 Good good evening to to all and thank you all for for coming for this Actually third annual event Organized in the same room by the Center for for Palestine Studies and of course with the great Honor and privilege of having as our guest this evening dr. Sahar Khalife Let me first say a few words about the Center for Palestine Studies who is organizing this event. I'm the chairperson Gilbert Ashkar producing myself Professor here at Sawas. I said this is the third annual event we because the first one actually was the the launching conference for for the Center for Palestine Studies, which was held here In the same week of March two years ago And that was followed by our first annual lecture, which was last year And with the Dean of Palestine Studies Professor Walid Khalidi as a speaker. So we are very pleased tonight to have Sahar Khalife as our second speaker for this the series of of of annual annual lectures now as you Comes clear from from what I said about The the first Launching conference two years ago. So this has been two full years of existence since we founded this Center for for Palestine Studies and I'm pleased to say that the the number of staff members of Sawas who are now members of the Center is over 40 Which is certainly an it's very high number And I'm sure one that is very difficult to match even for institutions in the Arab world. So let alone Institution in a Western country Not to mention also, of course the number of associate members and peace these students associate members of of of the Center and We are quite proud of our achievements that far in In working for Palestine Studies here at Sawas in London in the UK in the Western world globally It's a global mission actually but to start with Sawas we have been promoting of course Palestine Studies at Sawas Through various means we have launched from the very first year PhD Seminar for students working on Palestine. They're quite a few here at Sawas, but we have also launched Something that was mentioned in the first conference a master degree in in Palestine studies with a core course in Palestine studies, which is offered in in various departments and for for various degrees We have also concluded one year ago an agreement for a book series on Palestine studies, which will be the first academic book series on Palestine studies in English and The first books will be coming out Before the end of this year in the autumn very probably We expect something like three books to start with and we or aim is to carry carry on the rhythm of three to five books per year and And of course we are organizing all sorts of events. Let me mention our Next event aside from the annual lecture We are planning conference on Gaza which will take place Here at Sawas on the 31st of of October of of this year that's in a summary of of our activities and Without further delay, I will Now hand it to my colleague and friend karma Nablusi who is a member of the Advisory committee of our center To present our speaker for tonight. So karma will introduce Sahar Khalifi and then we will have her lecture will listen To her lecture to which we are all looking forward eagerly after which Sahar Khalifi will be available to sign Her I mean there are a few copies of her novels of what is available in English or a few of what is available Outside as you could have seen so she will be available to sign copies After the lecture. So thank you very much and now Thank you very much. I'm just going to do a little 10-minute introduction to Sahar's work and what's going to come this evening I warned her that I was going to take the opportunity to praise her before we have heard her But we all know her from her many works So it is a great pleasure and an honor to introduce Sahar Khalifi Palestinian novelist social activists and Incredibly productive person in many arenas Besides fighting her own battles raising children Organizing cultural programs working in multiple professional settings editing magazines and Establishing community centers. She has written no less than 11 novels Dr. Khalifi was born in Nablus Palestine in 1942 She attended Birzade University receiving a scholarship to pursue her MA in English literature at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill and Went on to receive a PhD in women's studies from the University of Iowa She returned to Palestine at the height of the first intifada in 1988 Her first work we are no longer your slave girls was published in 1974 and dramatized by Egyptian television in 1982 This was followed by Wild Thorns a portrait of Palestinian society in the West Bank and its prototypical characters changing social dynamics and Fate in the aftermath of the 1967 war with the arrival of the Israeli military occupation this novel published in 1976 Established Sahar's reputation as an author Subsequently her words gained in strength momentum and brilliance and she produced a host of works such as sunflower Memoirs of an unrealistic woman Courtyard door the inheritance and the end of spring In 2006 she published the image the icon and the covenant a story of devotion abandonment and thwarted return Centered on the quest to find home and untenable love For this work she received the Nagyb Mahfouz medal for literature awarded for the best contemporary novel published in Arabic a Remarkable addition to a long list of prizes and honors Besides achieving fame right across the Arab world Sahar's novels have reached broad international audiences and the works are translated into many languages including English Spanish Malay French Hebrew Dutch German and Italian in Europe she is best known as one of the leading members of the second generation of Arab women writers discussed and studied alongside Hanna and Shaykh Liana, Bader And of course the late Radwa Ashour who we sadly lost after a fierce battle with cancer last year in The Arab world Sahar is also known to have made a major contributions to the literature of steadfastness Which heralded the intensification of Palestinian literary production in the face of Israeli expansionism Her reputation in both these regards is more than well deserved Like other members of the second generation of Arab women novelists Sahar has tirelessly pursued feminist themes in literature Exploring the pathways of patriarchy and the journeys of those who resisted Equally however Sahar's trajectory is quintessentially a Palestinian one The experience of that section of our people who live in the 1967 military occupied territories as Much as she is a woman of the world She is locally grounded in her visions and her attachments Like the pioneering Palestinian female poet Fado Tocan She is a daughter of Nablus the city in which she was born seven years before our nakba Her intimate connections to Nablus's winding roads and alleys and ancient souks its people and its history and the stories that unfold between its two mountains are unmistakable She is also devoted to Jerusalem a city in which she attended school and which appears so constantly in her earth in this way Sahar's Authorial voice bears the unmistakable mark of experience in the occupied Palestinian territories This voice has a clearly different tone and melody than what is heard From those authors of exile and dispersal who are documenting the story of the Palestinian Shattat and the fate of the refugees the largest sections of our people Still denied the right of return to their homes and lands Since their forcible dispossession are people have inhabited many lands and have accumulated a multiplicity of experiences countered countless geographic spaces and lived an endless variance of political and social experience There is not a corner of the earth in which you would be hard-pressed to find a Palestinian Except perhaps in the Jewish only colonies of apartheid israel This Reality has resulted in stories Many stories whose settings differ and whose spatial groundings vary Yet no matter how far away these stories are Set from Palestine they remain Palestinian For Palestinian literature like our identity is not based on a combination of natural national particularisms they gave rise to the people but rather on the glue that keeps us together Our identity is based on that will on our people its spirit And that is what makes it cohere and gives it its purpose and expression Sahar's work fits squarely within this broader Palestinian literary tradition While her stories like those of the 1948 Palestinian authors Unfold within Palestine They often share many themes with the stories of her compatriots set in the surrounding arab countries and well beyond more important And besides the similarity They are also different and the difference here is something to be celebrated For the story of the Palestinian people in its totality with all its richness tragedies and endless journeys Can only be told through this accumulation of parallel narratives as well as its intersections Sahar's work follows closely the vicissitudes of persisting native life under the dominance of settler colonial authority She is concerned with portraying the contradictions and sorrows that ensue out of this reality Currently she is haunted by its defeats Exploring them from the angle of famous political characters from modern arab history such as Isidine l-Kasem, Abd al-Qadir Hussaini and Antoun Sa'adi Formerly her focus was on the contradictions And she has set some precedents in this regard For instance, her wild thorns can probably be considered to offer the first treatment of the cleavages that ensue Out of the phenomena of palestinian labor inside the israeli state This thematic novelty is not by only means sahar's only characteristic The steady continuity of her output has meant that her work is one of the few in modern palestinian literature That mirrors the very story of the occupation of the west bank from the moment that it began in 1967 to the present day The grounded and steady And radiance of her output means that it is not only carry literary value But also a certain historical one She has managed to produce a range of diverse stories Set against a domineering singular and horrifically destructive background That of the israeli colonial enterprise and military occupation Along with her clear authorial voice This is the thread that connects a long unfolding chain of intensely human events Since the occupation began She has been writing day by day hour by hour capturing events as they developed and as human beings as the palestinians reacted to them For the past five decades. She has observed what she saw around her Absorbed it and transformed it into words for us For this great service. We are forever in her debt So, please join me in giving her a very warm welcome Ladies and gentlemen friends colleagues brothers and sisters Before delving into the core of my presentation in which I explain how we Arabs We palestinians We arab women are good between western oppression and islamic fundamentalist suppression Allow me first This is who I am I'm a palestinian in short. I'm a palestinian I'm an arab and I am a muslim Which means that I'm a muslim palestinian arab, of course This means that according to western media and western stereotype prejudices That I am a dangerous creature Who belongs to a dangerous culture? That has a fixed nature Unable to be converted Unable to change according to those prejudices We Arabs Are fixed in one static reality in one static phase We are reduced to a picture That does not change in time Or seen under a different light Al Qaeda Al Qaeda Daesh ISIS al-Nusra Wrapped up women Filthy backward buggers Corrupt rulers And rotten oil sheikhs We are fixed in one reality That does not change in time Or seen under a different light But is there an image A view A reality that is fixed in nature Unable to change Let us remember the findings of the great impressionist artist Cezanne Who used to study the effect of changing light On the same landscape or view What he found out is that the same landscape Or view Under a different light produces a different picture He also found out That we see the same scene differently Through our two different eyes I mean the right eye And the left eye Do not see the same scene the same way Because each eye Sees the scene from a different angle so If a pair of eyes of the same person See the same scene differently Can we infer then that the same scene cannot but be seen differently By two different people Can we also infer that not only light or different eyes make things look different Also different times Different imaginations Emotions Prejudices And preconditioned concepts Let me show you from real examples From down to earth experiences that things cannot be Static and people Can never be fixed in one reality in one static phase And that no one can claim to know the truth the absolute truth As we all know a woman in the arab culture And many other cultures Means the weak sex The other sex The unequal sex The sex that does not inherit the legacy or perpetuate the family's name The sex that can bring children as much as it can bring dreadful shame Within the family where I was born I was received with this with this appointment That reached subs and tears Everybody was waiting for a boy To their dismay I was a girl I was the fifth girl in a row Which meant that I was the fifth disappointment Or what my mother considered her fifth defeat Compared to my uncle's wife who victoriously brought Produced 10 precious boys My mother was a loser An unblessed wife My mother was more beautiful More intelligent and more dignified than my uncle's wife And all other wives in the family Nevertheless Everybody looked at her as the least productive with no valuable fruits I inherited those prejudices I inherited those prejudices and concepts Since childhood I repeatedly heard them say That we girls of the family Girls of the neighborhood and girls of the world Were powerless A sex doomed by nature The sex that is permanently weak As far as I remember I started my fight with nature Since I was a child As a child They considered me rebellious Over dynamic Very loud and fussy And uneasy to cope with I wanted to prove I wanted to prove That despite my doomed nature I was good and worthy Bright and clever Cute and funny I wanted to prove that despite my That I was important as my adult brother The only boy among six girls And that I deserve the same importance and love Of course I failed For years I failed People continue saying Women are weak Women are worthless And women are nameless They do not inherit the legacy Or perpetuate their family's names To my surprise And I hope to yours too A few months ago My younger sister told me That she accidentally discovered that I was the only member Within the Khalifa family Which is as large as a tribe Whose name was listed in the Palestinian encyclopedia With a sigh of relief she added Not my father Not my brother Not my uncle with his ten miraculous boys Not any male in the family was mentioned in our encyclopedia It was only you I also sighed with relief And told her My dear sister You have to notice That many women are now listed In the Egyptian encyclopedia The Syrian encyclopedia The Lebanese The Algerian The Moroccan The rest of Arab encyclopedias Things have changed Things are changing Things have changed When I say that things change I mean that things are not static Things are moving Things are apt to change For me as an Arab woman I passed different phases I was transformed by currents And I was a transmitter of change Even among the most conservative Arab families Women now go to school When they earn education They become teachers Doctors Engineers Pharmacists Writers Musicians Artists Many women now are considered indispensable Stronger than men More creative than men And more important than men Things have changed But mind you When I see our image in the Western media As dreadful creatures wrapped up In their chadows With masts of leather Herms behind their veils I ask with amazement Why do they see us fixed in one reality In one static phase They draw us a picture that is constantly gloomy Seen through one single light Is this what they consider a true picture? Do they think that God has created us differently Than the female sex Unable to change Now, let me tell you the story of how I was introduced To the concept of change How I discovered that what people might believe In something as true is not the truth Because things keep changing in essence and in shape When I was still a child I had a teacher who constantly mentioned the word change In different tones and meanings He mentioned the word change When he spoke about social injustice He mentioned change When he spoke about fair distribution of Arab wealth He mentioned change When he spoke about Arab women's status And he mentioned change When he spoke about Arab out-of-date regimes Everybody I knew Everybody I knew respected and admired that teacher The young ones wanted to be like him The old ones were keen to hide him when he was chased by the police When I became a teenager I discovered that my great teacher was not the only one who spoke about change and justice Most of our educated people believed in and spoke for those beliefs and thoughts I also discovered that thousands of our enlightened men Similar to my teacher Were either chased by the police Or rotting in jails of regimes Supported, backed, and nourished by western powers British, French, and later on American Excuse me Talking about change We Arabs still remember That the one who encouraged that mood Was our great nationalist leader Jamal Abdel Nasser Apart from his fiery and moving speeches In which he spoke about equality, fraternity, and justice He inspired the masses and filled them with self-esteem When he inflicted an enormous blow on the two greatest colonial powers of that time Great Britain and France With the nationalization of the Swiss Canal The rage of the two states reached the climax in 1956 When together with their ally Israel Conducted a military campaign against Nasser In order to overthrow him However, that assault failed and Nasser emerged both stronger and more influential Nasser's policy or hope or dream Of reuniting the Arab world Reviving what existed before Sykes-Picot agreement That divided the Middle East After World War I Into small, easily dominated states As still the case now All that invoked western fear and anxiety About the establishment of a strong, totally independent, single Arab state Capable of putting an end to western exploitation and manipulation And of threatening its ally Israel That is why the western media plotted against Nasser Depicting him as a new Arab Hitler Accusing him of fascism and many other provocative and terrible names and descriptions Nevertheless, the fifties and sixties Were the golden Arab era of nationalism, of Arab nationalism The Arab street was full of vigor and hope for transformation Our attitudes toward our traditional socio-political systems was rebellious and sharply critical We reflected our themes of liberation and social justice in our literature Our theater, our songs, music, and the idioms we used in our daily life Literature from all over the world was pouring into our culture In our bookshops and on street pavements you could find existentialist literature Socialist literature, black literature, and every literature that called for liberation, revolution, and change That mood for liberation and change influenced everybody, including the illiterate peasants Women too were affected, were touched They started to go out in the streets without their veils Tens of thousands of young women graduated from universities Some of them started to get involved in politics and enrolled in political parties Women not only took their veils off, they also wore the sleeveless and miniskirts I did that, my generation did that You might not believe it, we were dancing rock and roll and twist despite our hatred to the West We wanted to be like the West, we wanted to be like the West, but not under its domination and control That entire dreamlike atmosphere came to a halt when Israel, backed by the West, defeated Nasser in 1967 That defeat represented the defeat of our national movement and our socialist beliefs The Americans and their allies in the region took that opportunity They forcefully supported the move away from our leftist liberal nationalism by backing the Islamists They poured millions of dollars in that direction The Muslim Brothers Party, which was completely ignored by the masses, started to gain power What happened in our region in the 70s and 80s was very much similar to what happened in Afghanistan When the Americans supported the Islamists, including Ben Laden, to bring down the communists A similar scenario almost is the same Took place in our region Surprisingly, to America's dismay, the Islamists turned their back against their supporters Once they took hold of the street, they became a crystallized power They no longer needed America After being pampered and nourished and being called Mujahideen, which means freedom fighters in Arabic America started calling them terrorists And Europe followed the American style That was the time when we started witnessing the birth of a new era, which we ironically defined as change But what kind of change? In Palestine, the Israelis copied the American model They encouraged the Islamists to stand in the face of the nationalist socialist PLO While they were chasing, harassing, and assassinating PLO leftists and liberal leaders and activists They pretended not to see what the Islamists were doing to women and to society at large They infiltrated hundreds of them And later on thousands Men and women in our educational system Thus, the Islamists gained more power through influencing Students at an early age Once the Islamists were sure of their grip, they turned their forces against the West and Israel They became a crystallized power What helped them reach that stage was not just the nationalist socialist defeat, deepened by the downfall of the Soviet bloc Nor was it the early American Israeli support The male administration and inadequacy Of many corrupt leaders on our side added to their success Arab women, now let's focus on Arab women Let's focus on Arab women's situation and the double oppression they receive And they suffer from both East and West Arab women, as I mentioned earlier, are presented in the Western media Newspapers, magazines, journals, TV reports, movies, academic studies, and people Prejudiced behavior in this read Arab women are presented and symbolized as wrapped up creatures from head to toe Unable to to breathe or think Under black shadows and thick veils With just what with just eyes visible sometimes not visible Move like shadows float in vacuums like witches or dreadful ghosts The dress of the wrapped up woman who represents me and women like me Is called the hijab I'm sure you heard about it The hijab or the Islamic dress Which I definitely believe is not Islamic or Arab I even dare say it is a trend or a fashion manipulated by the West to keep half the Arab society fragmented dormant and The present hijab or the so-called dress The so-called Islamic dress as far as I know is a Western creation And an awkward manifestation of the influence of Western imperialist civilization This sounds ridiculous, isn't it Who can believe this The hijab is a Western creation One or many of you might argue but the hijab has always been a part of the Arab culture You Sahar Khalifa, how dare you deny that Your mother wore the hijab Your grandmother wore the hijab Your great-grandmother Virgin Mary wore the hijab So how can you deny? You know that Virgin Mary was a Palestinian Don't you know that? She wore the hijab, the head cover Or something similar to the hijab She wore a head cover and abaya Chador That covered her sacred body from head to toe Since 2,000 years or more The hijab has always been a part of our culture. This is what people say So how dare you Sahar Khalifa say it is a Western creation And an awkward manifestation of the influence of Western imperialist civilization This is absurd Utterly foolish You must be out of your mind Okay To be honest I do confess That as far as I remember My mother wore the hijab But not this kind of hijab I mean what is now being called the Islamic dress What my mother used to wear Which also was a manifestation of the influence of the Turkish rule And the Ottoman culture My mother used to wear a piece of transparent material Black in color, maybe some of you remember that type of dress Loosely covering her face, her face and head It lays so loosely on her head that allowed her to see and breathe Apart from that her clothing consisted of a modest skirt or dress Reaching to her knees and a short jacket Emphasizing her chest and waistline Thus greatly contrasting what today is considered Islamic dress A dress which makes a woman's body look like a long shapeless sack A dark log, a column of smoke In the early 50s My mother and most women of her generation took their beds off In a move that was called Sufur The move was called Sufur Which meant to show, to reveal, to uncover She stopped wearing the jacket and wore either a costume Or a short sleeve dress and followed the fashion of the day Whether in her short hairstyle Or in the color and cut of her clothes She behaved just like other middle class women in most Arab cities But also like the less fortunate in most smaller towns Those of you who had the opportunity to attend concerts Or watched all videos Of the great Arab singer Imkelsoum And other singers of that period Realized that not a single woman among the audience wore what is now being called the Islamic dress At that time, I mean during the 50s 60s, 70s and early 80s Arab women across classes, all classes in most Arab cities and towns Wore what I am wearing now And most women here in this hall No abaya, no chadors, no veil, no burqa It was only village peasants who continued to wear Traditional clothing similar to what Virgin Mary had worn 2000 years ago My mother got rid of her veil immediately after Israel occupied most of Palestine in 1948 That occupation brought about a political and economic catastrophe Accompanied by social upheavals that did away with many values and long established traditions Including the veil and restrictions on women's freedom of movement on the street in school and in work at work That catastrophe directly affected women since the declining economic situation resulted in thousands of families That had lost their homeland their properties their houses their land and many of their their men in war Thousands of families were forced to take women out of the domestic sphere and send them out to work or allowed them to study Obtaining education allowed them to work in Kuwait or Saudi Arabia That time there was no Gulf, no Dubai, no Sharkha, no Abu Dhabi It was only Kuwait and Saudi Arabia Thereby feeding their families or paying for their brothers and sisters to study to become doctors Engineers lawyers and the like We started to witness thousands of educated Palestinian girls traveling abroad without their head covers Living there on their own Modestly and unmarried but highly esteemed by their families and society Because they became breadwinners for families with their with with low incomes As I described the situation of such women in my novel Translated and published by the american university in Cairo As time passed it was not just accepted But even welcomed that those young women financed their younger sisters studies at arab universities In egypt syria and lebanon enabling them to bring back Diplomas in medicine pharmacy engineering law and other subjects as I mentioned earlier Those young women being trained and pursuing Recognized jobs were educated courageous and open to the world And they launched a wave of feminist and social emancipation Even though our knowledge of the feminist movement and feminist thinking was limited to what a number of pioneers such as Amina Saeed So here are kalamawi and durria shafiq had written in egyptian newspapers and magazines With articles that did not go beyond such relatively lightweight themes as family planning marriage Early marriages polygamy and such like As I mentioned earlier right after our defeat by israel in 1967 dictatorial anti-socialist anti-liberal arab regimes You might guess whom i'm talking about Backed by america allowed it allowed themselves with fundamentalist groupings Making millions available for supporting and strengthening that this movement For instance, and I saw it with my own eyes All those who wore the so-called islamic dress Received a monthly payment 15 dinars for a man 10 for a woman For a man this clothing consists of a short dish dashi Or gallabia Which is almost a long dress for a man And also he wore leather sandals Together with a long untrimmed beard You know how much it it means for for poor people Occupied hungry With no incomes to have such an amount One a dinar is almost equivalent to one pound sterling pound and at that time in the 70s It was a big amount for them for for poor people For a woman a thick a thick had covered and a long dark colored coat reaching to her toes Recipients were also given free of charge Prayer beads rosaries Plus a splendid edition of the Quran and a beautiful prayer mat To begin with these islamic organizations concentrated on young people who Had demonstrated the capacity for leadership And were in a position to extend to exert influence on others They also wanted to reach women at home Meetings were arranged and cells formed in the houses of women from the lower middle class Then attention turned to mosques schools And universities All that happened thanks to financial and other assistance From other regimes loyal to the u.s Directed by the u.s Following and applying plans of the u.s in the hope that this islamic input would keep our arab society from Free of socialist ideas and progressive projects progressive projects That called for emancipation on all spheres beginning with liberation from western influence And extending to the unleashing of creative energies in our society However, the support for fundamentalist islamis wasn't limited to the provision of reclothing monthly payments and meeting places Fertile grounds was also prepared in primary and secondary schools islamis both male and female Were given preference in the appointment of teachers Charged with influencing young pupils and students so that fundamentalist thinking and ideology became part of the children's psyche and intellect in addition youngsters received training in military discipline and martial arts at special camps Established in arab deserts and in afghanistan and pakistan absurdly though The u.s and its allies only became aware of how dangerous the stern or trap was after the magic Had been deployed against the magician and fundamentalist organizations began threatening to establish a strict fundamentalist regime such as the woman As the one we are witnessing now At present We exist amid alarming intellectual social and political chaos Things are out of joint and we are now threatened from two sides without knowing which is more brutal On one side is the west who's plotting exploitation and colonization are familiar to us And on the other the fundamentalist islamist movement, which has blessed us with innovations Throwing us back into an age of oppression and of the harem Here the free liberal secular scientific but also colonial west And they are the inflexibility of an islam that calls for resistance to the west and its concerns But is blind to the sciences to modernity And to feminists and social emancipation This intellectual social and political chaos Hasn't only affected us. It has also spread to the west So that our women with shadows and veiled faces have become a phenomenon here that arouses fear and abhorrence In some ways and states islamic Clothing is forbidden by law and women wearing such clothing are no longer allowed to enter schools University and public offices Beyond that people in the west now believe that all arabs and all muslims are equally strict fanatical and intellectually closed Just like fundamentalist islamists thereby Forgetting or denying that this movement was originally a child of the west and its reactionary allies Threatening our democratic secular and scholarly attitudes and also the faith of us women Now the west persecutes us with new and highly racist prejudices arbitrarily And sweepingly lumping together all arabs muslim and christian reproaching us with something for which it should really blame itself I feel frustrated when I write or speak to western audience Because I know that most of the population is indifferent and feel no sympathy for us When I walk through western streets, I can almost hear how people naively and egoistically ask themselves Why should we do anything for the arabs when they don't look after themselves? Why should we be concerned about arab women who are so remote from us and so different in their religion color and nationality nationality Whatever may happen to them cannot happen to us or threaten us For my part, I say to people who think in this narrow-minded and egoistic way That we are closer to you than you believe or imagine Haven't we time and again said that the world has become a little global village Now we are coming to you as human waves breaking through your beaches Whatever you do to restrict immigration and intensify Surveillance, we shall find ways of getting to you Sir mounting your barriers and asserting your our presence among you We are here among you You cannot deny our presence because we are behind you In front of you and have become part of your system One day we shall become an effective electoral force and bring a change Similar to ours one that makes you share our fragmentation and fear I in no way intend to anger people in the west All I want is to defend my case palpably and graphically I want to make a western audience feel what I feel Feel what I fear and make them painfully aware of what their colonial governments governments do to us Do to me I see how the western media force me into a stereotype Judging and falsifying me When they present a woman in a burqa as exemplifying Arab womanhood Muslim and Christian They silently declare that I the feminist writer And thousands of educated women like me And millions of modern Arab women Muslim and Christian in all Arab countries are like that woman with a burqa A somber face a headway down brainless speechless shapeless and utterly stupid And that is not true Since the image of a woman in a burqa fills women like me with fear and horror We fear that one day a hand will extend out of that image Out of that picture of the woman with the burqa Drawing my daughters my granddaughters and myself Into a sinister Arab regime kept in the dark by western plans. So Western plans and policies so that we remain what we were and what we are what we still are An Arab oil field on the western market As you can see I told you my story as a woman As a Palestinian And as an Arab an Arab I told you those stories stories from my perspective From my experiences and from my beliefs Which I consider real and true But for you here in the west From what you have learned or came to believe you might have different thoughts thoughts or visions about all what I Just said Right This is normal and understandable You know why? because we too As Arabs as Palestinians and as Arab women have different beliefs and visions about your culture About your history and about your behavior But what you see and what we see is it true and real? Is it the truth? We have to raise these questions unless we are satisfied with our prejudices and fixed in our traditional beliefs Where did I reach with my rambling thoughts and scattered images? That we are all victims of prejudice cultures This is really absurd. It is unfair and depressing For we human beings despite our differences our fences our limited spheres and visions We all share one truth that is absolutely true and worthy That is bright and hopeful That is worth living for and dying for It is the truth that is based on love and liberty Love for all and liberty for all and again Despite our differences of race religion sex and politics We all need love We all need warmth. We all need intimacy We all need to be recognized as humans Sensitive humans tender humans and capable humans We all need to communicate our thoughts and feelings We all need to hold and embrace is there a truth beyond this truth More real more genuine and more precious and worthy And liberty is there a conscious human being who does not seek liberty or spends a whole life searching for liberty We call it liberty that leads for freedom For freedom of the body freedom of the soul freedom of the heart freedom of the mind and freedom of speech So there is a truth. I believe in despite my suspicious mind Deep in my heart I believe that people deserve love love and liberty That makes them whole Fill them with joy fill them with light Fill them with dignity Did you believe me when I started my talk saying that there is no reality that is permanently fixed or true Did you believe me? Well, that wasn't true. It was a trick again Or what we call in literature a technique All what I meant is to draw your attention To shake some prejudices to shed some light That's why I reminded you of Cézanne's findings about the effect of changing light on vision and sight I hope you forgive me I hope you recognize me I hope you love me Despite our differences of color and light vision and sight Thank you