Poetry Without A Face
Since the age of 12, Hissa Hilal has been writing poetry, although secretly in the years of her childhood. A Saudi Arabian woman, she is not allowed to sit in public without her husband or another family-related male, is prohibited from driving, and must cover her entire body and face with the traditional “Niqab.” Only her eyes peer out from the black veil hiding the rest of her identity.
As reported in Der Spiegel, Hissa Hilal is the only female to have reach the finals of Abu Dhabi world famous poetry contest, “The Million’s Poet,” televised much like “American Idol” is here in the United States.
I found this article incredibly moving and relevant to the topic of integration and female vs. male rights, as manifested in immigrant culture in Germany today.
With a culture so stringent and painfully closed as to rule that “anything that advocated the mixing of genders was worthy of condemnation — and that anyone who opposed strict segregation of men and women should be put to death,” how is integration in Germany supposed to function at the level of ease and normality? Two such cultures cannot become one without a great deal of struggle on both ends.