El Saadawi ruffles State feathers again

Egyptian feminist Nawal El Saadawi has done it again.

About 3000 copies of El Saadawi's latest book "God resigns the Summit Meeting" have been destroyed in Egypt before going on sale, the Gulf News reported earlier.

Al Arabiya.net more recently closely examined the reasons for this move. The causes of censorship were, according to Al Azhar, are the insult to the divine persona, giving human qualities to God, and the personification of various prophets. Al Azhar backed its
rationale by stating that it is Islamically forbidden to personify the divine self and the prophets in literary works and TV serials. The Alarabiya report lists the passages of objection in El Saadawi's play.

While most media outlets, especially Western ones, were quick to blame the incident on religious fanatcism and its stifling of freedom of expression, they had actually missed the point.

Constructing the narrative of this incident as "religious extremism" versus secularism simplifies the story and ignores another level of complexity. They disregard El Saadawi's long history of being at odds with the State. She was imprisoned briefly during President Sadat's time, accuses the State of using religion to oppress the people, and ran in the last presidential elections (but boycotted them later), and resists Egyptian alliance with the US whom she considers a foreign imperialist.

The censorship of her book is thus not simply a matter of religion, but also a political backlash against this anti-government activist.

The sexist version of Vagina (Dia)logues

Enoying the aroma of hot chocolate and texture of gooey cinammon buns can be a comfort while writing final term papers. But that was not the case when I had my warm treats at a UBC campus cafe this afternoon.

A rowdy tableful of men sitting next to me provided the sexist background sound to my thoughts.

Howling at the top of their voices around several pitchers of beer, they were (playfully?) insulting each other using colloquial terms for a woman's genitals.

Incidentally, I was writing a paper for a Women's Studies course. My feminist framework then was completely unsympathetic to their banter, to say the least.

Why does male language use female genitals with such a demeaning connotation?

How can the subject of these insults be both a source of pleasure and contempt from a male perspective?

Does female sexuality signify a position of weakness or submissiveness?

How does it affect the way women perceive their bodies and feel about themselves?

My decision not to use this language in the blog is an effort to discourage and resist its use and normalization by men and women alike.

(Alf, please skip).

Elderly women claimed by "Sewage Tsunami"

A flooding river of sewage has killed three women over the age of 70 and two toddlers in a Gaza strip village. The disaster has been called a "sewage tsunami" by some media outlets.

While a "tsunami" is a natural force, the Gaza strip disaster unnatural, as one blogger notes. The residents of the flooded Umm Naser village were living amid running, exposed sewage in ramshackle tin huts, and with little access to basic facilities such as clean water.

The 70+ year old women were witnesses to the ebb and flow of history. As though the demeaning surroundings in which they lived were not insult enough to human dignity, their lives were claimed by a flood of filth. This cruel reality speaks louder than any UN human development report: it tells of the insanity of conflict and the need to pay tribute to individuals of this daily struggle, even if they do not make it to the news headlines.

Yet another re-interpretation of the Qur'an

A new English translation of the Qur'an by an American-Iranian woman, Laleh Bakhtiar, has re-interpreted the meaning of the word "daraba" (usually means to "beat" or "hit") in Chapter 4, verse 34 about treating the ill-conduct/disloyalty/straying of a woman.

A feminist interpretation of the Qur'an serves to challenge the patriarchal readings that are often unfair to women and ignore the rights given to them by God.

However, there are several problems with this phenomenon of Qur'anic re-interpretations.

Such readings are often done by individuals whose training in Islamic scholarship is sketchy at best. A Mujtahid (a person who practises ijtihad) needs to have certain qualifications. Among many factors, these include expertise in the Arabic language, literature, and philology as well as being a high calibre Qur'an scholar. These qualifications are often missing in individuals claiming a more egalitarian reading of the Qur'an.

Unfortunately, these individuals treat the Qur'an not as a divine revelation, but as a literary text, and approach it as such. Their reinterpretations are often biased towards supporting a certain agenda (whether is it's patriarchal, feminist, gay-friendly, etc), rather than an effort to pursue the truth.

To return to Bakhtiar's new translation, the article states that she is not an Islamic scholar and that "she does not speak Arabic, but she learned to read the holy texts in Arabic while studying and working as a translator in Iran in the 1970s and ’80s."

One blogger said Bakhtiar's attempt "is an example of bending out of shape and doing verbal acrobatics in order to come up with an acceptable interpretation that may be a good "public relations" gesture..." hinting that her interpretation is apologetic to Western readers. The blogger notes that when and if a Muslim man beats his wife it's not because the Qur'an asks him to do so. Therefore the impact of Bakhtiar's re-interpretation is limited.

Indeed, it is problematic to even attribute wife beating to Islam. Stories about Western men beating their wives is not pinned on them being Christian, Jewish, or of other religious affiliation. It is simply labelled as "abuse."

Happy Mother's Day...or not

Children are writing cards, purchasing gifts, and calling home as the Arab world celebrates Mother's Day March 21. Mothers can kick back and relax, maybe let their kids do some of the chores for a change.

Origins of Mother's Day
The history of Mother's day is long, but no, it is not the brainchlid of a Hallmark executive. Several theories abound on the origins of this day: It was a Greek spring festival celebration honoring the mother goddess Rhea; a similar festival called Hilaria was dedicated to the Roman goddess Cybele; early Christians celebrated a type of Mother's Day on the fourth Sunday of Lent to honor the Virgin Mary, mother of Christ. In England, this Christian holiday was later expanded to include all mothers and was called "Mothering Sunday."

The more recent history of Mother's Day is attributed to two American women, Julia Ward Howe and Anna Jarvis.

The dark side of Mother's Day
While many children in the Arab world celebrate their mothers on this special day, others are more wary. They perceive it as a foreign holiday, neither Arab nor Islamic, imported from the West. Some believe that it unnecessary to have one day in the year to honor mothers since that duty should be a lifelong sentiment. Others find it irrelevant to the Arab world where families ties are perceived to be stronger than in the West since large families live together for longer periods of time.

The holiday has also been commercialized to the extent that one of its founders, Anna Jarvis, protested against the way it was celebrated, a BBC report said. According to this report, the greetings card industry is worth 1.2 billion Euros in the UK alone. Mother's Day contributes to much of this value.

In Dubai, more than 100 schoolchildren participated in drawing the largest greeting card to celebrate Mother's Day. A classic move in the Dubai tradition to break records for the world's "largest" or "biggest" thisandthat (think world's biggest man-made islands, world's tallest hotels).

In Palestine, women of all ages gathered in Umm Salamuna village in a non-violent protest against the Israeli Wall.

The Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics issued a report on the status of Palestinian women in the West Bank and Gaza on the occasion of Mother's Day. The first sombre statistic is on 32 Palestinian mothers out of 112 females detained in jails.

Status of Mothers in Islam
Regardless of Mother's Day, mothers command great respect in Islam. The Prophet states emphatically that the rights of the mother are paramount. Abu Hurairah reported that a man came to the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) and asked: "O Messenger of Allah, who is the person who has the greatest right on me with regards to kindness and attention?" He replied, "Your mother." "Then who?" He replied, "Your mother." "Then who?" He replied, "Your mother." "Then who?" He replied, "Your father."

Finally, the Holy Qur'an (17:23, 24) says of parents: "Thy Lord hath decreed, that ye worship none save Him, and (that ye show) kindness to parents. If one of them or both of them attain old age with thee, say not "Fie" unto them nor repulse them, but speak unto them a gracious word. And lower unto them the wing of submission through mercy, and say: My Lord! Have mercy on them both as they did care for me when I was little."

Hijab twist to a horror movie?

The Quebec government has made yet another Hijabophobic move. It is forcing a Muslim woman training to be a prison guard to choose between her hijab and her job, according to an article in the Montreal Gazette.

Faced with this incredulous choice, Sondos Abdelatif quit the training program at Montreal's Bordeaux jail, insisting on wearing her hijab.

The logic (or lack thereof) behind the government's concern is flawed: Quebec's Public Safety Department fears for Abdelatif's security, claiming that hostile prisoners could use the hijab as a "strangulation device," reported CTV online.

Whether the matter is really about "safety" concerns or the repeated discrimination against Muslims in Quebec (Herouxville immigrant laws, banned female Muslim soccer player) is debatable.The government has refused to change its position in the light of sensible alternatives such as a Velcro-fastened scarf, Muslims groups said.
The prison has allowed Sikh men to wear turbans during duty. Furthermore, the prison administration did not comment on safety issues when Abdelatif sent a photo of herself wearing the hijab along with her application to the program.

Abdelatif is considering taking her case to the Human Rights Commission.

Woman wisdom in Egyptian judiciary

"The Egyptian judiciary has appointed women judges for the first time in its history," the head of Egypt's Supreme Judicial Council said today.

Thirty-one women were chosen from members of the administrative bar and government lawyers.

In 2003 a woman, Tahani el Gebali, was appointed to the supreme constitutional court but no woman was ever named a prosecutor or court judge.

Though Egypt was the first Arab country to give women the franchise in 1956, the judiciary has remained male-dominated. Women judges have not faced legal obstacles but cultural resistance from both genders.

Commenting on the recent appointments, a male judge said that they were against Shari'ah laws as the women judges would have to spend time alone with their male counterparts during deliberation.

Neither of the news articles quoted have responsibly talked to a sheikh or jurist on the Islamic permissibility of female judges. They have not noted that a male judge's opinion does not represent the laws of shari'ah.

Celebrating the forgotten women

March 8 marks the annual "International Women's Day" (IWD)when women around the world celebrate their achievements, potential, and global womanhood. The event has been observed unofficially since the early 1900s and has a long history of political resistance. This "feel good" exhibition of solidarity is a cheerful and well-meaning gesture of female unity against patriarchy and oppression.

But one has to be careful with the use of terms such as "global womanhood" that whitewash the socio-economic, religious, and political differences between women- the differences that make some more equal than others. In a lecture at the University of British Columbia, Dr. Nefissa Naguib highlights the stories of forgotten, marginalized women. She tells the stories of brave Palestinian village women and their daily struggles in search for water and security. Her stories bring them alive, but not in the way TV images depict them. They are not black-robed, anonymous women tearing at their hair, wailing by the shattered walls of their homes, and submitting to their plights. Rather, she tells of resilient and resourceful women, tender and humourous but brave and strong-willed. Naguib also tells of nuns in Palestine who find and care for orphaned children, teaching them Qur'an and sewing wedding trousseaus for the young orphaned women of marriageable age.

According to Naguib, there is a need to go beyond sweeping slogans and meta-narratives (big stories) about women. As she rightly states, we need to "engage more specifically with women's lives "as lived" and "dealt with" under critical conditions."

Maclean's needs to rethink its values

As a journalism student, I aspired to publish stories with Canada's top national newspapers and magazines.

Until yesterday, Maclean's magazine was one of them.

I had a change of heart when I saw the cover of their March 5, 2007 issue (Volume 120, No.8): It was a close-up image of a woman's face wearing a black niqab (full face cover) with only her eyes showing. The cover headline read, "Do immigrants need new rules?"

It is disturbing when a well-renowned and respected publication like Maclean's presents such images as representative of immigrants and Muslim women. The image of the "mysterious" covered woman and her "exotic" large brown eyes belongs to a 19th century Orientalist discourse and should not be in a supposedly progressive 21st
century publication.

"Why do you think they chose that image?" a friend asked. I replied that it's evocative. It's possibly the first image that comes to most people's minds when they think of Muslim women- thanks to the relentless media bombardment of those images. Bottom line: It's catchy. It sells.

Unfortunately, I was not even surprised or shocked by Maclean's choice, as it had become a common one in most mainstream Western media.

Such media outlets are in the business of giving us simple answers to complex questions and issues, rather than in-depth and contextualized intelligent explorations. Whether it's laziness, racism, or ignorance, the media attitude symbolized by Maclean's cover is insulting to Muslims specifically and the reader's intelligence generally.

Hera and Zeus: The real tragedy

"SALONIKA, Greece -- Archaeologists in northern Greece have unearthed a rare statue of Hera, ancient Greek goddess of marriage, which together with an earlier discovery of a matching Zeus statue constitutes the first paired display of Greek gods ever found in the country," according to a Middle East Times article.

When a violent storm brewed, the ancient Greeks believed that Zeus and his wife Hera were quarelling as they usually did.

In Greek mythology, one of Hera's typical portrayals was the jealous and nagging wife of the earnestly womanizing Zeus. Another typical portrayal was the enraged wife punishing Zeus's lovers and their offspring.

As a dedicated fan of Greek mythology, I often read, with a mix of sympathy and amusement, the mishaps of the divine couple. You'd think that a union between sky god and earth mother would be the most natural. But Zeus constantly wronged his beautiful wife: Seducing women in the form of a swan, a bull, and a shower of golden rain.

Bestiality and infidelity aside, the true tragedy of Zeus and Hera is that they are re-united centuries later in the form of their paired statues. If stone could speak, I would have loved to hear Hera's reaction at the tragic irony of being returned to her husband.

Unfortunately, death could not really do them part.