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There Is Not A Revolution That Succeeded In A Few Months. It Takes Years, Even Decades, To Fulfill Its Goals. I Am Very Hopeful Because I Trust The Revolution And Feel Nobody Can Really Conquer A Nation That Has Decided To Be United And To Fight, And We Decided To Fight. The Revolution Is There, Inside The Egyptians By The Millions.

-Nawal El Saadawi

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There Is Not A

Nawal El Saadawi

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There Is Not A Revolution That Succeeded In A Few Months. It Takes Years, Even Decades, To Fulfill Its Goals. I Am Very Hopeful Because I Trust The Revolution And Feel Nobody Can Really Conquer A Nation That Has Decided To Be United And To Fight, And We Decided To Fight. The Revolution Is There, Inside The Egyptians By The Millions.

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Solidarity Between Women Can Be A Powerful Force Of Change, And Can Influence Future Development In Ways Favourable Not Only To Women But Also To Men.

The Medical Profession [in Egypt] Is Also Very Commercial. Health Is Not Given To The Poor. You Know, If You Have Money, You Have Medical Care; If You Do Not, Then You Are In Trouble. I Was Not Ready At All To Build My Economic Security On The Diseases Of People, On Suffering, Especially Of Women And Children. So, In A Way, I Rebelled Against It.

We Cannot Be Liberated As Women In A Society Built On Class Oppression Or Gender Oppression Or Religious Oppression.

I Am Very Much Against Makeup And High Heels And All That We Inherit As 'beauty.'

Democracy Is Not Just Freedom To Criticize The Government Or Head Of State, Or To Hold Parliamentary Elections. True Democracy Obtains Only When The People - Women, Men, Young People, Children - Have The Ability To Change The System Of Industrial Capitalism That Has Oppressed Them Since The Earliest Days Of Slavery: A System Based On Class Division, Patriarchy, And Military Might, A Hierarchical System That Subjugates People Merely Because They Are Born Poor, Or Female, Or Dark-skinned.

When You Are Intelligent And Beautiful You Face A Lot Of Problems. If You Are Beautiful And Stupid Then It's Easy.

All The Men I Did Get To Know, Every Single Man Of Them, Has Filled Me With But One Desire: To Lift My Hand And Bring It Smashing Down On His Face.

My Three Husbands Were Afraid Of Me. I Am A Very Powerful Woman.

There Is Not A Revolution That Succe Women Are Suffering Because They Are Being Excluded. The High Military Council Excluded Women From The Committee To Change The Constitution.

All Revolutions In History Have Obstacles.

Motherhood Goes Back In History To A Time When A Father Had No Way Of Knowing His Children. Fatherhood Only Became Known When Class Patriarchal Society Had Established Itself And Imposed Monogamous Marriage On Women. Motherhood Is Like Sun And Rain And Plants, A Quality And Product Of Nature Which Does Not Require Laws Or Systems In Order To Exist.

The Family Code In Egypt Is One Of The Worst Family Codes In The Arab World. Polygamy. The Husband Is Having Absolute Power Over The Family.

Nothing Is More Perilous Than Truth In A World That Lies.

All Revolutions In History Have Obstacles. There Is Not A Revolution That Succes.

I've Lived Here [in Egypt] Among Christians And Muslims, And We Never Had A Conflict. Now You Have A Conflict Between Christians And Muslims And Baha'is And Sunni And Shia. The Salafists Are Trying To Abort The Revolution And Make It Religious, Though The Revolution Started Secular.

What Makes Revolutionary Thought Unique Is Its Clarity And Dignity, And Its Clear Grasp Of Freedom And Justice: Simple, Clear Words That Are Understood Without The Need For Any Help From Elite Writers Or Thinkers.

They Said, “you Are A Savage And Dangerous Woman.” I Am Speaking The Truth. And The Truth Is Savage And Dangerous.

Truth Is Relative, And There Is Always Something Missing In Truth That Prevents It From Being Perfect.

Home To Me Is The World Because My Books Have Been Translated Into More Than 30 Languages. People Feel They Know Me And The Minute They Talk About My Life Or Books I Feel At Home. Home Is Where You Are Appreciated, Safe And Protected, Creative, And Where You Are Loved – Not Where You Are Put In Prison.

First Of All, All Writing Includes Some Part Of The Self. The Relationship Of The Self And The Other Exists In Writing, Whether Autobiographical Or Novel. There Is A Self And An Other.

Who Said To Kill Does Not Require Gentleness?

There Was Not A Single Islamic Slogan [in Egypt]. It Was Secular Men And Women, And In Fact, They Were Unified. Now They Want To Divide The Revolution, And Religion Is A Very Strong Weapon.

I Am Becoming More Radical With Age. I Have Noticed That Writers, When They Are Old, Become Milder. But For Me It Is The Opposite. Age Makes Me More Angry.

Interviewer: What Would You Say To A Woman In This Country Who Assumes She Is No Longer Oppressed, Who Believes Women's Liberation Has Been Achieved? El Saadawi: Well I Would Think She Is Blind. Like Many People Who Are Blind To Gender Problems, To Class Problems, To International Problems. She's Blind To What's Happening To Her.

But I Feel That You, In Particular, Are A Person Who Cannot Live Without Love." "yet I Am Living Without Love." "then You Are Either Living A Lie Or Not Living At All.

First Of All, I Hated The Medical Profession. Medical Education In Egypt Was Taken From The British, French, Colonial Educational System. And It's Very, Very Lacking - There Is No Sexology. I Never Read The Word Clitoris In Any Medical Book When I Was Educated.

I Was Inspired By My Life. I Was Inspired By The Lives Of Many Women Doctors Around Me. So [memoirs Of A Woman Doctor ] Is A Mixture.

Memory Is Never Complete. There Are Always Parts Of It That Time Has Amputated. Writing Is A Way Of Retrieving Them, Of Bringing The Missing Parts Back To It, Of Making It More Holistic.

During The '80s I Wrote Memoirs From The Women's Prison. This Is One Of My Most Important Books. It Came Out In Arabic In '83. About My Experience In Prison.

I Knew I Hated Him As Only A Woman Can Hate A Man, As Only A Slave Can Hate His Master.

If You Are Creative, You Must Be Dissident.

You Know, I Look To Myself Mainly As A Creative Writer All My Life And A Medical Doctor.

Woman At Point Zero I Wrote During The '70s In Arabic. It Came In English In '82. So, Almost Ten Years' Difference Between The Arabic And The English.

The Slogan Of The Revolution Was Dignity, Social Justice, And Freedom. You Cannot Have Dignity Or Social Justice Or Freedom Without Women.

To Me, 'beauty' Means To Be Natural, Creative, Honest - To Say The Truth.

We Never Know The Reality Of Things: We See Only What We Are Aware Of. It Is Our Consciousness That Determines The Shape Of The World Around Us -- Its Size, Motion And Meaning.

In History, The Millions Win; That Is Democracy.

Moral Codes And Standards In Our Societies Very Rarely Apply To All People Equally. This Is The Most Damning Proof Of How Immoral Such Codes And Standards Really Are.

Everybody Has To Die, Firdaus. I Will Die, And You Will Die. The Important Thing Is How To Live Until You Die.

Important Things

The Parts In Which I Elaborated On The Sexual Life Of The Doctor Herself, The Personal Life, Her Relation With Men [in Memoirs Of A Woman Doctor]. All This. They Left Only Some Very, Very Minute Parts. And Also The Political, The Political Element In It. So In A Way, They Cut Pieces That To My Mind Were Very Important.

The Tracing Of A Child's Lineage And Its Name With Reference To The Father, Though It Has Lasted For Many Thousands Of Years, Has Not Become Any The More Natural Or Reasonable As A Result.

Prostitution Means Sexual Intercourse Between A Man And A Woman Aimed At Satisfying The Man's Sexual And The Woman's Economic Needs. It Is Obvious That Sexual Needs, Even In A Male Dominated System, Are Not As Urgent And Important As Economic Needs Which, If Not Satisfied, Lead To Disease And Death. Yet Society Considers The Woman's Economic Need As Less Vital Than The Man's Sexual One.

Disease And Death

There Is A Proverb That Says, ‘talk So That I May Know Who You Are.’ But I Say, ‘show Me Your Eyes And I Will Know Who You Are.

Many People Come Here And They Think My Apartment Is A Poor Relative To My Name. But You Cannot Be Radical And Have Money, It’s Impossible.

Here The Oppression Of Women Is Very Subtle. If We Take Female Circumcision, The Excision Of The Clitoris, It Is Done Physically In Egypt. But Here It Is Done Psychologically And By Education. So Even If Women Have The Clitoris, The Clitoris Was Banned; It Was Removed By Freudian Theory And By The Mainstream Culture.

Mainstream Culture

My Skin Is Soft, But My Heart Is Cruel, And My Bite Is Deadly.

I Never Stopped Writing. I Started Writing When I Was Twelve Years Of Age. And I Was Writing All The Time. But Nothing Was Translated Until Thirty Years After I Started Writing, When The Hidden Face Of Eve Was Translated In 1980.

When My Second Husband Shouted, 'me Or Your Writing!' I Replied, 'my Writing.' We Separated.

We See Our Homeland More Clearly When We Are Away From It Than When We Are In It.

What We Require Is Not A Formal Return To Tradition And Religion, But A Rereading, A Reinterpretation, Of Our History That Can Illuminate The Present And Pave The Way To A Better Future. For Example, If We Delve More Deeply Into Ancient Egyptian And African Civilisations We Will Discover The Humanistic Elements That Were Prevalent In Many Areas Of Life. Women Enjoyed A High Status And Rights, Which They Later Lost When Class Patriarchal Society Became The Prevalent Social System.

Danger Has Been A Part Of My Life Ever Since I Picked Up A Pen And Wrote. Nothing Is More Perilous Than Truth In A World That Lies.

She Is Free To Do What She Wants, And Free Not To Do It.

When I Am In Egypt, I Am Phoned Because I Am Listed In The Medical Directory Under "mental Health And Psychiatry." And Of Course, I See Very Few People, Because I Give Much More Time To Writing. So I Cannot Say That I Really Stopped Medicine, But I Practice Medicine - Or Psychiatry - In A Very Different Way. In An Artistic Way!

I Had To Educate Myself About Female Circumcision, About The Clitoris, About Sexology. We Studied Gynecology Only. Pregnancy, Maternal Care, Etc.

Something I Tried To Hold Onto, To Touch If Only For A Moment, But It Slipped Away From Me Like The Air, Like An Illusion, Or A Dream That Floats Away And Is Lost. I Wept In My Sleep As Though It Was Something I Was Losing Now; A Loss I Was Experiencing For The First Time, And Not Something I Had Lost A Long Time Ago.

The Feminists Who Are Aware Of The Effects Of Patriarchy Realize That We Are All In The Same Boat From The Dangers Of Patriarchy, And That The Oppression Of Women Is Universal.

Revolutionary Men With Principles Were Not Really Different From The Rest. They Used Their Cleverness To Get, In Return For Principles, What Other Men Buy With Their Money.

When We Live In A World That Is Very Unjust, You Have To Be A Dissident.

If You Do Not Love Yourself, Well, You Cannot Do Anything Well, That's My Philosophy.

Men Impose Deception On Women And Punish Them For Being Deceived, Force Them Down To The Lowest Level And Punish Them For Falling So Low, Bind Them In Marriage And Then Chastise Them With Menial Service For Life, Or Insults, Or Blows.

Love Has Made Me A Different Person. It Has Made The World Beautiful.

Yet Not For A Single Moment Did I Have Any Doubts About My Own Integrity And Honour As A Woman. I Knew That My Profession Had Been Invented By Men, And That Men Were In Control Of Both Our Worlds, The One On Earth, And The One In Heaven. That Men Force Women To Sell Their Bodies At A Price, And That The Lowest Paid Body Is That Of A Wife. All Women Are Prostitutes Of One Kind Or Another.

To Be Creative Means To Connect. It's To Abolish The Gap Between The Body, The Mind And The Soul, Between Science And Art, Between Fiction And Nonfiction.

Creative Nonfiction

War Criminals In The U.s. And Israel Are Not Punished: No International Court Has The Courage To Put Them On Trial.

There Is Not A Revolution That Succe Saudi Arabia Paid $7 Billion For The Salafists To Come, And The United States And Israel Are Pouring A Lot Of Money Into Egypt. Why? To Divide The Country By Religion.

Language, Journalism, Food, Sex. All Is Politics. Even Innocent Love Stories Are Politics. ... There Is No Such Thing As Neutrality.

Home Is Where You Are Appreciated, Safe And Protected, Creative, And Where You Are Loved - Not Where You Are Put In Prison.

There Is Not A Revolution That Succeeded In A Few Months. It Takes Years, Even Decades, To Fulfill Its Goals. I Am Very Hopeful Because I Trust The Revolution And Feel Nobody Can Really Conquer A Nation That Has Decided To Be United And To Fight, And We Decided To Fight. The Revolution Is There, Inside The Egyptians By The Millions.

You Poor, Deluded Woman...do You Believe There Is Any Such Thing As Love?...you're Living An Illusion. Do You Believe The Words Of Love They Whisper In The Ears Of Penniless Women Like Us?

Thus, After A Period Of About Two Thousand Years The Greatest Crime Became To Worship A God Other Than The God Of Moses, Whereas Injustice Became A Minor Sin. I Began To Ask Myself How This Change Had Come About. Was It Linked To A New Order In Which The Female Goddesses Had Been Replaced By One Male God?

Unity Is Power; Without Unity Women Cannot Fight For Their Rights Anywhere.

To Have Arrived At The Truth Means That One No Longer Fears Death. For Death And Truth Are Similar In That They Both Require A Great Courage If One Wishes To Face Them.

You Cannot Have Dignity Or Social Justice Or Freedom Without Women.

Women Are Suffering Because They Are Being Excluded. The High Military Council Excluded Women From The Committee To Change The Constitution [of Egypt]. We Cannot Be Liberated As Women In A Society Built On Class Oppression Or Gender Oppression Or Religious Oppression.

I Practiced Medicine Up 'til Now. I Practice Psychiatry. I Shifted From Different Specialties. I Started As A Village Doctor - Community Doctor, Public Health Preventive Medicine.

The Salafists Are Trying To Abort The Revolution And Make It Religious, Though The Revolution Started Secular. There Was Not A Single Islamic Slogan. It Was Secular Men And Women, And In Fact, They Were Unified. Now They Want To Divide The Revolution, And Religion Is A Very Strong Weapon.

Doubt Is The First Step Towards Knowledge, Not Faith.

There Is Not A Revolution That Succe Women Were Everywhere In The Revolution. Women Participated In It, And Many Women Were Killed.

People Like [memoirs Of A Woman Doctor], Whether Young People, Young Women, Even Critics - Male Critics - They Were Not Shocked By It. Of Course, Some Parts Were Cut.

Man ... Put Himself In A Tight Corner When He Decided That Woman Was Innately Passive.

Life Is Very Hard. The Only People Who Really Live Are Those Who Are Harder Than Life Itself.

Women Are Half The Society. You Cannot Have A Revolution Without Women. You Cannot Have Democracy Without Women. You Cannot Have Equality Without Women. You Can't Have Anything Without Women.

Women Were Everywhere In The Revolution. Women Participated In It, And Many Women Were Killed. Then We Had The Right To Speak Up And Gain Some More Rights, But What Happened Was There Was A Backlash. Why? Because We Have The Salafists, Muslim Brothers, Religious Groups.

I've Lived In Egypt Among Christians And Muslims, And We Never Had A Conflict. Now You Have A Conflict Between Christians And Muslims And Baha'is And Sunni And Shia.

Words Should Not Seek To Please, To Hide The Wounds In Our Bodies, Or The Shameful Moments In Our Lives. They May Hurt, Give Us Pain, But They Can Also Provoke Us To Question What We Have Accepted For Thousands Of Years.

Home To Me Is The World Because My Books Have Been Translated Into More Than 30 Languages.

Plastic Surgery Is A Postmodern Veil.

I Now Knew That All Of Us Were Prostitutes Who Sold Themselves At Varying Prices, And That An Expensive Prostitute Was Better Than A Cheap One.

The Trilogy Composed Of Politics, Religion And Sex Is The Most Sensitive Of All Issues In Any Society.

Fearing Servility, People Become Servile.

I Have Triumphed Over Both Life And Death Because I No Longer Desire To Live, Nor Do I Any Longer Fear To Die.

We Here In Egypt Are Fed Up With U.s. Colonialism.

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