"In Pakistan, [Oriana Fallaci] has her first painful encounter with Islam. She comes across a wedding procession in Karachi. The crowd carries a figure hidden behind a pile of red fabric, like a package. Who is that? she asks. Nothing — a woman, she is told. Shocked by these words, Oriana asks to interview the bride. The guests oblige, even though they cannot understand what could possibly interest this foreign journalist. They unwrap the bride. She is a young girl with a pale face; her eyes are closed and coated with silver dust. She’s crying. Oriana tries to console her: “I told her there was nothing to cry about. I had seen the groom and he was handsome, and seemed kind.” She is lying. The groom is a smarmy man who has already tried to seduce this Western journalist who goes around with her arms uncovered. But Oriana is deeply moved by the child bride’s sadness and wants to help. The women in the wedding party do not understand her attitude. “All brides cry,” one of them tells her. “I cried for three days.”"
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Original Language: English
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Sources
De, S. C., & Harss, M. (2017). Oriana Fallaci: The journalist, the agitator, the legend, quoting The Useless Sex: Voyage around the Woman, 1961.
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Women_in_Pakistan
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Women in Pakistan
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