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Few women can synthesize a feminine subtleness, firm, precise, and eloquent speech, stunning figure, stiletto heels paired with a heavy lawyer’s briefcase. Only one of them can say on top of that she won the heart of a sworn bachelor “class A” Hollywood actor. Her name means hope. Her surname opens doors. Meet Amal Clooney.
Amal Clooney’s husband
One thing is sure. Nobody refers to her as George Clooney’s wife. Quite the opposite – when the actor gets a lifetime achievement award, this is how the presenter announces him: “Amal is a human rights lawyer who worked on the Enron case, was an adviser to Kofi Annan regarding Syria and was selected for a three-person U.N. commission. So tonight, her husband is getting a lifetime achievement award.”
The truth is – nobody in the audience seems to laugh more joyfully than George Clooney himself. He may be 20 or so years older than Amal, but jokingly could be called her “boy toy”. Yet Amal swiftly moves around what may be the shallow waters of Hollywood as coherent and adequate as she would be in the deep waters of humanitarian crisis grounds of a Syrian refugee camp or Afganistanian Red Cross camp.
Rebirth
Wise people say that we are lucky we get born twice. Once, on the day of our physical birth. The second time is when we understand the purpose of our existence and what we are born for.
In 2010 Amal may say she was born again – returning to Britain from the USA, she drops the endless hours as a lawyer in a very prestigious law firm and becomes a barrister in London. “I cared more about the outcome of those cases than my paid cases,” she says. “And that made me think, Well, why am I not doing more of that kind of work?”
The fulfillment as a human rights lawyer, regardless of the insecurities and hardships, is what drives Amal Clooney. Her speeches are courageous and eloquent, honorable, and worth replaying often (indeed, we did that so often, now Google is offering us a Masters in Hague).
Justice is now, finally, within reach.
“Courage, as they say, is contagious. People who have dared to change societies in India, South Africa, in the USA inspire each other and create rights for future generations.” Amal Clooney lives up to that opening line of her speech at the University of York Campus. She understands the importance of her cause – to bring terrorists and pure villains to justice.
Her most notable and personally important case is that of Nadia Murad. They met in 2016 in a refugee camp – Nadia comes from the Yazidis minority in Iraq. This ethnic-religious minority indigenous to Upper Mesopotamia is an ISIS target for genocide. Amal is building a case that could carry through the international justice system.
Her speech in the U.N. with Nadia sitting next to her as a survivor of the horrific assaults over Yazidis, resolve to establish an investigative team to collect evidence about ISIS actions in Iraq. Her main goal is to bring perpetrators of humanity as ISIS to justice.
Nobel prize
Only two years after Nadia comes to the USA, Amal’s guidance and support transform her life completely. From a victim, she becomes a powerful speaker and Iraqi human rights activist. Her dream was to own a hair salon in her village of nearly 2,000, but that was before the massacre. She didn’t want to be in the public eye, but Nadia Murad wants the world to know what ISIS did: the murder, the rape, the genocide of her people.
Nearly six years ago, in Iraq, she was discovered as a hesitant, frightened woman. Nobody could imagine that her scarf concealed not only her identity but also fierce invincibility, which would lead her to the highest honor the world has to give.
In 2018 she received a Nobel prize for peace – Amal is in the audience, encouraging Nadia’s 20-minutes speech as Nobel laureate. Her gaze – warm, welcoming, and somewhat ancient, with piercing wisdom and a humane spark to the Absolute.
- Getty Images
Twin Balance
Becoming George Clooney’s wife in 2014 loaded this extra power to her presence and initiatives. Work remains as serious and even more responsible than before. With the power of a superwoman, she balances private life, motherhood, and career.
Amal is tireless – she would be nursing the twins while also working on The Julian Assange Extradition Case. Still, quality time with “the knuckleheads” is highly appreciated and fitted in her tight schedule – no phone calls before 9 a.m. in Clooney’s English Manson.
She also represented Mohamed Nasheed, the first democratically elected president of the Maldives. After the end of his presidency, Mohamed is forced to resign at gunpoint and prevented from participating in the elections. His critics of the government get him imprisoned on a terrorism charge. Because of Amal and her team’s efforts though, Nasheed is now free and currently in the U.K. as a political refugee.
Hope
It’s always easier to say with a deep sigh that being brought up in a privileged family makes it way easier to defend and live up to higher purposes. Yet, Amal Amaluddin Clooney was born in Lebanon in the midst of a Civil War, her family escaping to England as refugees. Her work is a real page-turner influencing authorities like the U.N.
She may be the barrister in Chanel twinset, red lipstick, and block heels, but she won’t sugar coat her purpose and speeches. Her first words in the U.N. are a slap to pseudo humanitarian populism and current world political affairs. “I am ashamed, as a supporter of the United Nations, that states are failing to prevent or even punish genocide because they find that their own interests get in the way.”
May we stop looking at refugees with fear and aloofness and just imagine the strength they carry as a result of their suffering. Some of them might be the hope for humanity. Amal.
Elena Sergova
Storyteller, journalist and freelance production fixer Elena has over 10 years of experience in Bulgarian lifestyle magazines (Amica, L'Europeo, Capital , InGlobo). Her on-field journalistic instincts mixed with experience in digital marketing, a go-getter attitude and Balkan recklessness make the solid compound of a successful production fixer journey.
