White-haired and feisty, the 80-year-old Egyptian feminist Nawal El Saadawi has been protesting against various Egyptian regimes for decades. A medical doctor by training and a prolific author by disposition, she has tackled difficult topics such as prostitution, female genital mutilation and discriminatory family laws in nearly fifty works of fiction and non-fiction. The Nation spoke to the “Simone de Beauvoir of Egypt” before a speaking engagement in New York.
A sample of the Q & A:
"What do you think of how the international media covered the protests?
Well, the big media is capitalist, so it serves the interests of big corporations, and that is why they lie. There were a lot of lies and rumors about the revolution in Egypt, and the role of women in our society. In the United States, it was very bad. I was censored in America, by Christiane Amanpour. She censored everything she didn’t like, which shows there is no real democracy here.
How did that manifest itself in the news coverage of the protests themselves?
It was all either sensational or lies. They can do whatever they like. They can say the opposite of what happened by cutting and montage. But there is also alternative media—I spoke with Amy Goodman from Democracy Now! and Ms. magazine and a feminist group yesterday, and they didn’t cut anything. You can’t generalize; you have to see how each institution is funded and whose interests it is serving.
Do you have a wish list for the revolution? What are the top three things you’d like to see happen going forward?
I have complete confidence in the young people. I lived with them in Tahrir Square, and we still have discussions in my home all the time, and I always learn from them. We older people must be modest enough to confess that we should not be advising the younger people all the time but should instead have an equal exchange of ideas."
A sample of the Q & A:
"What do you think of how the international media covered the protests?
Well, the big media is capitalist, so it serves the interests of big corporations, and that is why they lie. There were a lot of lies and rumors about the revolution in Egypt, and the role of women in our society. In the United States, it was very bad. I was censored in America, by Christiane Amanpour. She censored everything she didn’t like, which shows there is no real democracy here.
How did that manifest itself in the news coverage of the protests themselves?
It was all either sensational or lies. They can do whatever they like. They can say the opposite of what happened by cutting and montage. But there is also alternative media—I spoke with Amy Goodman from Democracy Now! and Ms. magazine and a feminist group yesterday, and they didn’t cut anything. You can’t generalize; you have to see how each institution is funded and whose interests it is serving.
Do you have a wish list for the revolution? What are the top three things you’d like to see happen going forward?
I have complete confidence in the young people. I lived with them in Tahrir Square, and we still have discussions in my home all the time, and I always learn from them. We older people must be modest enough to confess that we should not be advising the younger people all the time but should instead have an equal exchange of ideas."
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