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Following are excerpts from an interview with U.S.-based Sudanese author Ghada Abd Al-Aziz Khaled, which aired on Al-Shurouq TV on November 22, 2008.
Ghada Abd Al-Aziz Khaled: In my view, interpersonal relations are more important than political relations. I have always felt that politics are subject to certain interests, and governed by different constraints than interpersonal relations. Take, for example, my own experience with American society. Whenever you hear from outside about American society, it is always that the US is biased, unjust, and so on.
Interviewer: It is portrayed negatively in the media.
Ghada Abd Al-Aziz Khaled: But I have to confess: I love the American people very much. I love the American people very much, because I view it as a good people, driven by its emotions. For example, when an American witnesses a tragedy, he might cry or go on demonstrations in order to defend people he doesn't even know, and in order to hear the voices of people who could not make their voices heard. In my view, contact between peoples is entirely different from contact between governments.
When I first came to America, for example, there was the problem of the bombing of the Al-Shifa factory [in 1998]. I remember sitting in a café, where I met a man and his wife. First of all, they asked questions. The Americans are very curious. They like to hear about other people's cultures. They asked where I was from, and I said I was from Sudan. I said to them: You just bombed us. They began to apologize: "Oh, we're so sorry. We have nothing to do with politics. We love the Sudanese people." They were curious, and at the same time, the apologized as if they themselves had done it, as if it was their own mistake. They have some sort of goodness...
Interviewer: And politeness, as well.
Ghada Abd Al-Aziz Khaled: I think that a person cannot know them until he lives among them. If all you know about them is politics, you get a distorted image of them.
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