as a western perception that the african female is a downtrodden wretch . but when you look around the african continent today girls abducted in nigeria, polygamy re introduced in kenya, child marriages and the prevalence of gender based violence how much is there to celebrate about being female in africa? ama ata aidoo, welcome to hardtalk. thank you very much, zainab. there s a lot of political issues and social affairs in your writings. how much do you see yourself as a writer with a mission? well, now, in retrospect, i suppose i could describe myself as a writer with a mission. but i never was aware that i had a mission when i started to write, you see. it didn t work it doesn t work like that. i maen, i don t sit at my desk and say, now i ve got to depict this, and depict that. no. first of all, i was rather young when i started writing, so i didn t even have any notion of where my would be read, or how, and stuff like that. so it wasn t a conscious decision, but
Some very significant people have lined up, condemning what you have done, or questioning it. Im not sure. The european commissioner, peter mandelson, has questioned the wisdom of publishing the cartoons, he says, publishing them again and again pours petrol on the flames. You talk about frustration with governments, now, but your whole career, basically, sounds as if its been banging your head against a brick wall. Great to see you, how are you . How do you feel, as president , that you are going to go down in history as a president who presided over a loss of a large part of your territory . Oh, gosh, yes. We understood that you wished to do this interview, and you wished to reply to questions that we, In The Name Of the bbc, are putting towards you, am i not right . Cheers yeah to the next 20 years how come you all have water, and i have got wine . Thats terrible so go on, youve got to take us back to the first run. We want to hear, tim, your thoughts on how it all started, and what
Some very significant people have lined up, condemning what you have done, or questioning it. Im not sure. The european commissioner, peter mandelson, has questioned the wisdom of publishing the cartoons, he says, publishing them again and again pours petrol on the flames. You talk about frustration with governments, now, but your whole career, basically, sounds as if its been banging your head against a brick wall. Great to see you, how are you . How do you feel, as president , that you are going to go down in history as a president who presided over a loss of a large part of your territory . Oh, gosh, yes. We understood that you wished to do this interview, and you wished to reply to questions that we, In The Name Of the bbc, are putting towards you, am i not right . Cheers yeah to the next 20 years how come you all have water, and i have got wine . Thats terrible so go on, youve got to take us back to the first run. We want to hear, tim, your thoughts on how it all started, and what
Some very significant people have lined up, condemning what you have done, or questioning it. Im not sure. The european commissioner, peter mandelson, has questioned the wisdom of publishing the cartoons, he says, publishing them again and again pours petrol on the flames. You talk about frustration with governments, now, but your whole career, basically, sounds as if its been banging your head against a brick wall. Great to see you, how are you . How do you feel, as president , that you are going to go down in history as a president who presided over a loss of a large part of your territory . Oh, gosh, yes. We understood that you wished to do this interview, and you wished to reply to questions that we, In The Name Of the bbc, are putting towards you, am i not right . Cheers yeah to the next 20 years how come you all have water, and i have got wine . Thats terrible so go on, youve got to take us back to the first run. We want to hear, tim, your thoughts on how it all started, and what
Some very significant people have lined up, condemning what you have done, or questioning it. Im not sure. The european commissioner, peter mandelson, has questioned the wisdom of publishing the cartoons, he says, publishing them again and again pours petrol on the flames. You talk about frustration with governments, now, but your whole career, basically, sounds as if its been banging your head against a brick wall. Great to see you, how are you . How do you feel, as president , that you are going to go down in history as a president who presided over a loss of a large part of your territory . Oh, gosh, yes. We understood that you wished to do this interview, and you wished to reply to questions that we, In The Name Of the bbc, are putting towards you, am i not right . Cheers yeah to the next 20 years how come you all have water, and i have got wine . Thats terrible so go on, youve got to take us back to the first run. We want to hear, tim, your thoughts on how it all started, and what