Interview with Nadia Al-Sakkaf, Editor of the Yemen Times

     As the battle for Tripoli approaches what many analysts consider the endgame, the revolution in Yemen toils onward, having largely followed Bahrain into the Western media's radio silence.
     Shedding some light on the ongoing struggle, and the nation in which it unfolds, Nadia Al-Sakkaff, editor-in-chief of the Yemen Times, partakes in a compelling interview with TED, featured below.

      

    Charismatic, driven, and undeniably empowered, Al-Sakkaff echoes the character of her fellow national Tawakul Karman, whom she implicitly references when describing the Yemeni uprising as "a revolution started by women."   

     The interview mixes photos of the revolt with Al-Sakkaff's own biography, the inspiring story of a woman who moved forward with an unprecedented business venture in spite of widespread criticism from the more conservative factions of her society.

     "Everybody was betting that I will not be able to do it," she says. ". . . It was very hard at first. I didn't want to clash with people. But with all due respect to all the men, and the older men especially, they did not want me around. It was very hard, you know, to impose my authority. But a woman's got to do what a woman's got to do. And in the first year, I had to fire half of the men. Brought in more women."

     It goes without saying that Al-Sakkaff offers yet another challenge to the stereotype of the docile Muslim woman. Ironically, my one hesitation with the interview is that Al-Sakkaff herself is a bit generalizing where Muslim women are concerned, constructing as oppressed all women who choose to cover their faces.        

     On a related note, it should come as no surprise that Al-Sakaff vents frustration about the monolithic way in which Western media constructs her country as a whole.

    "A lot of reporters come to Yemen and they want to write a story on Al-Qaeda or terrorism," she says. "And I just wanted to share with you: there's one reporter that came. He wanted to do a documentary on what his editors wanted. And he ended up writing about a story that even surprised me -- hip hop." 
     God bless the unexpected.