota). As an FGM survivor I am forever grateful that my new cultures in Holland and America condemn that barbaric practice.

TWAA: The West Is Worth Defending—and People Are Ready to Join

Restoring the West by Ayaan — Sat, 21 Mar 2026 16:59:36 GMT

This week has been encouraging and uplifting for our team, as Restoring the West has jumped out to a strong start. Every new subscriber has confirmed what I have been feeling in my heart for decades: people around the world—and especially those raised under Western civilizations—are hungry for a strong, articulate defense of why our cultural heritage is worth preserving. Restoring the West aims to give them exactly that, and the organic numbers and comments we’ve seen so far tell me we’re on the right track.

What I’m Thinking About

Of course, ours is not the only time and people are faced with what seem like insurmountable odds. We in the West may be fighting against cultural and religious forces bent on destroying us, but countless others have done so in centuries past. Think of World War II-era Nazis hellbent on the genocide of not only Jews, but also Romanis, Slavs, the disabled, gays, and political dissidents. Sometimes I think about how different would our world be today if some of the major players in WWII—Allied troops, those who hid and assisted Jews, Nazi resistance groups—had decided to stay out of the fight. It is a sobering thought.

Acquiescence to Nazi ideologies would have almost certainly have been an easier route for many. But plenty rejected that ease, rebelling instead. Countless perished so that others could be free. Think of French The Little Prince author Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, American bandleader Glenn Miller, members of the famous ten Boom family in Holland, and British Gone With the Wind actor Leslie Howard. Had they not sacrificed, the entire world would be wildly different today. I believe this line of thought is highly applicable to what is currently happening in Iran and other Islamist-centric nations. Humans can only take tyranny for so long, and the West’s Judeo-Christian heritage has produced systems of governance that have proven to be the least tyrannical in human history.

If we in America, the U.K. and other Western nations do not take our places in the annals of those who say, “Yes, we will fight to keep our cultural heritage,” how different will our grandchildren’s futures be?

What I’m Reading

TWAA: Why the Fight for Western Civilization Matters

Restoring the West by Ayaan — Sat, 14 Mar 2026 16:59:37 GMT

On March 4, the team at the AHA Foundation launched Restoring the West, which you are now reading. It’s a new Substack with old-yet-urgent underpinnings: that of defending and renewing the principles of Western civilization. The launch of RTW was a long-brewing dream that finally percolated to culmination, and it’s a reminder of why I still fight.

What I’m Thinking About

Bouncing around between several countries in Africa and the Middle East, I didn’t dream much as a child. When you live under an oppressive state that dictates nearly every last detail of your life, dreaming big isn’t exactly encouraged. That changed when I moved to Europe as a young person, and the difference was heady and intellectually intoxicating. Even with my abusive past, life seemed to boast of new and endless possibilities. I certainly had never imagined as a child that I could be involved in national politics, let alone in those of a foreign country. And I definitely did not forecast discovering a lifelong mission of reestablishing the values that solidified Western society as the freest in human history.

Though I might seem an unlikely initial candidate–an immigrant girl born in Mogadishu, Somalia who eventually became a Dutch politician before earning American citizenship in 2013–I believe my lack of childhood dreams say otherwise. My home culture taught me only to obey and submit; my new Western culture encouraged me to dream. So when I watch videos of Iranian women dancing in the streets around the globe after the death of their dictator, I smile. I see a bit of myself in them, yes, but I also know that the dreams of millions have just been conceived or revived. Perhaps more unlikely defenders of Western civilization have just been set free to dream!

When we allow others to erase Western civilization and replace it with intolerant ideologies and oppressive forces that despise our cultural inheritance, who knows what budding dreamers we are forever silencing?

The World According to Ayaan — Coming Soon!

Restoring the West by Ayaan — Sat, 07 Mar 2026 17:59:31 GMT

In the coming weeks, this email will become The World According to Ayaan — a column from Restoring the West by Ayaan Hirsi Ali. It will be her analysis. Her provocations. Her direct, fearless take on the civilizational moment we are all living through.

This issue is a placeholder. We’re sending it to mark the moment and prepare you for what’s coming.

Watch this space.

Restoring the West