The Sa‘idi girl is not seeking a rupture with her traditions, nor surrender to restrictions that erase her presence. She seeks a middle space, broad enough for her voice and image without threatening her identity. That space is not yet fully formed, but it remains the clearest challenge facing an entire generation of Sa‘idi women in the age of social media.

It is said that Picasso spent his life learning how to draw like children. What does that even mean? Perhaps he believed that a child is the first to hold pure freedom of expression, untouched by rules, fear, or judgment. As soon as a child begins to grasp the world, he draws lines no one understands, yet he understands them completely because they flow straight from his inner universe.

In Palestine, art has transformed since the Nakba into an existential weapon against erasure and forgetfulness. The drawings of Naji al-Ali, the Palestinian Liberation Organization’s posters, refugee camp murals, and diaspora songs all built a visual and sonic narrative that never stopped resonating, despite oppression and displacement.

The belief that marriage is a woman’s inevitable fate becomes deeply rooted, and the phrase “A woman has nothing but her husband” rises from a casual saying to a decision with binding force. Its consequences have not been confined to one generation, but have continued to cost many girls academic and professional opportunities that could have altered the course of their lives.

I don’t ask, and I doubt anyone does, why our youth, even our children, risk their lives on these boats of death. The reasons are obvious to all of us. The real question is: until when?

In Arab contexts, linguistic bias is intertwined with patriarchal social and religious structures that govern gender relations. Language here is far from neutral, it legitimizes inequality and perpetuates it.

Neglecting the concerns of youth is not merely a political or administrative flaw; it is evidence of a collective psychological state of nihilism and hopelessness toward the future. The young person who grows up in such an environment emerges alone, alienated within their own homeland, frustrated, not because they failed, but because they were never given the chance to try.

Justice is not an intellectual luxury but a prerequisite for the survival of nations. Without it, societies lose balance, wealth becomes a burden, and power turns into perpetual conflict. Social justice, in essence, is the redefinition of authority and resources in a way that preserves human dignity for all. It is the principle that restores the Arab individual’s confidence in themselves and their homeland—and inspires participation in building a future grounded in equality.