Lama Al-Ghalib is a young aspiring Saudi activist who chose poetry to voice her thoughts to the whole world, showing them that we are a nation that is determined to eagerly develop and improve our country and society, She is on a noble mission to set the records straight, and help empower the next generation to be part of this wave of constructive change.

What’s Up: To us you would be the first poet we would interview in our magazine, so give us a background on how the whole thing started?

Lama Al-Ghalib: My journey with poetry started when I was nine years old, back then I was studying in the United States, and I remember being so into literature in general, but I discovered early on how poetry can be as concise and beautiful as it was. You can read an entire novel in a book, but get the whole story in a one page poem. Plus the aesthetics of the poem would be more intriguing than a novel, and that was my first attraction. Over time I read a lot of literature like Shakespeare, and Dickinson, and then I watched my poetry evolve. I consider myself in many ways as an activist, I am into many things like advocating inter-cultural dialogue, youth empowerment, so I reached a point where I found that poetry can be a bit mushy, unless you decide to make something out of it and direct it in a way to express your ideas and messages to the world.

I saw myself living for a much larger cause than making people feel emotional, so I decided to depict that in my poems, and fight for the causes I believe in within the lines of my poetry.

WU: You’re a published poet, how did that feel like?

Lama: I self published my first book when I was 17. I wrote my first poem when I was 9, and my father got really excited about it that he sent it to a newspaper when we were living in the US, and it got published in the local paper. So he asked me to compile more poems so that he would publish it in a book for me.

I was taken aback with that, but after a while you tend to get sidetracked, I was nine remember? I was sure that my dad forgot all about that promise. Two years later he asked me about my poems, I was surprised that he remembered, but told him that I wasn’t ready yet, so I kept working and reading and getting my act together. Also, my mother bought be loads and loads of books and kept asking how each book was going. They would both call me in every once in a while and ask to hear my recent work. Another two years passed then he asked again about my poems, so I give myself a deadline to get everything ready before graduating from high school, a couple of months after graduating I got my first book published. I don’t really give myself any credit on any of my accomplishments, because I had my my parents as my backbone that supported me and directed me in the right direction since I was a child.

WU: You mentioned that poetry was a bit mushy, and you wanted to use it to express your thoughts and fight for a good cause, tell us more about how you managed to do that?
Lama: I published my first book because of two main reasons, the first of which is that at that time people around the world have been getting into campaigns regarding Islamaphobia, antagonizing Saudi Arabia, antagonizing Muslims around the world, so I couldn’t help myself from becoming defensive toward things that you know are right and so misconstrued. I wanted people to get an insight on our everyday thoughts of a Muslim Saudi teenager, and see how peaceful and righteous we are. I wrote in one of my poems “Defensive behavior proves you’re guilty. Offensive behavior proves you’re guilty. Stagnate behavior proves you’re guilty.” So what do you do? You see that is the plight we are all in, but we just have to go for it.

The other reason is that this was my dream to reach my defined goal and through it, start my journey of becoming a poet.

WU: So how many books have you published so far?

Lama: Now I have only one book out, my first, and I am working on a new book that will be much more centered on the causes I believe in. After publishing my first book here in Saudi Arabia, I discovered that I wasn’t talking to the right target audience, I should be writing to the rest of the world as well, hopefully in my next book I will focus on that audience.

WU: So what are those beliefs that you want the rest of the world to know? And especially about us?

Lama: Number one, you have to know when you’re being played as a pawn in a game, if you call that brainwashing, I call it psychological imperialism. The whole world is pushed towards materialist secularism, and the biggest enemy to that is Islam. So they try to defame us, attach accusations to us, among so many other things to weaken us. I am trying to open people’s eyes to see that we are a peaceful religion, I want people to stop being victims to propaganda, and brainwashing ideas that will lead you to nothing but your own destruction.

Second I want to show people that the time of preaching for Islam on podiums screaming your lungs out is over. Now is the time where we should show people what we have done and what we have accomplished, where you have been, and where you are right now. From my point of view, to rectify Islam, we have to stop talking and start acting, and show real good examples to people.

WU: These days you can notice many reality TV shows streaming day and night, our teenagers are more interested in actors, singers, and performers, they are undergoing a full fledge brainwashing process, from your perspective what can we do to help guide them back?

Lama: We should introduce more youth role-models, the parents have to stimulate their children and show them that they can accomplish and do something good in this world. Schools also play a major role by providing voluntary activities, and giving them a goal in life.

Now there is more efforts being directed into that direction by the government and King Abdullah’s initiatives. What we really need is a big umbrella that could cover all these individual efforts giving them power and efficiency to target our youth and create change.

WU: You took part as a Saudi Youth PR in the Two Kingdoms Conference , would you tell us more about that?

Lama: The United Kingdom and Saudi Arabia have been having this alliance where they meet every year to discuss issues related to both countries,. on the third annual conference they wanted to add a youth forum to discuss the problems they might be facing and get recommendations in order to fix them. The Ministry of Education chose ten Saudi youth and took us to London to meet another ten from the British side. We spent the time speaking about the challenges that we faced in both countries in order to prepare two documents that talked about each countries youth issues. After studying these matters for three days we wrote a joint document of recommendations since we realized that we had the exact same problems in both countries.

WU: What were your joint recommendations?

Lama: We had three main recommendations, Real participation of youth in decision making by giving them a voice and consulting them, increasing the quality of education by adding activities that can foster talents like analytical and critical skills, and getting social responsibility embedded in their minds from a young age. And the third was positive portrayal of youth in the media by giving them examples of what they should strive to become in the future as good role models.

WU: Have you seen any progress to fulfill any of these recommendations?

Lama: Well yes, the next year we were called back for another conference that was held here in Saudi Arabia, and we were given a budget to start five projects. I have been working on one of them for the past 7 months as the assistant project manager.

WU: You have also been Saudi Representative as Global Changemaker  in ME World Economic Forum, tell me more about that?

Lama: I was picked by the British Council to be a representative , we had a four day workshop, discussing the financial crisis for two days then talking about the Arab-Israeli peace process for another two days. Then we attended sessions in the World Economic Forum and gave our opinions. You see we have to be more active, and show people that we didn’t get here by mistake or by chance, we got here with hard work and determination.

WU: Do you think that things are changing to the better these days?

Lama: Of course, and also we have the chance to be a part of development, right now we can all see our country taking steps in the quest of development, and if you show that you have the desire to help and be part of this development you will be given the chance.

The Death of Hearts and the Arts

You complain that today there is no art

And offer the reasoning to be the death of hearts.

I write poetry-

You wish there were more people who write poetry.

Who indulge in creativity-

You wish your heritage were preserved

in more colors- a canvas or two

in stories- some that are fairy tales,

and some that are true.

You wish that life weren’t so dull,

And people could compose the sounds

that reinvigorate-

And inspire others to innovate.

You blame it on them-

You blame it all on the death of their spirits-

On the hopelessness of their souls-

On their lackadaisical dreams,

And their effortless frowns.

But the death of hearts is not

The reason for the death of the arts.

Rather, we don’t reward the artist

as we do the mathematician-

and the right hemisphere of our brain

does not get much recognition.

So, inspire artists to inspire you.

Then, believe in them,

and they’ll pull through.