Writing and Fighting

You can not be creative in a system that is very unjust, like the system we live in, unless you are a dissident. Because when you are creative you are for justice, for freedom, for love. It’s by nature like that. You feel that you want to do something. You can not accept injustice. You become angry, if this injustice is happening to you or to others.

You discover it’s not national only, it’s international. So I make the connection, I open up to understand the connection between international, national and family oppression. And why we have poverty. It’s social, political. It’s not a natural disaster. It’s made by the political system, internationally and nationally.

So you find yourself active. So I do not separate between writing and fighting. So what I do is make the connections. To undo the fragmentation of knowledge. Because the knowledge we receive in university is very fragmented. So I try to undo this fragmentation.

—Nawal el Saadawi