Sultana is a Saudi Arabian princess, a woman born to fabulous, uncountable wealth. She has four mansions on three continents, her own private jet, glittering jewels, designer dresses galore. But in reality she lives in a gilded cage. She has no freedom, no control over her own life, no value but as a bearer of sons. Hidden behind her black floor-length veil, she is a prisoner, jailed by her father, her husband, her sons, and her country.Sultana is a member of the Saudi royal family, closely related to the king.
For the sake of her daughters, she has decided to take the risk of speaking out about the life of women in her country, regardless of their rank. She must hide her identity for fear that the religious leaders in her country would call for her death to punish her honesty. Only a woman in her position could possibly hope to escape from being revealed and punished, despite her cloak and anonymity.
Sultana tells of her own life, from her turbulent childhood to her arranged marriage--a happy one until her husband decided to displace her by taking a second wife--and of the lives of her sisters, her friends and her servants. Although they share affection, confidences and an easy camaraderie within the confines of the women's quarters, they also share a history of appalling oppression's, everyday occurrences that in any other culture would be seen as shocking human rights violations; thirteen-year-old girls forced to marry men five times their age, young women killed by drowning, stoning, or isolation in the women's room, a padded, windowless cell where women are confined with neither light nor conversation until death claims them.
By speaking out, Sultana risks bringing the wrath of the Saudi establishment upon her head and the heads of her children. But by telling her story to Jean Sasson, Sultana has allowed us to see beyond the veils of this secret society, to the heart of a nation where sex, money, and power reign supreme.
ISBN:2147483647
Author:Jean Sasson
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The book is “The Big Conservation Lie: The Untold Story of Wildlife Conservation in Kenya”. Conservation Watch is posting Ogada’s presentation in the hope of adding to that momentum of ideas.
Mordecia Ogada is a carnivore ecologist. He has been involved in conservation work for sixteen years in Kenya and other parts of Africa. His focus is on human-wildlife conflict mitigation and carnivore conservation. From 2011 to 2014, Ogada was the Executive Director of the Laikipia Wildlife Forum.
Here’s how Ogada describes the current state of conservation in Kenya — in particular Laikipia County, where Ogada works:
Certainly the part of Kenya where I am. You have charismatic endangered wild species, in a range land, non-protected area that is used pretty much like a Trojan Horse, that covers up for the militarisation, fencing, and basically annexation of vast lands. That’s simply how it is.
In many parts of Africa, conservation goes along with controlling lands in one way or another. It’s rarely practised at the level of just looking at the species and the issues, it always includes controlling lands, for better or for worse.
And you see the pastoralists, they’re running away from the guns with their cows and goats. It’s instructive, the relative size of the people. The practitioners are huge. The tourists are huge. Pastoralists are really small