Zainab Salbi hopes to revolutionise women’s TV in the region with Nida’a

TLC’s first regionally produced programme launches in October with Nida’a, a women’s chat show, hosted by the Iraqi activist Zainab Salbi.

Iraqi-American humanitarian, author and media personality Zainab Salbi will host Nida'a, a talk show that aims to give women in the Middle East a chance to share their stories and air their issues. Antonie Robertson / The NationalShow less

When Zainab Salbi launches Nida'a on TLC in October – the broadcaster's first locally produced programme since it came to the region in March – it's fair to say she won't have taken the most traditional route to hosting her own chat show.

Not for Salbi the usual western routes of Mickey Mouse Club-member child stardom, or graduating from the comedy or news circuit to hosting.

Instead, her journey has taken her from a privileged position in Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, through an unwelcome arranged marriage to setting up one of the world’s biggest women’s organisations – Women for Women International, which works in war zones – and writing a best-selling memoir detailing her experiences.

We caught up with her in Dubai, where she shared her amazing story.

“My father was Saddam Hussein’s personal pilot – I grew up knowing him personally,” she says. “I was put in an arranged marriage to get me out of Iraq at the age of 19, and that’s how I left the country.

“The month I left to be with this stranger, who I did not like, Iraq invaded Kuwait and I was cut off from my family for nine years.”

Salbi had escaped Hussein’s Iraq, but her new life was not one to celebrate.

“The marriage was so abusive that I knew after three months I should not be here,” she says. “My family were liberal and had always taught me that I should be an independent, strong woman – but then they launched this kind of coup d'état on me.

“It was quite a journey from leaving the arranged marriage with US$400 [Dh1,469] in my pocket to rebuilding myself. I always knew that one day I would return to the region, but right then I needed to focus on building myself.

“A couple of years later, I fell in love with a Palestinian man, started Women for Women International, and that became one of the largest women’s organisations in the world.

“Eventually, the time to return came. It’s almost as if I had to go all the way around the world to liberate myself from the baggage and the concepts that I grew up with.”

Salbi had the idea for Nida'a when she was still working as the chief executive of Women for Women in 2011, and was realising it was time for a new chapter of her life.

"It was just something I needed to do," she says. "I went to interview a woman in Afghanistan, and I caught myself being bored. I realised I was betraying both of us and I had to let go of my creation [Women for Women] and start on a new journey. I've been working on Nida'a ever since, to get to the stage we are at now."

Salbi's return to the Middle East comes at a time of great upheaval, and she is convinced that the time is right for a show such as Nida'a, which promises to look at women's issues with an honesty and clarity never seen before.

“I think the region is very ready for this,” she says. “I was so scared when I wrote my book. It was a big leap of faith to tell people that I knew Saddam and I was in an abusive marriage and all of these things. It was safer to do that outside the region. I experimented with it in a foreign land and I landed well and people accepted me. Now I’m ready to do that work for my own region having already done it for myself.

“When I ask women here what they want, they say: ‘We have crossed the line of fear and we can’t come back now. Help us show our voice so the pressure is lifted. I want to choose what I study, when I marry and who I marry, what kind of job I want.’

“There is a hunger for ... a safe space to talk about these things. These are smart women who are talking about all sorts of issues, but currently behind closed doors in a private space. I was really surprised by some of the topics they were asking me about.”

Women in the Middle East might be ready for such a show, but Salbi concedes that she must walk a fine line.

“The question is how do we present these issues in a way that is digestible,” she says. “If you’re too ­aggressive, it will be rejected, in my opinion. Like when you’re sick and you throw up your medicine. So my job is to address the issues and present them gently, with love and grace, so it is accepted.

“For you and I, these topics may not be controversial, but for this society they are. So my team’s job is to present it in a palatable way so we can have the courageous conversation we need.

"There's a strange dichotomy of views of women in the region. It's either the victimised woman or the woman dancing in revealing clothes. Nida'a is for the women in the middle, which is most of us – and we're not ­currently reflected on TV. The average woman, dealing with average things on a day-to-day basis, is not reflected, and that's what Nida'a hopes to do."

Her show certainly sounds ambitious, and promises to feature high-calibre, high-profile international guests such as Bill Clinton, as well as regional figures such as the Palestinian Arab Idol winner Mohammed Assaf.

Although such an Arabic show is clearly needed in the region, it seems like a concept that could also educate the rest of the world about life in the Middle East if it were broadcast in ­English. This is a dichotomy Salbi ­acknowledges.

“It’s true, but for me that is a parallel journey that should be taken separately,” she says.

"I write for The New York Times on a weekly basis about my experiences in the region. I'm on western news on a weekly basis talking about what's happening in the region.

“I was with Meryl Streep a couple of months ago and she said: ‘You need to have your own talk show in English. We don’t understand what’s happening in that part of the world.’

"I'm definitely exploring possibilities, but Nida'a needs to be for the ­region, from within the region. The only way we'll get out of the current time of crisis is to find our solutions from within our narratives, to feature the role models from within, to hold up a ­mirror to our beauty and our not-so-beautiful side. I hope Nida'a can contribute to that."

• Nida’a is filming in the region and at Discovery’s studios in Istanbul. It will be broadcast on TLC from­ ­October. Zainab Salbi’s ­autobiography, Between Two Worlds, is in stores now, published by Gotham Books