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" To me, Egypt is a wonderful history, a wonderful people, and it's represented through artists like Om Kalthoum, who is considered the fourth pyramid of Egypt. She's a wonderful diva whose voice, for me, is really Egyptian. "

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" I started off at a local newspaper called 'The Middle East Times,' which is no longer in existence. I remember one of the earliest stories that I wrote for them was a study about domestic violence in Egypt from a government-run research institute think tank. "

Mona Eltahawy

Violence

Research

Think

" Banning hate speech doesn't end racism or antisemitism. Social pressure does that. It becomes socially unacceptable. "

" We left Egypt when I was seven, and we didn't return until I was 21. My teen years were divided between the United Kingdom and Saudi Arabia. Up until we left the U.K., it was like your regular teenage years. The one thing I remember is that I couldn't date. That was one thing my parents made very clear. "

" Morality crusades unite military regimes and religious zealots alike. "

" It's one thing to be groped and harassed by passers-by, but when the state gropes you, it gives a green light that you are fair game. "

" A source of embarrassment for Libyans, Gadhafi has never been a joke: disappearances, a police state, zero freedom of expression, and poverty for at least a third of the population of country tremendously wealthy thanks to oil. "

" What is satire if not a marriage of civil disobedience to a laugh track, a potent brew of derision and lack of respect that acts as a nettle sting on the thin skin of the humourless? "

" As an Egyptian, I was glad to see the film 'Black Panther' embrace my country with its inclusion of the Ancient Egyptian goddess Bast as the deity of Wakandans. But considering the anti-black racism against the Nubian indigenous community and visitors in my country, I knew Egypt would not return the love. "

" All religions, if you shrink them down, are all about controlling women's sexuality. "

" Anti-U.S. sentiment has been born out of many grievances - support and weapons for such dictators as Mubarak, unquestionable support for Israel in its occupation of Palestine, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and drone attacks in Pakistan and Yemen that kill more civilians than intended targets. "

" I was 15 when my family moved to Jidda from Britain in 1982. Living in Saudi Arabia was such a shock to my system that I like to say I was traumatized into feminism. "

" The Bush administration and its 'we'll liberate you by invading your countries' doctrine is thankfully behind us. It is up to us to fight for our rights inside our communities. "

Mona Eltahawy

Inside

You

" I chose to wear the hijab at age 16, soon after my family moved from Britain to Saudi Arabia. "

" My parents' generation grew up high on the Arab nationalism that Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser brandished in the 1950s. "

" When we complain to Egypt's Western allies about whichever autocrat is in power, we are asked, 'But who is the alternative?' It is a question designed to frustrate. "

" When the only two sides fighting are conservative - even if one of them is just conservative in appearance - then everyone loses. And women don't just lose; they're also used as cheap ammunition. "

" We are fighting misogynists in every culture. My solution is to listen to the women in each community and amplify their voices. "

" I have chosen not to have children. "

Mona Eltahawy

Chosen

Children

" Mubarak was adept, as were many other U.S.-backed dictators, at playing the sane middle to the 'lunatics with beards' he so often used as bogeymen to guarantee the support of foreign allies. "

" While the 2011 revolution did not remove the regime, it has shortened the seemingly endless patience that many Egyptians once had for military rule. "

" I do not celebrate the appointment of women to high positions in regimes where cruelty is a favored tool of governance by a patriarchy; if they accept, they are nothing short of foot soldiers of that patriarchy and the violence it has instituted. "

" I know Obama knows better than George W. Bush. "

" We have been under military rule since 1952, when a group of army officers overthrew Egypt's monarchy and ended Britain's occupation of the country. But that only replaced an external occupation with an internal one, in which favored sons of the armed forces replaced their uniforms with suits, a move meant to create a semblance of civilian rule. "

" My family moved to Saudi Arabia from Glasgow when I was 15. Being a 15-year-old girl anywhere is difficult - all those hormones and everything - but being a 15-year-old girl in Saudi Arabia... it was like someone had turned the light off in my head. I could not get a grasp on why women were treated like this. "

" For years, successive Arab dictators have tried to keep discontent at bay by distracting people with the Israeli-Arab conflict. "

" My birth at the end of July 1967 makes me a child of the naksa, or setback, as the Arab defeat during the June 1967 war with Israel is euphemistically known in Arabic. "

Mona Eltahawy

Child

Birth

" I joke that one of the rare times Egyptians identify as African is when the national soccer squad is playing in the African Cup of Nations - and preferably winning it. "

" The fight against racism must be seen as a revolutionary one. "

" For years, despite my inner doubts, I represented to others my choice to veil as a feminist one. "

" I am appalled to hear the defence of the niqab or burka in Europe. A bizarre political correctness has tied the tongues of those who would normally rally to defend women's rights but who are now instead sacrificing those very rights in the name of fighting an increasingly powerful right wing. "