O autobiografie fascinanta...

[L 26]

Va recomand cu tarie sa cititi biografia lui Carmen Bin Laden, fosta sotie al lui Yeslam, unu din fratii lui Oussama bin Laden !

 

Iraniana dupa mama, dar nascuta si crescuta în tara tatalui ei, Elvetia, Carmen Bin Laden cade prada farmecului irezistibil al lui Yeslam Bin Laden, un tânar saudit inteligent, bogat si cosmopolit, si pe care îl urmeaza initial în SUA, apoi în Arabia Saudita.

În anii în care femeile occidentale atingeau apogeul emanciparii si întreg Occidentul era puternic marcat de revolutia sexuala, Carmen alege viata de sotie în Arabia Saudita, o tara religioasa si conservatoare hotarâta sa reziste prin orice mijloace, inclusiv prin fanatism religios, în fata asaltului modernitatii.

Cartea lui Carmen Bin Laden înregistreaza socul si dezorientarea profunda pe care un venetic, o femeie venita din Occident, le experimenteaza în contact cu o societate închisa, cum e aceea guvernata de dinastia Al-Saud. Ea propune, în acelasi timp, o imagine detaliata a vietii din interiorul clanului Bin Laden, o familie bogata în care tinerii atrasi de fundamentalismul islamic, cel mai celebru caz e fostul lider Al-Qaida, Osama Bin Laden, se afla în conflict cu fratii "ratacitori", fascinati de valorile liberale ale Vestului.

Asista la transformarea acestui regat într-o patrie a fanatismului religios si a violentei, exemplul cel mai frapant fiind cumnatul ei, seful formatiunii teroriste Al-Qaida. În acest moment, femeia decide sa plece pentru a-si salva fiicele de la prizonierat.

 

Cartea se numeste Înauntrul Regatului - Viata mea în Arabia Saudita, si iata câteva fragmente (din pacate doar în engleza):

 

During the years that I lived among the Bin Laden family in Saudi Arabia, Osama came to exemplify everything that repelled me in that opaque and harsh country: the unbending dogma that ruled all our lives, the arrogance and pridefulness of the Saudis, and their lack of compassion for people who didn't share their beliefs. That contempt for outsiders, and unyielding orthodoxy, spurred me on to a fourteen-year struggle to give my children a life of freedom.

 

I was fighting to gain freedom from one of the most powerful societies and families in the world, to salvage my daughters from a merciless culture that denied their most basic rights. In Saudi Arabia they could not even walk alone in the street, let alone choose the path of their own lives. I fought to free them from the hard-core fundamentalist values of Saudi Arabian society, and its contempt for the tolerance and liberty of the West, which I have learned to value deeply.

 

I am afraid that even today, the West does not fully understand Saudi Arabia and its rigid value system. For nine years, I lived inside the powerful Bin Laden clan, with its close and complex links to the royal family. My daughters went to Saudi schools. I lived, to a great extent, the life of a Saudi woman. And over time, I learned and analyzed the mechanisms of that opaque society, and the harsh and bitter rules that it enforces on its daughters.

 

I could not stand quietly by while my little girls' bright minds were extinguished. I could not teach them to submit to the values of Saudi Arabia. I could not watch them be branded as rebels because of the Western values that I taught them, despite all the punishment that might ensue. And were they to comply with Saudi society, I could not face the prospect that my daughters might grow up to become like the faceless, voiceless women I lived among.

 

Above all I could not watch my daughters be denied what I valued most: freedom of choice. I had to free them, and myself.

 

This is my story.

Editat Octombrie 4, 2011 de L