I think that Africa is maternal. The African male is very maternal; he loves his mother; he swears on his mother. When someone insults his father, the man can take it; but once his mother’s honor has been hurt, the man feels he’s not worthy of life if he doesn’t defend his mother. According to our traditions, a man has no intrinsic value; he receives his value from his mother. This concept goes back to before Islam: the good wife, the good mother, the submissive mother who knows how to look after he husband and family. The mother embodies our society… I continue to think that African society is very maternal. Maybe we have inherited from our pre-Islamic matriarchy. That said, to me, every man loves a woman. We love them. Besides, more than 50 percent of the African population are women. More than half of the 800,000,000 that we are. This is a force that we must be able to mobilize for our own development. There’s no one that works as hard as the rural woman.

[From Rabat (April 11, 2004)]