Joumana Haddad smokes a cigarette in the sun and hurried up the stairs. He smiles and says, in a near-perfect Spanish, which has the feeling all the time repeating the same answers. But in just a few minutes Joumana clear that words are their best allies in the fight, invisible but constant, for the freedom of women.
Published in Spain 'I killed Scheherazade' (Ed. Debate), an essay that seeks to dismantle all the topics on women in the Arab world. Question: We are witnessing a wave of change in the Arab world. How will these revolutions in the role of women? Answer: I am excited about what is happening and makes me feel proud.
But I am very skeptical in regard to women. We have seen these women to participate but have now disappeared. If these riots are not accompanied by greater respect for the rights of women does not make sense. I call on Arab women are more selfish and fight for themselves and not only for the general cause.
A better state can not exist without them having a key role in these countries. Q: When I was a child and teenager suffered a civil war in Lebanon. The war in Libya, is it necessary? A: I feel a contradiction. I'm living a division. On one hand I know that people needed help. But on the other hand, I have seen external interventions that have not necessarily led to a better situation for the country that he lived.
I have hope that this time is different and this intervention goes beyond economic interests also motivate. Q: In your book has written: "Being Arab is being hypocritical," What does it mean? A: The Arab world is a world which have a large schizophrenia for two centuries. It is a world where you can not speak your mind, you can not live what you say and you can not live in public what you live in secret.
This duplicity absurd turns you into a schizophrenic child, inauthentic. One of the reasons for this duality is absurd these taboos that we are living in the Arab world, imposed by religion or by dictatorial regimes. Now we have a very important opportunity to change things. Q: The book is titled 'I killed Scheherazade' Why kill a woman in literature, was brave and intelligent? A: Intelligent yes, courage does.
What he did was to negotiate on their rights. It was creative, intelligent and cultivated. But what he did was an act of rebellion but an act of negotiation. Now we have to get what we want without these forms of negotiation with the patriarchal authorities, religious or political. Scheherazade has been completed.
P: Provocation is a tool for rebellion? A: No, it's collateral damage. Is the price we pay to fight the current. Is an outcome, not an instrument Q: She is the editor of an Arabic magazine, 'Jasad' which is about the eroticism of women. What problems faced by it? A: We do not have time to talk so much! (Laughs).
Many taboos are associated with the female body. I expected this controversy. I, female, Arabic, making a cultural magazine on the body: it was not a surprise that there was a hostile reaction. But I also had and still have a lot of support from readers who write me to thank me for having the courage to do something so against everything that we are living.
The controversy is healthy, can lead to dialogue to change things. The first step is to change what does not work, being able to express. Previously not expressed. Q: It says that one of the books that was marked 'The Marquis de Sade' as a teenager. What the literature has meant to you? R: It was a very important tool.
My family was very strict. There were many bans on me. The reading was in my head a 'Big Bang'. Freedom begins in the head, and at maturity expressed in your speech, your behavior. This thirst for literature and information and education are elements to achieve independence. Not only existential but also intellectual and economic.
A woman can not be free without being financially independent. Study, read, can be important weapons to fight for the rights. Q: Just West is guilty of topical image of Arab women, veiled and submissive? A: In each there are always two responsible misunderstanding. She was tired of seeing that only Arab women as victims.
But it's too easy to point the finger and accuse, I am also the primary responsibility for what I'm living. To be honest we must say what is wrong with us. Arab women, without generalizing, often choose the status of victim. It's easier to say "I can not do anything, it is my fate" that decides each day to make a declaration of war on humanity.
That's what it means to be women in the Arab world, and not only in many parts of the world. Q: When I first got married she was only 19, "was an act of rebellion? A: It was a form of separation from my family. I thought of all the available scenarios and the only one that represented a break from the chains imposed was married and have a life.
The decision to marry at age 19 was not an explosive love story, it was a very wise decision. Q: What about those who defend the use of the burqa as a way to prove they are good Muslims? A: It seems very absurd, very contradictory. You can not choose the freedom not to be free. Are these women wonder why they only have to take the call? If we impose on Muslim men for a month the burka, would think twice before to impose it on women.
It's humiliating, it's an insult. For women and for men, which is also treated as an animal that does not control his instincts and must be protected from the temptation of women. Q: How do you maintain hope things continue to change if the daily reality is that human rights are violated? R: (thoughtful) Sometimes I say it is the hope that generates the force to fight.
But is the opposite: the strength to fight what generates hope. Not that I'm convinced that I will change things and that fight. I am convinced that my struggles can generate hope. I often wonder why I have stayed in Lebanon. I say I'm for the things I dislike. My life has been an interpretation of the myth of Sisyphus.
(In hell Sisyphus was forced to push a huge stone uphill for a steep slope, but before it reached the top of the hill the stone always rolled down, and Sisyphus had to start again from the beginning.) Life for me has always been. 
Published in Spain 'I killed Scheherazade' (Ed. Debate), an essay that seeks to dismantle all the topics on women in the Arab world. Question: We are witnessing a wave of change in the Arab world. How will these revolutions in the role of women? Answer: I am excited about what is happening and makes me feel proud.
But I am very skeptical in regard to women. We have seen these women to participate but have now disappeared. If these riots are not accompanied by greater respect for the rights of women does not make sense. I call on Arab women are more selfish and fight for themselves and not only for the general cause.
A better state can not exist without them having a key role in these countries. Q: When I was a child and teenager suffered a civil war in Lebanon. The war in Libya, is it necessary? A: I feel a contradiction. I'm living a division. On one hand I know that people needed help. But on the other hand, I have seen external interventions that have not necessarily led to a better situation for the country that he lived.
I have hope that this time is different and this intervention goes beyond economic interests also motivate. Q: In your book has written: "Being Arab is being hypocritical," What does it mean? A: The Arab world is a world which have a large schizophrenia for two centuries. It is a world where you can not speak your mind, you can not live what you say and you can not live in public what you live in secret.
This duplicity absurd turns you into a schizophrenic child, inauthentic. One of the reasons for this duality is absurd these taboos that we are living in the Arab world, imposed by religion or by dictatorial regimes. Now we have a very important opportunity to change things. Q: The book is titled 'I killed Scheherazade' Why kill a woman in literature, was brave and intelligent? A: Intelligent yes, courage does.
What he did was to negotiate on their rights. It was creative, intelligent and cultivated. But what he did was an act of rebellion but an act of negotiation. Now we have to get what we want without these forms of negotiation with the patriarchal authorities, religious or political. Scheherazade has been completed.
P: Provocation is a tool for rebellion? A: No, it's collateral damage. Is the price we pay to fight the current. Is an outcome, not an instrument Q: She is the editor of an Arabic magazine, 'Jasad' which is about the eroticism of women. What problems faced by it? A: We do not have time to talk so much! (Laughs).
Many taboos are associated with the female body. I expected this controversy. I, female, Arabic, making a cultural magazine on the body: it was not a surprise that there was a hostile reaction. But I also had and still have a lot of support from readers who write me to thank me for having the courage to do something so against everything that we are living.
The controversy is healthy, can lead to dialogue to change things. The first step is to change what does not work, being able to express. Previously not expressed. Q: It says that one of the books that was marked 'The Marquis de Sade' as a teenager. What the literature has meant to you? R: It was a very important tool.
My family was very strict. There were many bans on me. The reading was in my head a 'Big Bang'. Freedom begins in the head, and at maturity expressed in your speech, your behavior. This thirst for literature and information and education are elements to achieve independence. Not only existential but also intellectual and economic.
A woman can not be free without being financially independent. Study, read, can be important weapons to fight for the rights. Q: Just West is guilty of topical image of Arab women, veiled and submissive? A: In each there are always two responsible misunderstanding. She was tired of seeing that only Arab women as victims.
But it's too easy to point the finger and accuse, I am also the primary responsibility for what I'm living. To be honest we must say what is wrong with us. Arab women, without generalizing, often choose the status of victim. It's easier to say "I can not do anything, it is my fate" that decides each day to make a declaration of war on humanity.
That's what it means to be women in the Arab world, and not only in many parts of the world. Q: When I first got married she was only 19, "was an act of rebellion? A: It was a form of separation from my family. I thought of all the available scenarios and the only one that represented a break from the chains imposed was married and have a life.
The decision to marry at age 19 was not an explosive love story, it was a very wise decision. Q: What about those who defend the use of the burqa as a way to prove they are good Muslims? A: It seems very absurd, very contradictory. You can not choose the freedom not to be free. Are these women wonder why they only have to take the call? If we impose on Muslim men for a month the burka, would think twice before to impose it on women.
It's humiliating, it's an insult. For women and for men, which is also treated as an animal that does not control his instincts and must be protected from the temptation of women. Q: How do you maintain hope things continue to change if the daily reality is that human rights are violated? R: (thoughtful) Sometimes I say it is the hope that generates the force to fight.
But is the opposite: the strength to fight what generates hope. Not that I'm convinced that I will change things and that fight. I am convinced that my struggles can generate hope. I often wonder why I have stayed in Lebanon. I say I'm for the things I dislike. My life has been an interpretation of the myth of Sisyphus.
(In hell Sisyphus was forced to push a huge stone uphill for a steep slope, but before it reached the top of the hill the stone always rolled down, and Sisyphus had to start again from the beginning.) Life for me has always been.
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