Queen Rania of Jordan
Queen Rania of Jordan
Queen Rania Al-Abdullah of Jordanis the Queen consort of Jordan. Since marrying the now King of Jordan, Abdullah bin al-Hussein, she has become known for her advocacy work related to education, health, community empowerment, youth, cross-cultural dialogue, and micro-finance. She is also an avid user of social media and she maintains pages on Facebook, YouTube, Instagram and Twitter. She has two daughters and two sons and has been given various decorations by governments...
NationalityJordanian
ProfessionRoyalty
Date of Birth31 August 1970
CountryJordan
I found that being online has opened a window for me to look into other people's lives... The greatest fear that I have is losing touch.
I have nothing against the veil. And I think that, wrongly, many in the West look at the veil as a symbol of oppression. Now, as long as a woman chooses to wear the veil, because that's her belief and because of her own - that's a personal relationship with God, so she should be free to dress in whichever way she wants.
Look at any country that's plagued with poverty, disease or violence; the antidote is girls. Girls are the antibodies to many of society's ills.
We look at problems happening halfway across the world and we think, 'Well, that's their problem.' But it's not. ... When you solve somebody else's problem, you're solving a problem for yourself because our world today is so interconnected.
Eighty percent of my life is normal like any other mother. I worry about my children, if they're doing all right. I worry that my husband is doing well. The 20 percent is just the queen aspect that factors in. But for me, it's life as usual, and it's just taking care of my family.
The average Jordanian has much in common with the average American in terms of the values that we share, the fact that we all value the family unit, our work ethic.
Often times, we think of girls as soft and vulnerable. And we don't really think of them as possibly being the solutions to some of the world's toughest problems, but they really are.
Children who have an education grow up to lead healthier lives - earn higher income, take better care of their families, contribute to their economies.
As a child I sometimes used to travel to the West Bank to visit my family, so I know what the checkpoints felt like. I knew what it was like to live under occupation.
Tweeting is a very personal form of expression. Who else could talk about my son refusing to wear a suit to meet the Pope, my husband flying a helicopter, or take a twitpic from our home?
The United States was an innocent victim after September 11. It had never attacked or occupied Afghanistan. So therefore it had no choice but to go after the aggressors.
I feel that we don't have the luxury of asking whether or not the Palestinians and Israelis can achieve peace. I think we have to just ask the question of when and how.
Perhaps if we all subscribed to the African concept of Ubuntu - that we all become people through other people, and that we cannot be fully human alone, we could learn a lot. There'd be less hatred and more harmony.
Now and always, hard-line policy and those who embrace it are vessels for darker forces that are at once self-cannibalizing and combustible. No good can come of them. They are unsustainable because their sense of righteousness denies human worth.