Carolina QuotesOur culture does not mean that much to me. It is not sacred. I am very critical of it. It has to change. We cannot develop unless we are strong enough to face our own weakness, head on. And Islam, well, Islam is a part of our culture.
Sahar Khalifeh Connected to the Carolinas
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- 2004
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“Our culture does not mean that much to me. It is not sacred.…” Sahar Khalifeh. Carolina Quotes, record CQ-B2C8C3D29B. https://carolinaquotes.com/quote/b2c8c3d29b
More from Sahar Khalifeh
I am a committed writer or maybe I am an obsessed writer. I am obsessed by occupation because I live it. I witness the atrocities of occupation. I witness and live through those atrocities and still am living them. My characters represent what I experience, what I feel, what I think and believe. My characters, in a way, are me. I am them, whether in this novel or the previous ones or after.
All attempts to bring writers and artists, even feminists, from both sides together have failed. And why? Because the Israelis feel superior, rather than equal to us. That is one reason. The other is that they don't feel connected to the Third World in any way. They are connected with the first or the Western world. And third, they are deeply racist. So I ask myself, how can a person grow up in such an atmosphere without being infected? It isn't easy to deal with them...The truth is that there is a complete divide between us and them, geographically, politically, and culturally. The only Israelis we Palestinians have any contact with are the soldiers. That is the reality.
On the whole, the situation for Palestinian women today is just as it was. There have been no real changes, though there are of course more educated women, more female doctors, university lecturers, artists, and writers. But they come from the elite classes and live in a completely different world from the masses. The truth is that the Islamist movement has had a great influence on the masses over the past 30 years, and has robbed women of many of the few small victories that we had achieved. So what do we need? First and foremost, we need better political leadership, a leadership that takes women seriously and introduces laws that entail that women are treated as equals. Personally, I am working for liberation and human rights for all. Despite the many setbacks, I still believe that I have had a certain influence. I was the first feminist in the Arab world to write about women's issues in a literary form. I have had some influence on educated women, but I have not had much influence on men-and it is men who dominate society here, at all levels.