Democracy is not just freedom to criticize the government or head of state, or to hold parliamentary elections. True democracy obtains only when the people - women, men, young people, children - have the ability to change the system of industrial capitalism that has oppressed them since the earliest days of slavery: a system based on class division, patriarchy, and military might, a hierarchical system that subjugates people merely because they are born poor, or female, or dark-skinned.
Nawal El SaadawiWomen are suffering because they are being excluded. The high military council excluded women from the committee to change the constitution [of Egypt]. We cannot be liberated as women in a society built on class oppression or gender oppression or religious oppression.
Nawal El SaadawiAll the men I did get to know, every single man of them, has filled me with but one desire: to lift my hand and bring it smashing down on his face.
Nawal El SaadawiThere is not a revolution that succe Saudi Arabia paid $7 billion for the Salafists to come, and the United States and Israel are pouring a lot of money into Egypt. Why? To divide the country by religion.
Nawal El SaadawiThere is not a revolution that succeeded in a few months. It takes years, even decades, to fulfill its goals. I am very hopeful because I trust the revolution and feel nobody can really conquer a nation that has decided to be united and to fight, and we decided to fight. The revolution is there, inside the Egyptians by the millions.
Nawal El Saadawi