Nawal El-Saadawi - Walking Through Fire (2020)

Omnia Amin: Now, today we have the privilege of having among us, all the way from Cairo, the distinguished Dr. Nawal Al-Sahdawi. And... I thought a lot about how can I introduce her. A lot of you know a great deal about her, but she mainly attracts the youth who hardly know anything about her except having read a few books. So how can you introduce a renowned writer whose writing has influenced five generations of men and women? Her influence was not only mainly in Egypt, but throughout the Arab world, and with the translation of her books, it extended to the rest of the world, where she was was honored by being a professor in the United States, in India, in Oxford University, in a number of universities, and she actually had many honorary certificates and her writings have influenced generations and still are. For example, her novel, Woman at Point Zero, for the last 40 years has been on the curriculum. So today we're going to have an informal discussion with Dr. Nawal about her long life. Because she is someone who is not just a women's activist, human activist. She's someone who has been imprisoned, exiled, had death threats and court trials. Yet she remains as beautiful as ever and optimistic. I would like actually to start by introducing you because you're a very difficult character to introduce. So I think I would introduce her in her own words. When Nawal was in prison, she wrote her memoirs, memoirs in a women's prison. And in this memoir, she said something. I'm quoting her. She said, speaking for herself and the women in prison, we will not die. And if we die, we will not die in silence. We will not pass in the dark without creating an uproar. We have to get angrier and angrier, hitting the ground and shaking the heaven. We will not die without a revolution. Dr. Noel Saadawi, your experience, you've recorded this amazing experience in your book. And can you share with us some of the circumstances that led to your imprisonment and how you managed to write a whole book in prison while they banned you from having pen and paper?

Nawal El Saadawi: Okay. First of all, I am sorry to speak in English in an Arab country. This is colonialism. This is humiliation. This is humiliation. Because when I go to New York University in New York and speak in English, it's natural. But when I come to Abu Dhabi or to any Arab country and then to speak in English, this is very humiliating to me as a writer who writes in Arabic. So that's my first comment. But we deserve that. We as people in our country, we deserve to be like that, to be colonized. Because those who are colonized and who are dominated by other countries deserve it because they don't fight back. And that's what led me to prison, exactly. I went to prison because I didn't accept humiliation at the level, at the individual level, family level, country level, global level. I don't accept humiliation or inequality or injustice. My blood becomes like that. I become angry. It is something inherited. I don't know from where, but I become angry. But people, many colonized people, they are not angry at all. They are not angry. So slavery and colonialism became the normal, became normal in our life. To speak English in an Arab country became normal. So I went to prison because we are living at the global and the local level in a very unjust society. Very unjust and religious. A lot of contradictions. Religious countries and very unjust. They use God to justify injustices, you know? They use God to justify injustice. So they need God to justify injustices. That made me furious and Sadat, was our ruler, and you know Sadat, he ruined Egypt. Sadat ruined Egypt politically, economically, socially, culturally, and we were, we was a British colony, and then we liberated ourselves somehow, and then we became an American colony under Sadat, and I couldn't tolerate that. So I hope I am answering your question.

Omnia Amin: I want to know how you managed to find pen and paper to write your memoirs in prison.

Nawal El Saadawi: Anybody who read, because we are here in a university and I see very young faces, students. Any of you who read my memoirs in prison in Arabic or in English? Okay. I hope you read it in Arabic. And in English, yes. Yeah. Wait, in prison, anybody who went to prison, anyone who had the experience, it is, I advise you to go to prison. It is a very rich experience, very rich. You cannot imagine. Of course I was afraid, I was scared when they came and arrested me. They broke my door, arrested me. A lot of, maybe hundreds of policemen coming to arrest one woman with cars because Sadat was mad and he wanted to kill us, in fact, but he was killed before he killed us. He was killed. So the prison, we are afraid of prison before we go there. But when we go there, we lose our fear. It's like death. We are afraid of death. So prison is an illusion, and death is an illusion. We are afraid of many things, but when we are there... We lose our fear. So when I went to prison, though it was a very, very bad relative to my home, though my home is very simple, as I'm not a rich woman, I'm robbed by publishers because many people think I have many books, many novels, bestsellers, that I am rich. No, I'm robbed by publishers because that's the market. So relative to my home, my home was very simple. So because some women who came from the upper class was with me in the same cell. So they suffered a lot. because in their home they had hot water and soap and perfume. I didn't have all that, so I didn't care. So prison for me was... The difference between my home and prison was not much, but it was very harsh, very harsh. I can tell you some... Maybe those who read the book about the... Oh, the gecko, yeah. But anyway, you asked how did I find paper and pen. Every day in the political prison, because we were in a cell, they call it political cell, where politicians were, women, of course, women were separated. We were not in prison with men, or it will be paradise. It will not be prison anymore. So they separate. between men and women in prison. So we were just women only in the cell. And women who came from upper class, my friends, doctors in universities, et cetera, they are rich. So they suffered a lot because there was no hot water, for instance. And every day, the jailer comes to me and tell me if I find paper and pen in your cell, it is more dangerous than if I find a gun. That's in all prisons because paper and pen in prison is very dangerous because you can write a message and it can go around, et cetera. The minute I heard that, I decided to have paper and pen the same day. And that's exactly what happened. So we had the prostitute cell next to us. And we were the political. And the prostitutes, they had everything. Paper, pen, television. Everything. They were not afraid of the prostitutes, of course. They were afraid of the political women and writers. So Zuba, Zuba, she was the prostitute who used to come with the jailer to bring us bread, carry the bread. So I told her, . I need paper and pen by any means. She said, OK. After one hour, she brought me a big roll of toilet paper, toilet paper. That's her understanding. She said, I need toilet paper. So she brought me a lot of, a very big roll of paper and her eyebrow pen. She didn't have any pen except her eyebrow pencil. And I stayed three months, day and night, writing with this little eyebrow pen and toilet paper. writing my memoirs in prison. So I remember when I used to push the pen, because when you write on toilet paper, the paper is very fragile. So if you push the pen, it's broken. And if you write very gently, it's not apparent, it's not visible. So I had to make a balance, you know? So I trained myself how to write with this eyebrow pencil on toilet paper. I trained myself. And I wrote the book.

Omnia Amin: Following on this, you said that prison itself is the biggest illusion. So is death. So is fear. Yeah. And these things restrict us in life. What do you mean?

Nawal El Saadawi: I mean that we are afraid. of many things in life. In fact, we are born in fear and we live in fear and we die in fear. That's how they control us. How few people own everything. Money, weapons, everything. Rule and control millions of people who own nothing. How can this happen without fear? If we are not afraid, we will rebel. But what keeps us docile, obedient, submissive, slaves, accepting slavery? Fear. We are afraid since we are children. They tell us first, number one, you are afraid of hell. Hell, number one. If you do something, you will go to hell. You will be burned. So we're all afraid of hell. Then you are afraid you are going to be punished by the teacher or by somebody in authority and then by the president. So you are afraid of punishment. You are afraid of death. They will kill you. You will die. You will go to prison. You will live in exile. You will starve. We will fire you from your work. So in every phase in our life, there is a different type of fear so that we keep quiet. and silent, and we accept everything. But all these fears are illusion. Even there is no death. How? Anybody who can answer me? There is no death. I am challenging you. There is no death. Anybody who would like to? Yes, death has different meanings. Some people believe in reincarnation. They say, like in India, they say, OK, if I die, then I will be reincarnated in another life. I may be a cow or maybe a bird or something like that. This is a way of escaping fear. a way of having the courage that I am not going to be abolished. I'm not going to disappear from life. But this is deception. Reincarnation is a deception philosophy because we are not going to be in a tree or a bird or a horse. What's going to happen to us when we die? That's a big question. But we have to understand that the point I would like to point now When we die, we will not be here. We will not be here because me as a medical doctor, I know what deaths, organic deaths, when you die, you do not exist anymore because all your senses, including the sense of pain, disappear. So when we die, we do not feel, we do not exist, we are not here. So in fact, we are dead. Afraid we live our life afraid of something that we will experience while we are not there. So it will never happen in my life. Did you get my point? Death will never happen in my life because I will stop living before I die. This is a philosophy which gives you a lot of courage because many people live in this illusion of death and they are so afraid of death. So you need a philosophy in order to challenge death and prison. and prison, how I conquered prison by writing, by creative writing, by writing this book about my mother in prison. How can you conquer exile, for instance? When I lived in exile, I transformed exile from punishment to a reward. So exile to me became a reward because I went, I left Egypt, I started to meet many other people, many countries, many cultures. So I gained a lot. So exile for me was a reward, was not a punishment. And this is a very key point in your life, how to transform a very negative experience to a very positive experience. It will give you a lot of power. I answered your question very big.

Omnia Amin: Yes, you have this time. Well, you're a woman of many talents. So you're a human activist, writer, public speaker, psychiatrist. And if I were to ask you, choose one profession only and discard all the rest, which one would that be?

Nawal El Saadawi: A writer. You know, I hate to be a medical doctor. I hated the medical profession. I still hate it. I still hate it. It's a very exploitative profession. And I know many of you had a very negative experience with doctors. It's very bad to be sick, especially now. So the medical profession is a commercial profession, and I didn't like to be a medical doctor at all. I never dreamt of being a medical doctor. My dream, my real dream, when I was a child, to be a dancer. I wanted to be a dancer. to dance, because I needed to play, to move my body. And then I loved music, but I couldn't dance because it was a taboo. So I loved music. I wanted to play the piano, but my father was poor. He couldn't buy me a piano. So I ended with paper and pen, the cheapest thing I had in my childhood was paper and pen. So I became a writer. Because creativity is not restricted to writing. or to dancing or to music or anything. Creativity is an energy of the mind and energy of the body that is in everybody. Everybody is born creative. All of you here in this hall was born creative. Humanity is creative. Even animals are creative. So creativity is natural. So what was your question?

Omnia Amin: I was saying you're a woman of many talents and you chose...

Nawal El Saadawi: So I chose to be a writer. Not any writer. Because there are writers who... who sell their pen to the ruler. They pay them, the governor, the ruler, Sadat, Mubarak, all those. They pay them a lot of money to write to them. I remember when I was working with the Minister of Health, I was in the Ministry of Health, and he wanted me to write his speech and to say about the Minister of Health has so many things and all that. I couldn't do that, so he fired me. I couldn't. I couldn't write a speech for him. I cannot. My hand will be paralyzed. I cannot write something against what I believe. So not all writers. I like to belong to creative writers who never sell their pen to anybody.

Omnia Amin: Well, I'd like to quote you from your novel that is entitled The Novel. You have a character who's called Miriam the Poet, and she says- Called who? Miriam. Miriam. Miriam says, freedom is knowledge. It is the motive power behind everything, even behind poetry and novels. Why else is the gun in prison more innocent than pen and paper? Nawal Al Saadawi has a trinity of her own. So Nawal Al Saadawi's trinity is creativity, dissidence, and writing. Why do you insist on associating creativity and writing with dissidence?

Nawal El Saadawi: Yes, because why we write? Why I write? You know, I wrote a diary when I was a child, 12 years of age, and I kept a diary because I couldn't be a dancer, I couldn't be a pianist. So I became a writer when I was a child. I used to keep a diary to... to vent my anger if I criticize my father or mother or if I am very angry with God or I feel injustice. So I vent my anger on paper when I was a child. And my first letter I wrote in my life, I wrote it to God. I'll tell you about that, but I'll answer your question. So why we write? Because we write because we want to express our feeling. our anger, our happiness, our love, our frustration. You want to talk to somebody. When you find a friend and you talk to, if you have a very good friend and you talk to him or her, you don't write. People who write, they are alone and they are a bit secluded, alone. So they want to talk. So they talk to the paper. That's why I started writing. And I wrote all what was going in my mind on paper in a diary called Memoir of a Child Called Suad. And translated that from Arabic to English. So there is a relationship between creativity Dissidence and writing. What is creativity? What do you mean by creativity? Is it something that a gift coming from heaven to few people whom we call genius or it is a human nature? Everybody is creative. I don't believe in genius. People. There is nothing called genius. I do not divide people into genius and ordinary people. I don't do that at all. This is false. And it's bad to teach children like that. to teach children that you are not genius, you are not creative, you are ordinary. This is bad because it takes the self-confidence out of the child so he cannot be creative. And that happened to me in school. Teachers tried to intimidate me and to tell me, you are not creative, you don't do anything. But my mother supported me. I'll tell you a story about a child called Soad. So creativity is in everybody, and it is the human feeling or the feeling of life. It is the drive of life that they want to live and survive. It's survival. Creativity, you are creative when you are in a very bad situation. So you create something to survive and to be saved. So creativity is normal in everybody. And its relation to dissidence is very normal. Because what do we mean by dissidence? Dissidence means that you revolt. You rebel. You do not accept injustice. You do not accept slavery. You fight back for your dignity. So you become dissident. They put you in prison, or they send you in exile, to exile. But when you are creative and dissident, and that's all of us like that, then you're right. Many people do not write. Not all of us write. But all of us are creative. Many of us can be dissident. Few of us can write. It depends on situations. I was lucky. I was lucky to be a writer, in fact, but this because of my mother.

Omnia Amin: Well, I'll move a little bit into your personal life. You divorced three husbands.

Nawal El Saadawi: Oh, my God. Three husbands? Yes. They deserve it.

Omnia Amin: And you did it at a very early age where divorce itself was a taboo. Can you tell us how come a creative person like you had to go through three men?

Nawal El Saadawi: Stupidity, stupidity. We repeat our mistakes. It's natural. We do not learn. Now I learned. But I may marry the fourth one, I don't know. I made another fourth mistake. But we repeat our mistakes. And that's number one. Number two, we do not learn very much from mistakes. because of deception. We live in what we call the patriarchal, capitalist, religious, racist system. So men dominate women. We accept that. God is male. We had our female goddesses in Egypt, but this was 5,000 years ago. We had our female goddess Isis, she was the goddess of knowledge. And we had our goddess Ma'at, she was the goddess of justice. But this disappeared and the political situation changed and then we started to have male gods only. In Egypt, in ancient Egypt, we had female and male gods, Isis, Maat, Osiris, Ra, Amun, many male and female gods. But then the political situation changed, and then the female goddesses were conquered, were conquered in battles. And then the male gods became the power. So this domination of men is reflected in marriage. So if I am now with my brain, I never marry. My daughter didn't marry. because she was aware that the marriage system is very oppressive to women. I'll give you an example, very simple. The husband can divorce his wife anytime, without any reason, in Egypt, up till today. He can say verbally, and she's divorced. But I, the wife, cannot divorce my husband unless I go to court and then I pay the lawyer and pay many things and give bribes and do everything and wait sometimes 20 years to get a divorce. So you see the difference? The inequality. My husband can have women affairs, nobody punish him. My husband can have, hire an apartment for his co-combine, his mistress, hire an apartment, and live with her. And I, the wife, if I tell the police, they tell me it's his right. So long he didn't bring the co-combine to your home. He is having another apartment. But if I am the wife, My husband just has a doubt that I have a relation and tell the police I can go to prison. My husband can marry four wives. I cannot. If I have two husbands, I go to prison. So the whole marriage system is based on inequality, injustice, injustice. Humiliation of women. Women have no dignity in marriage, in the marriage system, because it's patriarchal. Children take the name of the father. Why? Where is the name of the mother? Where is the name of the mother? Disappeared. because she has no existence, no dignity. So it was so stupid for me to marry three times, in fact. But I discovered that. I discovered my mistake by living the experience. Because you learn from pain, you have to pay the price of knowledge.

Omnia Amin: Dr. Nawal, you have a very creative family. Right. Your daughter, Dr. Mona Helmi, she has a PhD in economics and she's a writer and a poet. Your son, Atif Hitata, is a wonderful film producer and he produced the film Closed Doors that won many prizes here in the UAE. So I would like to describe you. through your daughter's words, right? Your daughter, Mona Helmi, on Mother's Day said that she wanted to describe you and she was amazed at the fact that the alphabet did not allow or was not enough to conjure who you are. And she said if she used the few lines to put you, she felt that she would not do you justice. So she wrote the following about you. She's an amazing and rare power that I cannot imprison in a short text. I will consider myself a prodigal daughter if I were to summarize my mother in a few pages. But I do not accept failure, especially that I have come to life inside a dissident womb. I never failed before, and I don't have the intention of failing now. My mother taught me that failure only takes place when we accept it. My mother taught me through her writings, behavior, and daily life that the way I regard failure defines who I am and dictates what I will become. She once told me, Mona, your freedom is your daughter and mother. Let it inspire you and show you what is right and wrong. My mother, Noelle, always reminds me that my life of freedom is the most creative work I can ever write. How do you attribute the success of your children? Is it to their upbringing, to you, to what?

Nawal El Saadawi: It's a mixture. It's a mixture, many elements together. Some of them genetic, of course. Genetic factor is very scientific. We all of us inherited some creative genes from our ancestors. ancestors from our grandmothers, grandfathers. And the genes go through generations. You don't know from where the genes come. Maybe from our female goddesses. Because the genes come. They never disappear. And I study genetics. It's very important. But this is not the major factor. It's not the major factor. The major factor is upbringing, the way we are brought up, the way we are brought up. Because a genius, not a genius, a child who inherited very good genes and received bad education and bad bringing up is finished, or she's finished. So the upbringing is the main factor, how we are brought up. So how I brought up my daughter and my son, in a very natural way i didn't uh i hate authority because i i and because my father was not authoritarian and my mother i was really lucky to be given more freedom than other children so i respected freedom and i i gave it to my children i didn't want them to be to be oppressed by the mother or the father that's why they were free my daughter i hope she's here She will tell you, nobody brought us. Tell them in English.

Omnia Amin: No one brought us up. We brought ourselves up.

Nawal El Saadawi: They brought themselves. Because I left them to be exposed to life, to live pain, to be punished, to learn from experience, not to give them books. Of course I gave them books and everything. But still to learn from their experience and to be free to think. and create, and also to disagree with me. Because children are afraid of the father and the mother, especially when the mother and the father have powerful personality. So they are afraid of them. So you have to not to use your power against your children. So you give them freedom to think and to give them freedom to disagree with you so they have confidence.

Omnia Amin: You said that the youth are the ones who protect you. You said that since the Cairo Revolution in 2011, the youth have gathered around you and have been giving you protection. So you said with them around you, no one can harm you. Can you share with us this experience?

Nawal El Saadawi: Well, many people say the Arab revolutions failed. and the Egyptian Revolution failed, no. Revolution never fails. Whenever there is a revolution, it never fails. It may be aborted for some time, but it never fails. Because millions of people were in Tahrir Square. Millions of people were revolting, discussing. Mubarak was out. The army came and took power, but the youth resisted. And I was among the young people. In fact, my relation with the young people before the revolution. After I left exile, I lived in exile 20 years, and came back to Egypt the end of 2009, the young people used to come and visit me in my home, men and women. So 2010, 2011, so we were together. We went together from my home to Tahrir Square. before the revolution. And the revolution came, so I have very good relation with the young people. And after the revolution, they are still with me. Some of them went to prison. Some of them left the country. Some of them are still fighting. But the young people who are with me are very creative, still fighting. And they are working hard. Many of them have different activities, political, social, cultural, and now they want to organize what they call Nawal El Saadawi Institute in Egypt, and then it will be international so that through this institute they can do something to the young people, to encourage creative young people. And I feel, in fact, I was protected by the young people because I could have been killed easily. I was threatened to be killed till very recently, few months ago. The television, everything they were, she should be killed. The young people supported me. So I am living, I am here. I'm still living till I am 87 because of the young people, the support of the young people. The people who read my work, the people who read my books, and they are five generations, six generations since I was writing. I have now more than 67 books. 55 books of my books are on the net, free of money, free of charge. And people can read it on the net. You can read any of my books on the net without paying any money. This is what the young people did for the young people. Because books are very expensive and becoming more and more expensive, especially in Egypt. So they made facilities for other young people to read my book through the net without paying anything. So you asked me about the young people, the support.

Omnia Amin: The youth.

Nawal El Saadawi: Yeah, you were there. You tell me your experience. Because we invited Omnia to Cairo, and she attended two seminars, two conferences. One organized by the young people, and the other one organized by the translational. But you spoke at the young people conference, yes. What did you see?

Omnia Amin: Actually, a room like this and even bigger was just young faces. Yes.

Nawal El Saadawi: They were bigger than this.

Omnia Amin: Yes. It was a larger audience. And it was mainly the youth who were around you, who are in love with you, see the future through your eyes. And in fact, you have been empowering people since 1971. And before, I mean, 1971 through organizations. Because you were the founder of the Egyptian Women's Union. You were the founder and president of the Arab Women's Solidarity Association. You founded Noon Magazine. You were the co-founder for the Arab Association for Human Rights. I can just go on and on. And you saw one association after another kind of like closed down, taken away from you, confiscated the funds, banned, you name it. Now, what the youth came up with, and this is really what grabbed my attention, was that they started monthly seminars around your work where they would discuss every month one of your books. And it kind of developed more into a very important cultural and social institution. So they came up, actually the youth of Egypt, around Dr. Nawal Al Saadawi, came up with the idea of the Nawal Al Saadawi Foundation for Creativity and Thought. So it's kind of like a think tank. And they said they want to have a museum for you and they want to have a library where they can access all your books and anything written about you.

Nawal El Saadawi: And a prize. Every year a prize for the best creative work in writing or music or anything for young men and women. So they are doing really a lot of work to realize that.

Omnia Amin: But it is actually the movement of the youth. So it's the movement of the youth itself. No one prompted this except them.

Nawal El Saadawi: They are from, some of them are 19 or 18 in high schools and up till 40 or 50. I consider, relative to me, if I am 87... So 60 will be very young to me, yeah. So they range from 19 till 60. And they are young, all of them young. But the majority are 30 and 40, the majority.

Omnia Amin: Well, the most important thing is that Dr. Nawal Al Saadawi has, over the past 50 years, been influencing people and still influencing generations to come. And I'm going to end this conversation so that I can allow the audience to interact with you. But I would like to end with your words, right? I'm going to quote you from one of your essays in which you say, Fundamentally, however, the power of creative writing lies in its ability to implant seeds of revolution in the hearts of the oppressed men and women. Revolution is the natural result of creative work, and freedom is the daughter of the revolution. Revolution and freedom together constitute the form and content of any creative work. These are your words. among the youth in Tahrir Square.