Ayaan Hirsi Ali's Courage Media has launched: A platform to give the courageous a voice

This October 16, renowned Somali-American writer and freedom activist Ayaan Hirsi Ali announced the launch of a new media outlet called Courage Media.

"Now, perhaps more than ever, we must create a space for truth to be spoken. This is why we are launching Courage Media today," Ayaan Hirsi Ali wrote on her X account.

In what serves as Courage Media's mission statement, the writer said the platform "is founded on the principle that courage is bold action in the face of threats to individuals, culture and the pursuit of truth."

"Courage is the endeavor to be honest, even when conformity is easier. Inspired by my journey from tribalism to civilization, Courage Media is a place where ideas are openly discussed and challenged; a community that values freedom of thought and expression," she added.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali is one of the world's most recognized activists against dogmatism and ideology, especially that of fundamentalist Islam.

She was born into an Islamic family in Somalia but moved to Kenya after years in Saudi Arabia and Ethiopia. Because of Muslim beliefs at home, she suffered genital mutilation as a child at the hands of her grandmother, who removed her clitoris. Then, with the arrival of the fundamentalist Muslim Brotherhood regime in her neighborhood, Hirsi Ali willingly submitted to the more dogmatic face of the religion.

However, after her father arranged her marriage to a distant cousin living in Canada, whom she had never met, an impulse led her to avoid the trip to her future husband. While in Germany, she took a train to Holland instead of the flight to Canada.

Ayaan, after leaving Islam, was one of the harshest voices in intellectual atheism. Finally, last year, she publicly announced her conversion to Christianity in a major essay.

"Courage is not the absence of fear, but the ability to act in spite of it. In my life I was able to overcome the pressure to comply with barbaric norms, death threats, and political adversity. At times it was more appealing to go along and get along. The consequences in the long term, however, would have made life intolerable. I could have gone to Canada thirty years ago to live as the property of a man of my father’s choosing in order to uphold the honor of my family, but ever since I took that train to the Netherlands in the summer of 1992 to defy the fate that was supposed to be set in stone for me, I have experienced the endless, unexpected, and profound rewards of mustering courage," she writes.

In that sense, Courage Media aims, according to Hirsi Ali, "to amplify the voices of others who are unafraid to confront difficult situations, radical ideologies, cultural shifts or political tensions."

"Silence is an insidious, corrosive evil. It makes us vulnerable to outside forces and complicit in the narratives of others. When someone is silenced, or a population is afraid to speak, it is not just their story that ends. Society is brought to a moral, spiritual, and intellectual standstill," she says.

According to her, Courage Media will bring together a series of columnists, thinkers and intellectuals who will express their words on the platform regardless of ideological affinities. The new media will also feature investigative journalism and a podcast.