Look at the big things it would be doing seventy years ago no its only going to get that. My dream was to have a neighboring village for good. And now you see. The goods coming through the village. And even. They didnt put my name on it but their leadership was they way out to the level of no white. So its a story and here i am happy because i havent i he didnt go to because i was very angry. I didnt go to the post for the whats little brother so. I remember i was in my home in the beach. And many muslim brothers and so i left the center here and i think people they were coming to greet me with the head. Very pretty here sticks. Coming with sticks to meet me in my room in the in the village yeah. They were very much against me. Because they were working with the government you know the muslim brothers and the settlers was looking with the mobile i dont go. To the you know a lot of stuff. That the library was built for this girl whats your name. I had dear how do you know once i was this girls age i lived in the village of coffee. What can i do you home i had a dream or to read and write but that you feel a call to but we had no books and no library. I thought of us so for example id buy some flower seeds eat them and read what it said on the package then the other thoughts that none of us could tell because there were no books and thats why it became my dream to have a library here thats so no one here has books to read. Me only. Gave me. The message that the. Games are going to charge back. What is it that have you read this. I think you have you read this book. What are you reading can you show me what is. It that the book of voices i yes i did out get have the i read dr no while saddam his first book when i was fifteen or sixteen. I was in my first year of high school i had lots of questions about how to say why dont women have the same rights as men. Why does my mother always tell me to come home early but my brother can come home when ever he wants with her why is my grandmother always checking up on me why does she always say girls have to guard their reputation why does she insist i look at the ground when i walk there were so many questions elect cdata leader that is only if she was if a lot of. Kind of namma look at you and i would meet my girlfriends and discuss now while saddam these books of course they cause something of a revolution in our personal lives. All started thinking about our experiences in a different way hala so thats why they tell you to cover up your body so thats why your grandmother tells you to look at the ground it was safe and. My mother dreamt of playing the piano of galloping on a horse travelling in planes and discovering the world. She said if my father had not married me off i would have continued my education i used to love reading and writing i wanted to do something important in my life not just give birth to children like a litter of cats. She wanted to read in rights and change the world. But her day was spent in the kitchen feeding nine children and their father. She was married at the age of fifteen and died at the age of forty five. She never fulfilled any of her dreams. My fathers dreams were different. He wanted to liberate his country from colonial rule free himself from the bondage of his government job. Become a poet or a writer. People must wake up must rebel he would say. Was i not one of the people my father was talking about. One of the people who had to wake up and rebel. My father often said it is gods wisdom or there are things in religion we believe with our hearts because the human mind is incapable of penetrating gods wisdom. But if guards wisdom could not be understood by human beings how could it be wisdom and to whom then was it directed. I decided to read the quran right through from beginning to end. Was. Only addressed eve through her spouse adam and the name of joe was not mentioned once although she was instrumental in the founding of islam. Because she was the one who directed her husband onto the path that led him to become the prophet of islam why didnt god address women and if he did why was it always through men. Why should a mans share be double that of a womans. The owner here said that the many men in the middle east believe a woman status is lower than a mans no more in reality this goes against gods word and against all sacred books in the middle east the queen of sheba is a well known figure in the quran the more your work will be shes the most prominent example that she was in charge she was a ruler and advised the man girl it will normally called ok you are mad so in fact gone on and women in the quran in the bible in the torah and in all sacred books see it feel for how can we in the middle east claim today that a womans body is shameful the law that a womans voice is to burn in is said to be a hes a foolish ideas this my mother are all of us how to model our own those who believe such things only want a woman that what we have will value like a piece of chocolate best you cut at the chal call up on the. The. The the. Well and then i guess me collinson agus our culture tells me that as a woman my body is impure this car that as if my body wasnt clean. As if my body could make clean water dirty that my body can pollute the waters of the nile a lake a sea or an entire ocean how this evacuate that or what they did who live again alone in a mess if i touch a man just. Brushing his clothing while hes preparing to pray he has to wash him self again or hes not permitted to pray at all just because he has had contact with me because my touch alone may be enough to rouse him sexually yes thats what our culture says culture of all of that list off of it all. Out. Loud. Tom. In one nine hundred thirty seven when i was six it was common in egypt to circumcise girls before they started menstruating. Not a single girl escaped this fate whether she was from the city or village from a rich family or a poor one. Four women cornered me and pinned down my hands and feet as if they were going to crucify me like a messiah. This deep physical wound never healed but the deeper wound was the one left in my soul. Ive never forgotten that day in the summer of one nine hundred thirty seven. I couldnt bear to see my naked body in the mirror especially the forbidden parts steeped in sin and guilt. I didnt know what other parts of my body might need to be cut off in the same way so at night i lay in bed my eyes wide open in the dark i had no idea what fate had in store for me only i could see the future a future that seemed full of danger. Through the iron bars of the window i could see my brother telling running and jumping through the green fields or riding a bicycle far across open spaces almost to the horizon. Breathing the clean fresh air in the bright sunlight. While i stood in the dark kitchen swallowing the smoke rising from the gas stove. I was no longer allowed out of the house at the age of eleven i was virtually a spinster to use the words of my own limit. Near my brother nor my father entered the kitchen or peeled onions or washed plates. Well. The kitchen was where i learned how humiliating it could be to be a woman. School was the only place that saved me from closed walls and kitchen chores in the Early Morning i would put on my uniform and shoot out of the house like a prisoner released from jail. My grades were excellent yet no one around me looked happy about it their lips remained pursed with dissatisfaction. My grandmother kept staring at my breasts that had now taken shape and whispered to my mother the girl is a grown up saying i have and i fear the day she will be barren. Make god send your daughter now while a bridegroom so you can be happy. And marry all your daughters off while im still here on earth. I. It was the first wedding i attended in kafr challah. My cousins in ad was a little older than me. The brides mother my aunt by here sat in a corner surrounded by other women coughing nervously. And dabbing her eyes with the edge of her shawl. Behind the women smiles i could detect their sadness the tears that had dried over the years the gloom which envelops memories of their own wedding night. But here zainab was mother stood up tied her shawl around her hips and joined the girls as they danced. The bridegroom to began to dance lifting his long pointed staff high in the air. The bridegrooms stick was destined to lend unseen abs back later in the evening when others were preparing dinner. According to custom she would have to sample the sting of his stick before she could sample the food he brought home. Less would bother with couldnt very well russell bar alexandria ive travelled the world yes i liked going out and learning to know i wanted to become a doctor so i would dress up and tell my mother lie down mama and i will examine you i am a doctor for. Restless and it brought me to this village and left me here i would have liked to stay in the city. If you i am well educated here and lived like a farmer. Back then when zainab was married off they started pressuring me to marry to. I was to share a similar fate by marrying the son of my uncle afifi he would have built me a red brick house next to his family shop his mother would have taught me how to need dole and bake bread how to milk the buffalo fill an earthenware jar with water from the river and how to make straw with cattle dung for fuel. But his mother never had the opportunity to do that. Every time she visited us and tried to get anywhere near me i behaved like a mad dog. So after a while my bridegroom evaporated into thin air like a summer cloud. And rumors began to spread about my mothers and fathers families about the hasty disappearance of the would be bridegroom and he wasnt the last one. Trucks. Here that i thought i thought i knew when a woman passes the age of thirty and shes an old maid they dont wait until shes forty the only men who will take her are divorced or already have a wife or theyre an old man my life is older than you but if none of that happens they say oh the poor woman why did she get left out why didnt she marry whats wrong with her that she thought i had left the kid. Oh. I dont care for our own indian if the koran or the bible or another religious text says men stand above women it means that the man is better and stronger that he always comes first and makes the decision. That i was raised to believe there are many things i couldnt do lots that there must be a man in my life who does everything that man is a father or if its not a father then its a brother later its a husband and uncle or whoever. So i learned that there is always someone to take care of me and make decisions for me. Yes but then dolly comes along and says assume responsibility for yourself there is no husband or father or brother who will take care of you you can do that for yourself and i think that made. All the other girls in my family have been married off and had become mothers by the time they reached the age of seventeen i was admitted to medical school in the autumn of one nine hundred forty eight. The Word University for years had a magic ring in my ears and here i was a student at the for a while university in. My heart beat with happiness whenever i pass through the University Gates and saw students chanting slogans like down with the british down with the king. I was reminded of my childhood when i longed for the world to change and much of the old order to collapse. In july nine hundred fifty three the monarchy was overthrown and egypt declared a republic. One of the projects implemented by the revolutionary regime was the establishment of health units in rural areas. I was looking for a job that would take me back to the village. It was a warm september day in the year one nine hundred fifty six when i left cairo. And the men and women of the village had gathered around the door of the health unit to which i had been posted. As soon as i got out of the car i heard the women youre leading and voices shouting a thousand greetings to our lady the doctor. And i dont think id like to see the old house i used to live in there it is dr its been converted into offices that might be turned into offices. Hello how are you i hear that what if they dont with it no one lives here but you know what theres only the Police Station now would be a clue and the doctor has he gone into the office for food supply and the Police Station. And where is the doctor over there. Dont turn to Health Offices then theres accommodations for the doctor and a room to rest when i said i used to work here i know that things have changed the dont announce spends the night here. Also the doctor is here. You know then lets go. Over here. And up with the venue sometimes to Practice Medicine here. This is the old building. Where is the examination room. Where mother and wheres the school no its an art school for girls for art. Oh and we built two new schools this primary and a secondary school. This is where i worked. This room when this was a nineteen. Fifty seven. How many years ago when and for starting in one nine hundred fifty seven fifty six years ive thought. Of some things and i wont here since fifty six years i used. To examine one hundred. And they were all poor and you know and. There were new players at that time and i was placed to have medicine for them. One day the story of must suit and her demon made the rounds in the village. I was eventually allowed to examine her. In my medical report i wrote the patient must read it is suffering from a psychological disorder in which she goes through fits similar in some ways to epilepsy and in which she loses consciousness. I recommend that she be separated from her husband he is the cause of her malady. Hes fifty years older than she is beats her viciously every night and violates her sexually by forcing her to undergo an all intercourse when she bows down to do her prayers. The girl found no other way to escape except through mental disease. Muscle they remained in the health unit but one day the police came for her and forcibly took her home to her husband. A week later they found her body floating on the waters of the nile somewhere between the village of around la and the provincial city of ben ha. That. Looked good on a well minute long time ago dr no while were still young she was just finishing her studies a question came up in parliament who is the egyptian farmer. Even president ive done our cell was present god bless him. Dr no while gave a very accurate surprising and astonishing response saul the. One was it was the plain truth. She said. The egyptian farmer is the one who your innate blond. Otome with the lesson was that a lot usually them. My great grandfather had bashed and his son we had both died of bilharzia on that day in parliament the minister of interior noted down my name on a sheet of paper in front of him. Dr no while the medical doctor in charge of the health unit of coffee tama has exhibited a signal disrespect for the moral values and customs of our society and incited women to rebel against the divine laws of his law. This became the accusation that was leveled against me it followed me wherever i went step by step move through the corridors of government administrations year after year irrespective of who came to power. Until the present day. Yes i get seizures they knock me out for a half hour or longer ill tell you what im selling if youve been having these seizures how long a long time i think i already had them when i was young at least for as long as i can remember. The more you were married yes then they married me off to a farmer i met up with what does he do when you have these fits peaks of what does he do yes oh my life and it was my neighbor who brought me back to consciousness. And sadly he does nothing but know that if he beats me and then he takes off he just takes all. My neighbor tells me later what hes done yet. What if i ask for money sometimes he gives me some sometimes not and you dont have any money of your own. No i dont. So i didnt go to school and i dont have a job. At that means its true of my colleagues at work and of the people in the street the thing that man likes most is to beat his wife if somebody bothers him on the street he beats his wife his friend makes him angry he beats his wife because no money or his children annoy him he beats his wife thats whats wrong with this country. Had everything is blamed on women everything. Thats great isnt it. The medical profession seemed unable to do much in the face of the suffering imposed on people i realized how sickness and poverty are linked to politics to money and power that medical practice was removed from our everyday life. The written word for me became an act of rebellion against injustice exercised in the name of religion or morals or love. And i got in with one day i came home from school and saw that the front door was wrecked but the neighbors told me my mother had been arrested. So we went looking for for several days we didnt know where shed been taken or to where she had disappeared while feel. It was the afternoon of sunday the sixth of september one thousand nine hundred one in front of the entrance to the building where a number of police vans and armed men rifles raised gaping looking as though they were turned in my direction. What had happened had the world turned upside down or had my small being been transformed into a dangerous gang which was threatening the world. The hardest moment id ever known came just before i entered the cell. Less than forty eight hours had passed before i saw a doctor or whatever coming into our cell. She too had been a friend for many years. I was happy to see her and i embraced her asking her with a laugh what kept you over to why so late. As that would be for you and my was in germany when president sadat gave a speech he announced the arrests of one thousand five hundred thirty six citizens my name was among them and i flew home immediately although my colleagues in europe advised me to stay there but i rejected that idea and came back to egypt and the airport i saw my exhusband waiting for me he took our child he shall live. She was no longer a little boy he was ten years old. My mother was also there but she stood apart from my exhusband i went to the state Security Officers and was arrested right there at the airport. And the villa that makhaya for a tough. Subject had accused us of instigating the sectarian rift and conspiring against the nation. Alarm was widespread within the prison and outside. People were afraid to walk in the streets. Her voice was clear and strong as direct and firmly unequivocal as a knife edge. Her eyes shine and her laugh reverberates through the dirt enclosure. Fifty of the murderous was a poor miserable woman planting and harvesting with her own hands while her husband lounged around the house a lazy bum eating burping smoking the water pipe one day she came back from the field and found him on top of her daughter her nine year old daughter she struck him on the head with her hoe and got a life sentence. I look at her strong brown fingers and it occurs to me that they resemble my fingers my hand as it grips the pen is like her hand when she took hold of the hoe and struck the blow. If my fingers had not come to know the pen perhaps they would have known the ho. This in syria were demands a courage akin to that needed to kill and perhaps more. I have to say that call us when we heard the news that president sadat had died naturally the people went crazy religious veiled women removed their veils and danced for hours. And women like myself on the political left began praying the prayer of thanks. There was no hope of release as long as saddam was in power on the sixth of october one thousand nine hundred one said dot died by the bullet that was just one month after the date on which he had sent his policemen to break down the door to my home and take me off to prison. After set out to death our hope of leaving the prison began once again to dance before our eyes. Doesnt know when he sat there i think in everything that happened to know while as saddam we she was always trying to convey a fundamental message keep going im a normal everyday woman from the country i have always kept going and i will continue fighting. I have been put under pressure threatened with imprisonment i have been. Faves we know while elsa dali has been defamed very often and it continues even today but she stays true to her beliefs to her birds so. I would hear a voice shouting out from a microphone i wondered where it was coming from from the minaret of the mosque from the dome of the church from the disco club or maybe from mcdonalds. It said wherever they are kill them kill the enemies of allah. Then came a list of names writers poets historians fill us in first. Thirty or forty names in a row was suddenly i hear my name now while. It goes through my head like a bullet. I was receiving telephone calls at all hours of the day and night hearing the voices of strange men insulting me and classical arabic in colloquially gyptian or in words pronounced in the dialects typical of saudi arabia of kuwait or even algeria. Almost every day the bodyguard would ring the bell and tell us they had caught a stranger trying to come up to my flat. I had to leave egypt it was. Need to escape death the legitimate desire to defend my life. Cairo means the triumphant. To me it remains the nightmare of being hunted down besieged imprisoned the pulsations of love the pain of defeat the exhilaration of resistance. The falling down then standing up again and again and again. In a struggle that has no end. And i thought that would last that i was no well saddam we strength is in her persistence. She has remained firm that said that has never changed her views or her words had it and has never bow to pressure. And other throughout her life and else and dolly has never tried to please anyone. Noticed she never tried to please any group when im alone is guided soley by her principles her own principles come and she is guided by her own conscience where now in this i well as sandow he gave me the first key to revolution to rebel against society against tradition and even against the state to oppose injustice in our country and a policy that discriminates against women and they said. That. Millions of egyptian women and men muslims and christians people of all ideologies and beliefs the egyptian people have continued to unite under the banner of spontaneous popular revolution. They unite against the existing corrupt tyrannical system brought in from the head to the feet of the modern pharaoh. A childhood dream came true weve achieved a lot but the most important revolution takes place in the head. Doctor no one wants everyone to be educated she wants them to read literature read novels read about religion and legal issues and we need in a revolution. The revolution or Tahrir Square is not enough she wants another revolution to take place on the inside and the government was. Just. Living together that it. Was ok. I seem kind of limited use like. I think like. You how can you have democracy. In the in the parliament and no democracy to talk if you dont have democracy starting from birth that children are educated equality and justice and freedom and dignity from tribes and you could have a democracy and that the parliament because democracy is a way of life. So why if its not this is in. A way. Accent oh not a fresh thing the Muslim Brotherhood did when they assumed power was to initiate medical campaigns in the villages and poor regions of egypt and thats that if some of the best supposedly the goal was to provide medical care to underprivileged groups alan etter way of them if you look at what i have heard on the flyers they distributed when there was a sentence in small print the doctors can provide free circumcision to women. That feels kind of when you succeed in taking control over womens bodies then you have already taken control of a society that. Every revolution in history has had its counter revolution during its rule the Muslim Brotherhood tried to divide the people into believers and heretics but it failed. The will of the people was and is more powerful than the military the police and any religious or economic weapons. Here is the lesson of Human History there is no principle higher than truth and sincerity in the quest for freedom justice and dignity. How exactly while it was saddam we has tried hard to help the girls of our village she has tried to do a lot for them here in our village of women are severely pressed no matter what a woman achieves in life ultimately. The man is the master and she is the slave so we are trying to liberate ourselves just as no one would like us to but we will never make it as far as she has a little he or something. And. We are very comfortable in this room we are the elite we are literally of course i came from my very poor family but i became part of the middle class by my education we are two percent of our societies but ninety percent are suffering and those people who made that relation in egypt would now did ninety nine and ninety eight it was said we couldnt have removed more blood but we used them in their relation and then we come here and we become the heroes of very real their heroes and their rouge and again they are in their graves or the other in prisons many of their delusion many young men and women in egypt are in military prisons. The managed to encapsulate not just politics but religion not just political and real it is regarded me yes its everything its what we live an hour and a vocative the problem is its provocative but they dont mean it i speak my mind. And they react to me. Of course i will not everybody yes of course but then again many famous people many people who have been fighting for of peoples rights havent been there to please people in the first place being out there for a cause in the end we face. We pay our blood yeah i paid a very high price to say what im saying you know its such an easy. Life that i love. There is a long way to survive. And. We are scared we are very scared we are still and most people would like to see articles through bangladesh what does the true face of the country look like. Freedom independence a separation of state and church that used to be important but for decades political infighting here has hindered progress islam is to extremists put more instruments are being told we call for the name of law for law as long jump ocracy and the rule of law are on shaky ground. If discontinuous down love it should be. Good. Enough to show. The angler desh the dawn of islamism and exclusive d. W. Report starting april twenty first. Mooted. A little. Odd to me. To look. Good. This is the news wire from berlin the facebook c. E. O. Gets a public growing on capitol hill over his companys mass misuse of data. Didnt take a broad enough view of our responsibility and that was a big mistake and it was my mistake and im sorry Mark Zuckerberg apologizes but will his testimony be enough to deflect criticism facebook is not doing enough to protect its users and is exploiting its market dominance also on the show