>> the author of this book set out to do what her father started trying to do. trying to get support for the algerian democrats. she graduated from the

university of michigan from the law school and her publications have been used in journals and used by the violence against women and the u.n.protecting human right and countering counter terrorism. she has spoken all around the world and around the united states as well. she served as a member of the executive council as a member of law and on the board of the international usa and sits on the network of women under international law. she has been on the counsel of human rights, the coalition to

stop the use of child soldiers and for the united nations education policy and scientific cultural organization. human rights field missions have included afghanistan, lebanon, pakistan, south thailand and others. in 2009-2010 she was a group sent under the dutch foreign n ministry to develop new laws. she supported the urgent action funds for women's and human rights and wrote about the event for "the guardian." she wrote during the elections with gender concerns international. and her writing about north and west africa has appeared in the san francisco chronicle and new york times.

thank you for being here. [applause] >> thank you. >> i would like to read a selection from your book. >> absolutely. first let me say thank you for coming out and for the texas book festival for having me and apologizing for being a little late. i want to tell a story that is not funny at all. i story that is at the heart of my book that stays with me all of the time when i do this because i am a law professor and this is the story of a law student. i want to give you background before i read this story called dying from a knowledge. this takes place in algeria, back in the 1990s, in what they call the dark decade because it was a decade of violence because jihadist groups that were the

so-called islamic state at that time and the algerian government backed by the military. we don't know the exact figures but somewhere between 100-200,000 people were killed. the international community didn't pay much attention. this was the pre-911 world and we had not woken up globally to the dangers opposed by jihadist members. so it is in that context i would like to share this particular story. the watch stopped at 5:17. that is the moment she fell in the street on january 26, 1997 an instant after a member of the islamic group cut her throat. in november of 2012, when i am able to locate them east of

algers, i spend several hours talking with the woman's mother and her surviving daughter. sitting on the couch, she wore a long blue dress and glasses around her neck. she showed me the watch that was returned to her by the police. its white face features flower buds just under the spot where the class is broken. the secondhand hangs upward frozen 57 seconds after 5:17. 22 years old and a second year law student she lived in the dorm and wanted to visit her

family on a celebration day for ramadan. she borded to bus to go home but never came back to law school. just outside the town the bus was stopped at a fake checkpoint. she occupied a seat behind the driver who was a neighbor of hers. she didn't cover her head, but had a friend's shawl wrapped around her head when the men from the islamic group climbed aboard. one came to her and hit her on the shoulder saying partisan of the government. get up. someone kill her. they grabbed her by the arm and she dared to say don't touch me. then ml turned and looked at everyone, even now the mother appeals to her fellow passengers

as she weeps and tells me the story. ml didn't speak but begged with her eyes and asked you to save her but no one could. when they got out of the bus, one armed man had a knife and was rubbing it on the pavement preparing to kill her. there are two versions of what happens next. some said ml was kicked getting out of the bus and falling to the ground. others remember she had her throat cut while still standing. her death was an atrocity and meant as a warning as well. in the moment after ml's watch stopped, the gia men told all of the other passengers if you go to school, if you go to the university, the day will come when we will kill all of you just like this. the terrorist posted plaque cards all over saying young people must stop studying and stay home.

as a law professor i want to understand why a young woman with a whole life ahead of her continued her legal education when she could and would be murdered as a result. apparently ml said to her father, i will study law and have my head held high. i am a girl and you would always be proud of me. i will do the work of a man. a housewife, dreamed of her children studying and all six of them. her sister explained our mother told us study means you are a free woman. mom said i am ready to loose all four of them. i will sacrifice them -- lose -- for knowledge. when people remember ml who was assa assassinated by the terrorist they say she was the girl killed for studying law and people say she was an example for us.

while still cherishing the values she died for, her death was an agony for the family and so was the way they found out about it. it was a wasteland of terror outside of alger. there was no running water or power service so they were never sure when to expect ml or their other daughters home. 20 police officers showed up at the door and found themselves unable to deliver the news they had come to give. one asked her how many daughters she had studying and told her she and her husband was invoked to be prosecutor the next day. the cops drove off and left them

wondering in the dark. she had a bad feeling. any of her college students, or all three of them, could have been headed home that night. a group of neighbors came to the apartment after the police left, including the bus driver's wife, everybody assumed the family new the news. she begged the driver's wife, tell me, she shared as much as she could. they cut your daughter's throat. she asked which one and one neighbor said the one who wore glasses. no one knew precise fact and no one able to give her a definite answer and no telephone she ignored the curfew and took off with her young son running through the streets until getting to the police station. when she finally found herself

face-to-face, she remembers, my son, tell me how many of my daughters. and he said madam, only one, the one at law school wearing jeans and a coat. the mother insisted swear to me. and he swore. so she felt gratitude in the worst moment of my life. she said i prayed, kissed the earth and said god give me strength. they were all three at the university so it was a little less painful it was only one. the reality one was gone and how sank in. but her agony in that moment gave way to rage. she told me i sat on the ground and said everything that came into my mind. that was the hour my struggle began. her daughter describes her mother's long walk home.

the commissary was far from where we lived and mama insulted the terrorist all along the way. the police said if we had ten mothers who lost their child and did what this mother did the terrorist could have never won. many died before ml and no one did what mom did. it was enormous to make that journey and not have fear. for her it might have been in her head. in the dark streets of the town, she taunted her who took her children. you killed ml, now come and kill me. they came to the house and told her husband and the rest of the family they had to leave immediately. they buried ml and left their lives behind them. one of her younger sisters overcame dispair and went to law

school in her memory and practiced in algiers today, something her sister hoped would one day be possible. fundamentalism will not win even if they say god is great all day long. the other sister, the lawyer sister, takes me into the small, neat living room to see ml's portrait which is hanging on the wall. she had pitch black hair that fell below or shoulders and luminous dark eyes that are the center piece of the room. her determined expression displayed what a classmate told me of her. she had the eloquence and the personality needed to be a successful lawyer. she had a big future in front of her. somehow the portrait on the

wall, she looks serene and entirely aware of what her future might hold. apparently she had said to her mother a few weeks before her murder. mom, put this in your head, nothing will happen to us god willing, but if something happens, you must know we are dead from a knowledge. you and father must keep your heads held high. her watch stopped at 5:17 but she lives on in algeria and everywhere elsewhere women and men fight for freedom my struggling for knowledge and keeping their heads held high. [applause] >> the thing about your book is

you are able to balance so eloquently very traumatic, difficult stories to read with hope and with encouragement for people to continue to do good in the world. i want to hear a bit about your reporting on the youth theater program in pakistan. can you tell us a bit about that and what lessons -- or why practicing theater is a form of resistance? >> thanks. that is a great question. let me start with the hope part. i agree hope is absolutely critical in this story. in fact, ml's name means hope in arabic. she manage todd to maintain homd

one place i found that was the workshop you mentioned. this has promoted pakistani artist but brought artist from all over the world to play. the company was named by the sons and daughters of the founder who run it for him. in 2008 they started receiving death threats saying what they were doing with music and dance was unislamic. i had the advantage of meeting one of the siblings who ran the company and rejected the characterization of the work.

... part of worship. they absolutely refused to give in. they continued with their performances but the jihadists refused to give up as well. in 2008, there are a eight world performing arts festivals which actually struck by a bomber with three explosive devices the injured nine people which was very serious but luckily no one was killed. they had to evacuate the premises. the case is difficult in the way this relates to the theme of optimism which is do you go ahead the next day with the festival? do you decide freedom of expression and the arts are so important that not withstanding the threat you will go forward, decide the safety of your audience is so important, so primary you just can't take that responsibility and after a long debate at 1:00 in the morning the family decided literally the

show must go on. ladies and gentlemen, this is not going to work. this festival is going to go ahead. there is nothing against islam in this so th so they announced that they would go on the next day as planned but they had no idea if anyone would come. i mean think about it.n you mad when you made the decision to come here today if you have to wonder whether there was a possibility of a bombing at this event, what can that have radically changed the calculus especially those of you i see around with kids and it appears they have lots of children that came to their events. they thought they had to go ahead anyway. if we bow down we will just be sitting in a dark corner and there will be nothing. didn't know what would happen. and in fact thousands and thousands of people came out the next day more than they had had before. and they were daylight and completely terrified.

and he told me he ran up to a woman that had come into the venue with two small children and said you do know that there was a bombing yesterday and you do know there is a threat of more bombs today. and she said i know that, but i used to come to the festival with my mother and i still have those images into my mind and i want the festival to go on and we have to be here. so, with those amazing audiences they were able to finish the festival on schedule. then of course and because the sponsors were so afraid of the security threat so when i met them in 2010, they were actually in the middle of the first subsequent events that they were able to have been a missing then you bomb had gone off in 2008. and it was an environment where

they had began the systematic targeting of the schools that would later culminate in the attack of the heroic and you can ask having been to the bombing did they try to be careful or did they shy away from the danger and in fact what they decided to do this stage of the theater. so i had the honor of seeing a musical in the punjabi language performed by the girls in the grammar school and you could feel everyone holding their breath collectively to see if we would get to the end of this wonderful show and when we did there was a kind of group exhale and a burst of applause and i remember standing there in the middle of that ovation of women

and mothers and they thought that they made the headline two years ago for their pessimism but this night full of hope and optimism is just as important to the story but importantly it is a story that is much likely to be told. >> i wonder what you think the important lesson should be and what we should give do about the issues coming up. >> i thought about that a lot had to boil this down into the sort of take away and particularly the take away in the context of the u.s.. and the fundamentalist movement.

there are journalists, artists, ordinary people who are defining those movements were sometimes risking losing their lives to stand up to those movements and we don't hear about those people and that has to change if we want to see a successful process defeating the movement globally which i think it's critical for human rights, we need to listen to people on the front lines who have the most experience with dealing with these movements and who have a very sophisticated analysis that doesn't often get translated into english. co english and we have an interest in for me. >> if people are interested in lining up in the center aisle if

you have a question. i want to ask about isis. they have come to power after you wrote this book but i know that it is going to be in a lot of people's mind and i wonder if you could talk a bit about what the appropriate strategy to the u.s. would be if it is a useful or appropriate answer to those tragedies that we are seeing in theory and iraq now. >> if you look back at the media coverage including "the new york times" about the story, the reality on the ground has been around for much longer than the media coverage when it was just local people in iraq and syria, they were often standing up to

these movements and were sometimes dying in droves i think that is a terrible shame. i think the world is now paying attention. but now because we we had waited i think that it would be even more difficult to really take on these movements. i think it is so important not just to think of isis as a security threat for which it is especially in the region but also globally. but to think of it as a threat to human rights, to think about the that the struggle and the human rights struggle command again to remember the kurds in both contexts who had been leading the charge against these movements and again i wonder why are we not hearing about them. so i think of that a very brave iraqi woman lawyer who was killed in late september after speaking out very publicly denouncing isis in particular

for the destruction of the struggle site in the hometown and i keep wondering why we never see her picture on television along with the pictures of the terribly murdered journalists and i'm glad we see the photographs that we should see her, too and those that have stood up to these movements. i wish i could have gone to iraq but for logistical reasons i wasn't able to. although i was lucky i was able to interview a very human rights defend her from having an organization called the organization of women's freedom in iraq. and this remarkable organization today is not only speaking out against isis atrocities against women including the practice of sexual slavery in what appears to be very widespread use of rape, forcing women to dress in certain ways and using corporal punishment when women do not not, so they are denouncing

those abuses. but they are also running a shelter on the ground in iraq for the women fleeing from violence and if they even have a helpline to look for number one in ten call that are in need of assistance. think about how courageous it is to do that work. so i think one of the key challenges is to find out how best to support those organizations and individuals on the ground who are taking this issue on. you can go to the website which is the acronym for the organization and find out ways to support them. i do think that is an appropriate response to those that systematically targeting civilians because it may be the only way to protect civilians and i do think that this is one of those cases. that is a professor of international law i would say that always has to be used in accordance with international

law. both of the un charter and the geneva conventions and their additional protocols. as i mentioned earlier, the left doesn't like -- the first part of what i said sometimes the force is necessary necessary into the right sometimes doesn't like the second part of the rules still apply. for me that isn't a reality. force can only be part of the solution. force is a very blunt instrument and a has to be part of a much broader approach that includes the support for human rights defenders in the region and that includes massive economic reconstruction and includes the support for humanists education which everywhere i went people told me what the most important long-term solution to the problem -- >> we have a question.

>> [inaudible] at the present moment and libya in the past in afghanistan and the distant pastdistant in relative terms. so, why aren't you talking out against that and isn't that the first thing to do as well as to produce the support for the propagandist etc. who are also underwriting the jihad must movement? >> i don't have that as the take away because everything is not always about us. [applause] people have their own regional dynamic. i do address the very negative role that the u.s. foreign policy has played in the region including some of the things that you deleted to support in

the past for the mujahedin groups and the most extreme of the groups in afghanistan and the war against the soviet union had hoped the problem to metastasize it caused young people came and fought and got training and it wasn't supported and went home. there was no question and i see this in the book that's what i believe was an illegal u.s. war in iraq in 2003 created the situation in a situation in which the problem is now unfolding and the u.s. was clearly warned by this including allies in the past who whom i didn't agree with a lot of things things that i agreed about this this piece team said if you overthrow saddam hussein, you will create 1,000 osama bin laden's and that is basically what happened. there are the causes of the muslim fundamentalists. my father was an anthropologist

and always explained that to me and i finally understood that meant internal and external and i think we have to look at all of those causes and layers of responsibility. i wonder in the middle east and north africa where i travel a lot people use the idea that this is all coming from the west as a kind of conspiracy theory that alleviates the responsibility having to talk about the cause is closer to home i could wave of religious education has been carried out. but you're absolutely right. for americans it is critical to have the discussion about how our policy has contributed to this problem and therefore how we have an obligation to help. [applause] >> i hear you talking about force. let's talk unstable government and politics and how you

separate the military -- i mean our history and my question to iraq currently have a stable government and do we see a stabilization of the iraqi government for the foreseeable future? isis took over because the army abandoned these fantastic weapons and we spent ten years and billions of dollars how do you separate the code mangling of the unstable government with military force? >> i think it is important that it's only part of the response. so the force that you need to try to protect the civilian population in the immediate circumstance a big part of the solution and the iraqi context has to be a political solution and a big piece of that is overcoming sectarianism in the iraqi government. i know that there is some optimism about some of the new nominations but great pessimism

about some of the interior minister who is said to have ties to the nasty militia groups that help to create some of the anger in iraq that helped to sort of foster this problem but one of the key things we need to do is to stop talking and sectarian terms. i heard a lot of them complaining about that they saw them as pushing a very sectarian agenda which was the agenda that they've really need to defeat to be able to move forward in iraq >> my question is from an american perspective it is difficult to get accurate information on what is going on in the middle east. do you think that al jazeera is a good source or would you recommend another source of the best accurate information we can possibly get on what is going on currently in the middle east?

still make a lot of people seem to like al jazeera as an alternative news source but i will tell you sometimes for me it looks like the fox news of arabia. [laughter] >> it depends. arabic and al jazeera english are a bit different but many people in the middle east and north africa especially the north defenders would tell you that especially al jazeera arabic is that it is a finance station that has promoted fundamentalism and has been soft on fundamentalism in many instances and so i would encourage you to look for alternative independent news sources. one that i love and write for a lost twice to publish voices from that region including in the translation is a wonderful website called "-open-double-quote see and you can find the voices from tunisia and serious and iraq and it's critical that we find ways that

are not communicating in english and make the material available. you can also do what i did although it is getting more dangerous and that is actually go to the region and talk to people. i interviewed 300 people from nearly 30 countries and i think you're right we cannot always believe what we are necessarily hearing in the headlines. you have to work hard yourself to get out there and find more of the truth. >> i was wondering i think it's important we should be engaged with what goes on in the middle east. i am a writer as well and we are having problems in america, too and i was wondering what could a person do to get engaged with what goes on -- i was wondering what can a person do to get

informed and i noticed you were talking about how it's important for a person to be part of a movement that can make a difference and i was wondering what can i do to get engaged in what goes on. i am in a struggle in america and when you talk about the middle east and the young woman being slashed and about terrorist group involved where in america it's important for us to be a part of a movement that's not only affects us abroad but also domestically and i was wondering what can we do to getting gauged in that?

>> it's true there are human rights problems that need to be taken care of but we also have to care about what happens on the other side of the world. i believe in universal human rights and a solidarity and every one of these stories i heard wherever i went whether it was my father's home country or another it became a part of me. and i hope we will think globally and act locally but also think globally and act locally. it seems to me both of those pieces are very important. one of the things we can do in terms of people getting involved is bring some of the people like those in my book to the u.s. to talk and to be heard for themselves how to share the stories and you can do that in a range of ways. you can do that with the book, go to the website for the buck and there is an excerpt you can share. salon.com ran an article of the stories with the stories and you can share those as well.

i think it is critical when of the things we can do is help these people be heard here. >> to talk about the egyptian military establishment and their democracy in the form of the muslim brotherhood clerics and how are we supposed to choose between which is better in terms of human rights in that struggle because both seem to be lacking in human rights. >> the first thing i have to say today when asked a question about egypt is to express solidarity after the horrible killings yesterday of 33 egyptian soldiers in the peninsula and if you think about the amount of press coverage that was given, but we have hardly heard anything about this mass killing of egyptian soldiers. it appeared by ag hottest group in the peninsula yesterday in a litany of killings of law

enforcement and military personnel. the situation is of course very complicated and i don't think we have too much time for me to go into it. there is no question that the military backed government is also committing abuses. but i think that i likewise understand why the mass movement of egyptians last summer, not this past summer but the summer before strongly felt they did not want the muslim brotherhood in power when the they saw the way the muslim brotherhood was trying to install and they still believe that the muslim brotherhood was further cracking down on the press and was imposing more and more. so i can understand but popular anger against the muslim brotherhood that led to this posting by the military. now the activists i talked to, one in particular that i think

of as a women's rights activist was so determined to still find another alternative which is either the military or the muslim brotherhood and i think that is the challenge. one of the things that they stressed to me is one thing that can help is if we really understand that there are multiple forces of threats now there is a discussion in the west about the military's repression and it's a good to discuss that. women's rights activists have been put in jail, journalists come all of that is wrong whether it is happening in the name of fighting the brotherhood or not but we also have to talk about the large-scale terrorism that is being carried out by the movement and some allege at least some are happening with some collusion in the muslim brotherhood but that isn't clear

and that challenge remains. it wasn't designed to install a theocratic dictatorship or to bring back the military. it was about building something better. and in my book i called it the imaginary and the poetic republic of north africa during the phrase from a writer. i still believe that those republics are out there somewhere. >> i was wonder how you balanced fundamentalism and the islam of phobia that is taking place -- i was wondering how you balance the fundamentalism with not being seen as part of the islam of phobia that is taking hold in much of the media in the u.s. and what do you mean by the term? >> i don't use the term is one of phobia because i think it

mixes the criticism of islam and i believe the criticism of any religion is acceptable depending on how you do this perhaps, but it mixes that with discrimination against the real evidence of a particular faith which is entirely unacceptable. the term i talk about this discrimination against muslims or people that assume the muslim we have seen the rise of the far right in the west because a particular anti-muslim and anti-immigrant agenda. that is not my agenda and it pains me to say that in my book. i believe that both the right and the left have gotten this wrong and at the far right increasingly here we are hearing this sort of suggestion that all muslims are somehow waiting to be sparked into action and that is just offensive. but i absolutely believe that people of muslim heritage have the right and indeed the responsibility to speak out

against the fundamentalist movement. and i take very seriously to plead from a very brave pakistani human rights lawyer who asked us in the diaspora to please speak up in support of the people in pakistan working for peace, working against terrorism and i asked the problem and she said i firmly believe that if you speak openly and clearly about this problem thereby distinguishing the phenomenon which doesn't reflect the views of the muslims, they will actually be less discrimination, not more. and that is what i am trying with many people to do. [applause] >> thank you very much for joining us.

>> it definitely has to be a conversation that we had across the lines but there definitely is not and folks are afraid, they don't know what to say. they are passive like did we do that already come is that a previous generation fight and struggle. and so now we have an age where it isn't taken as seriously to read we are sort of beyond that. so that folks can joke about when all of this is happening like the big brother over the summer the joke is they would say something completely racist. when did we get to the point in society that you could say you completely disrespect a group of people and then chase it with that was just a joke.

it's mind boggling that we are at the point where the thinking is that we are in this world that i don't even think we are at that point right now because we both think that because we are so beyond where we really are that there is no shame anymore. if you just put lol after that, it's fine. it's always been a black-and-white story. when america isn't a black-and-white country, period. there are shades of brown and different thinkings. even within blackness there is a diversity and we are coming from all different countries and all different households. but that discussion is too difficult to have. so instead it's one-sided yelling at the other side is saying what i've been thinking about recently commanded this is going off on a different

tangent, what i've been thinking about recently is school segregation within new york city because new york state is the most segregated school system in the country, period. this isn't new news conferences news people don't talk about. if you go through academic journals and things there are reports that have new york state is the most segregated in the country. the fact that no one is talking about it is a bigger story than the segregation actually doesn't surprise me because i have two school age children but the fact that people are not talking about it is the bigger point because it is too difficult. it's not even too difficult a choice, it is easier to say that you care about something than to actually care about it and challenge yourself.