A Quote by Mona Eltahawy

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. — © Mona Eltahawy
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.
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.
I chose to wear the hijab at age 16, soon after my family moved from Britain to Saudi Arabia.
Americans want to democratise us. OK, but why not go and democratise Saudi Arabia. Are we anything like Saudi Arabia? No, we are far from that. So why aren't they democratising Saudi Arabia? Because they are bastards, but they are their bastards.
Saudi Arabia has stability. The social contract and the political contract between the king and the rulers and the royal family and the ruled people in Saudi Arabia is very strong and the bondage is so solid.
Common sense would tell you that the idea that Saudi Arabia was paying for bin Laden's expenses while he was living in Abbottabad is simply risible. Bin Laden's principal goal was the overthrow of the Saudi royal family as a result of which his Saudi citizenship was revoked as far back as 1994.
Sweden is the Saudi Arabia of feminism.
I am originally a surd who was born in Delhi in 1982, just two years before the Sikh riots, so all my childhood pictures are in baby frocks with ponytails, as my parents wanted to hide the fact that I was a Sikh boy, given the riots. My dad worked for a travel agency, and we soon moved to Saudi Arabia.
Traditionally, all the kings of Saudi Arabia have been sons of the founder of Saudi Arabia, and they've gone from one son to the next.
If you ask a Saudi Imam why women in Saudi Arabia can't drive, he'll say, 'Because Islam demands it.' But that's absurd, because - first of all - Islam demands no such thing; and secondly, the only country in the world in which women can't drive is Saudi Arabia. The inability to understand the difference between a cultural practice and religious belief is shocking among self-described intellectuals.
Japan, Germany, South Korea, these are very rich, powerful countries. Saudi Arabia, nothing but money. We Americans protect Saudi Arabia. Why aren't they paying?
Saudi Arabia is, of course, the keystone of OPEC. Saudi Arabia has had the distinction of remaining stable through all the escalating tumult of recent decades, reliably pumping out its roughly 10 million barrels a day like Bossy the cow in America's oil import barn.
Saudi Arabia has supported Wahhabi madrasas in poor countries in Africa and Asia, exporting extremism and intolerance. Saudi Arabia also exports instability with its brutal war in Yemen, intended to check what it sees as Iranian influence.
15 of the 19 [September 11th] hijackers were from Saudi Arabia.
Saudi Arabia is the bulwark of our relationship, especially when it comes to Iran, and without the partnership of Saudi Arabia and our other Gulf allies, we would not be able to have the maximum economic pressure campaign that we have.
So, I think even in Saudi Arabia there is movement. And we have to remember that over the years they've stabilized the oil price and that is tremendously important for the economies of the world. I think we have no choice but to work with the government of Saudi Arabia.
Saudi Arabia will have to decide its own path, and I don't know if it will decide a path like any other nation in the region or if it will design something that is unique to Saudi Arabia.
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