"The most cruel of punishments is to be given a contrarian mind in a society that does not protest."
"Our ideas are not accountable for our mistakes, but we are accountable for the mistakes of our ideas."
"How great and difference and how long the distance between man's morals in theory and man's morals in conduct and character!"
"Truly, what is demanded of the men of religion is the conservation of the antiquity of thought, and not impeccable conduct."
"Truly, the worst thing about the men of religion is that they tolerate corrupt men and do not tolerate thinkers."
"Truly, those who impose on us a specific code of conduct will most definitely impose on us specific pattern of thought and a specific doctrine or specific religion or specific teachings and perspectives, that is, they impose in us the conviction in those things."
"Truly to dissent in your manners from society is something you cannot do, and perhaps some of the time you can't will it. And truly, to dissent in your thoughts or in your doctrine or in your beliefs or in your manners is something that make you wretched and have you tongue-lashed, and they could lampoon you, or turn you into a defendant."
"If those who spearheaded revolutions lived in conditions and levels better than they would find, they would not have revolted."
"Truly, talent without learning
remains like a genius idea without application
a window and a seeing eye.
It lives in permanent darkness."
"Our ideas are not accountable for our mistakes, but we are accountable for the mistakes of our ideas."
"How great and difference and how long the distance between man's morals in theory and man's morals in conduct and character!"
"Truly, what is demanded of the men of religion is the conservation of the antiquity of thought, and not impeccable conduct."
"Truly, the worst thing about the men of religion is that they tolerate corrupt men and do not tolerate thinkers."
"Truly, those who impose on us a specific code of conduct will most definitely impose on us specific pattern of thought and a specific doctrine or specific religion or specific teachings and perspectives, that is, they impose in us the conviction in those things."
"Truly to dissent in your manners from society is something you cannot do, and perhaps some of the time you can't will it. And truly, to dissent in your thoughts or in your doctrine or in your beliefs or in your manners is something that make you wretched and have you tongue-lashed, and they could lampoon you, or turn you into a defendant."
"Truly, if man is incapable of being what he wants [to be], he will go and do what he doesn't want [to do]. If he is incapable of victory, he will go and manufacture defeat."
"If those who spearheaded revolutions lived in conditions and levels better than they would find, they would not have revolted."
"I wish, no I demand, that this cry or chant or glorification be written over every Arab pulpit, on the cover of every Arab book, on the first page of every Arab newspaper, and on every Arab mouth and pen:
O dimwitted lie!
O barefaced and shamed hypocrisy!
O ignorant stupidity!
O stupid ignorance!
O obscene and sterile neigh!
O fall from grace!
O intellectual, mental, moral, artistic and expressional disgrace!
Verily, for you is all glory and authority!"
"Why didn't God create me as a bird flying in the air like that pigeon, and made me a girl? God has made me think that He preferred birds to girls."
"Humans lose their dignity when they are unable to provide for themselves."
"Woman has been deceived in this age more than she has been deceived in any other ages. This is because, the truth is that, her lowly position and the infringement on her rights has now been wrapped in superficial respect, etiquette, gentle manners with other people. And because of this external wrap, woman has not seen that her position is still lowly."
"Truly, Freud imagined that the hysteria of those women or their loud screaming from pain or grief is due their sadness over the loss of the male organ forever. And he forgot that those women were screaming and howling because of the long and sharp needles that were pricked on their bodies by witch-hunters looking for the marks of Satan."
"Deprivation makes the strings of our nerves strained, so we can play on it. As for satisfaction, it makes it laxed, and no melody comes out of it."
"The honor of a person, man or woman, is sincerity: sincerity in thought and sincerity in feelings and sincerity in actions. The honorable person is the one who does not live a double life: one in public and another in secret."
"Femininity is the assertion of woman in life and her ability to use her body and mind and soul to the highest ability, and manhood is the assertion of man in life and his ability to use his body and mind and soul to the highest ability."
"A woman, no matter how attractive her body is, loses her femininity if she is stupid or weak-willed or pretentious or a liar."
"People, from fear of humiliation, are in humiliation."
"Truly the mature character is the only one that can desire freedom and strive for it without fearing it, for freedom frightens the immature and dependent person."
"It is perhaps better for a person to face the world without any facts at all, than to face it with wrong facts that corrupt his nature and natural intelligence."
"Did not the cultured elite make ruin in every generation? Were they not hypocritical and deceptive in defining who the peasant was, during the days of Abdel-Nasser? Then the cultured elite and the wealthy and the writers entered the People's Assembly under the name of "peasants"? And so did the Salafis and Islamists enter Parliament under the name of God and the ballot and Sharia."
"The ruling political power is the one that defines for the people what is sacred and what is profane, what is legal and illegal, what is legitimate and illegitimate. As for truth, it is buried in history, so that the people own history-writing for themselves, so the devastated mother owns the pen, and writes by herself the history of her life."
The sophisticated person is distinguished by the ability to overcome individual and collective responsibility, over appetites of food and sex and domination.
The sophisticated person is not the repressed, the obsequious towards power, the tyrant over the state and family."
END.
 |
| Abdullah al-Qasimi, first known Saudi atheist, 1907-1996 |
"Can a man believe that a woman can look into his insides and explore his deepest being?
Can he believe that a woman can make her body subservient to her heart and her mind?
That he can look in her eyes without her blinking?
That he can hold her hand without her shaking?
That he encloses her with him by four walls, and she gives him nothing, and leaves him, and moves on while saying, 'No, you're not the man that I want'?
Can a man realize that there is a woman that can inspect him and test him, and then he fails on the test?"
"She converses with herself as though she were another person, a splitting of the personality that a person uses to cure severe pain, under the delusion that the pain will happen to someone else and not her."
"If four walls closed around me with a man that I don't want to give a touch, I won't give him [a touch]...and if I wanted to give myself to a man, I will give myself [to him] in front of the world without sneaking and embezzlement."
"No..no...truly this mistake I fell into does not fit with all this punishment...it does not fit! Every person makes mistakes...life encompasses right and wrong...even so, we do not know right except by making mistakes...mistakes are not weakness or stupidity, but persistence in making mistakes is weakness and stupidity."
"Humans lose their dignity when they are unable to provide for themselves."
"Is it possible that honor is an anatomical attribute that a person is either born with or without? And if the hymen is a sign of a girl's honor, what is the sign of the man's honor?"
"Woman has begun to abandon her value as a human being and the sincerity of her feelings to attain the honor of apparent society. Woman has learned fakeness, and has learned to deal with society [in the same manner that] it deals with her. She has learned how to please men and have sex with him without losing her virginity. She has learned how to sell herself to the wedding knot and to repress her love forever or to practise it in secrecy."
"Repression is the cause behind the masochism of woman and the sadism of man. And from this repression springs pathological love, pathological literature, that sings the praises of pains and deprivation and torment."
"Humans don't die in prison from starvation or heat or cold or beatings or diseases or vermin, but die from waiting.
"Waiting turns time into timelessness, thing into nothing, meaning into meaninglessness."
"Deprivation makes the strings of our nerves strained, so we can play on it. As for satisfaction, it makes it laxed, and no melody comes out of it."
"Truly the morals standards that society puts down has to be applied to everyone regardless of gender or color or social class, and the society that believes in chastity as a moral value must apply this value to every individual in society. As for applying to one gender without the other or one social class without the other, this indicates that chastity is not a moral value but a law that is imposed by the preexisting social order."
"The honor of a person, man or woman, is sincerity: sincerity in thought and sincerity in feelings and sincerity in actions. The honorable person is the one who does not live a double life: one in public and another in secret."
"Femininity is the assertion of woman in life and her ability to use her body and mind and soul to the highest ability, and manhood is the assertion of man in life and his ability to use his body and mind and soul to the highest ability."
"A woman, no matter how attractive her body is, loses her femininity if she is stupid or weak-willed or pretentious or a liar."
"People, from fear of humiliation, are in humiliation."
"Truly the mature character is the only one that can desire freedom and strive for it without fearing it, for freedom frightens the immature and dependent person."
"I knew for the first time how victory is. Fear does nothing but defeat, and victory is never without courage."
"It is perhaps better for a person to face the world without any facts at all, than to face it with wrong facts that corrupt his nature and natural intelligence."
"Did not the cultured elite make ruin in every generation? Were they not hypocritical and deceptive in defining who the peasant was, during the days of Abdel-Nasser? Then the cultured elite and the wealthy and the writers entered the People's Assembly under the name of "peasants"? And so did the Salafis and Islamists enter Parliament under the name of God and the ballot and Sharia."
"The ruling political power is the one that defines for the people what is sacred and what is profane, what is legal and illegal, what is legitimate and illegitimate. As for truth, it is buried in history, so that the people own history-writing for themselves, so the devastated mother owns the pen, and writes by herself the history of her life."
"Childrearing in our homes has failed to produce live conscience, the system of civil and religious education has failed to evolve the male and female into sophisticated personalities.
The sophisticated person is distinguished by the ability to overcome individual and collective responsibility, over appetites of food and sex and domination.
The sophisticated person is not the repressed, the obsequious towards power, the tyrant over the state and family."
"We have gotten used to consuming this fake media and history, and now we no longer know the essential issues from the insignificant issues. We are addicted to this pseudo-knowledge or false mass consciousness as the youth are addicted to marijuana and heroin."
"Medicine is not a commodity, and success is not wealth and fame. Medicine is granting health to all in need: health without strings attached or preconditions; success is to give from myself to others."
 |
| Nawal El Saadawy, Egyptian women's rights activist |
END.
No comments:
Post a Comment