Boualem Sansal

Boualem Sansal (Arabic: بوعلام صنصال; Tamazight: Buɛlam Senṣal; Tifinagh: ⴱⵓⴰⵍⴰⵎ ⵙⴻⵏⵚⴰⵍ; French pronunciation: bwalɛm sɑ̃sa; born 15 October 1944) is a French-Algerian author who writes in French. Qoutes The only freedom we have left is to choose whose orders to follow. The fact is, defenders of freedom almost always end up in the dock, and the censors are justified in their ways. It is a vicious circle. The struggle for freedom requires, first and foremost, a practical commitment. How can we fight censorship? How do we delegitimize its arguments? And how do we convince society that the excesses of freedom will always be less serious than those of censorship? At my age, I am not about to learn to hold my tongue. To be in prison, alright, but to have a mind free to wander. The absence of freedom is a pain that eventually drives people mad. It reduces a person to a shadow of themselves. To be free in my mind means you must also be physically free, able to use your own body. At 16 or 17, I was at that age when you try to assert your identity in relation to your parents and to your environment. The vast majority spent their days reading the Quran. The others, like me, did not know what to do, except for a bit of exercise or playing checkers. I write for a certain idea of freedom, truth and human dignity. The dialogue that carries us from knowledge to awareness, and from awareness to commitment. Not a commitment born of anger or resentment, but a mobilization of minds and wills in the service of the common good. For governments come and go, but peoples endure. Borders may at times separate us, but they will never prevent us from standing on the same side of the heart, of reason and of hope. I shall write to you in complete freedom, and I hope you will answer me with the same candour. External link Category: Writers