Rosa al-Youssef hits new rock bottom

It’s unbelievable what Rosa al-Youssef is doing these days. The daily paper, which is regarded as close to Gamal Mubarak’s NDP Policies’ Secretariat, is launching a crusade against journalist/blogger and friend Wael Abbas for helping to expose the downtown Cairo molestation fiesta during Eid.

The horrific incidents went unreported by the local media, except for Al-Masry Al-Youm which published an article about it yesterday based on the bloggers’ testimonies. MP Mustafa Bakri has submitted questions to the government today about the incidents, while the Interior Ministry is claiming nothing happened, as always.

Karam Gabr, the paper’s editor is claiming Wael is fabricating the incidents using his “sick fantasies”, and started the usual overdose of flag-waving with accusations of “defaming Egypt’s image” BS.

Gabr is the same guy who back in the summer was claiming that Mohamed Sharqawi was also fabricating stories about his torture and sexual abuse.

Shame on you Rosa! And as for you Gabr, your seat in President Gamal Mubarak’s Ministry of Truth is surely waiting…

The 4:34 dance

An interesting article about Islam, the Quran, and wife-beating. The author tackles the kind of issue that is fundamentally difficult when talking about “liberal interpretation” of Islam: if it’s written pretty unambiguously in the Quran, it’s difficult to justify change. What these interpretations miss out however is that just because something is written in the Quran doesn’t mean it’s universally followed or even known about. Not to mention that certain patriarchal practices are probably more about traditional conservatism and misogyny (two traits certainly prevalent among both Arab Muslims and Arab Christians) than an understanding of religion.

Saudi woman ecstatic over permission to ‘marry out’

From Arab News, quoting the Saudi Al-Madinah

Saudi Woman Ecstatic Over Permission to ‘Marry Out’
Arab News

MAKKAH, 15 August 2006 — A court here ruled in favor of a Saudi woman seeking to marry a non-Saudi, causing the forty-something woman to emit thrilling cries of bliss that echoed through the chamber, the daily Al-Madinah reported yesterday. The woman, who had been petitioning the court to permit her to get married to a non-Saudi, was so ecstatic at the decision that she not only screamed in joy but also jumped about embracing her relatives. In Saudi Arabia it can be very difficult for Saudi women to marry non-Saudis, which, to some Saudi women, is a very unfortunate thing — especially to older Saudi women who live in a society where many men taken on younger second wives, or divorce their older wives, often viewing older women as “expired goods.�

The cost of wanting to be white

A crave for skin-lightening cosmetics in Sudan is causing a rise of women with skin problems:

Millions of women throughout Africa use creams and soaps containing chemicals, like hydroquinone, to lighten the color of their skin. But the creams can cause long-term damage.

Dermatologists say prolonged use of hydroquinone and mercury-based products, also found in some creams, destroys the skin’s protective outer layer. Eventually the skin starts to burn, itch or blister, becomes extremely sensitive to sunlight and then turns even blacker than before.

Prolonged use can damage the nerves or even lead to kidney failure or skin cancer and so prove fatal.

“It’s a very bad problem here. It sometimes kills the patient … It’s bad, bad news,” said a doctor at a Khartoum hospital. He said the number of women coming to the dermatology department with problems caused by skin-whitening treatments had grown to at least one in four of all dermatology patients.

This attitude about skin color is common everywhere from Morocco to India, as far as I can tell. Probably beyond.

Documentary on Moroccan women on PBS

There was a documentary on PBS about Moroccan women on last night (sorry to be only telling you now, but it might repeat.) It looks interesting, if generally buying into Moroccan govt. PR.

I have a long article coming out soon about Adl wa Ihsan, the largest Moroccan Islamist movement. (It might be delayed a bit considering there’s other priorities in the region right now.) When it comes out I’ll publish a transcript of a long interview I did with Nadia Yassine, who is featured in the documentary. She makes for a very interesting Islamist.

MERIP on Iran, twice

MERIP has published two interesting articles on Iran in the last week. The first looked at the strategic Iran-Israel rivalry, arguing that posturing in both countries had to do with their self-image as the region’s only real powers and their need to be counted as a player by the region’s superpower, the US. The article contains some interesting info on the Iranian position on Palestine, for instance, where despite much posturing there has been relatively little real help (an anecdote of a 1979 meeting between Khomeini and Arafat is quite enlightening in this regard.) Continue reading MERIP on Iran, twice

The Missionary Position

Laila Lalami, aka Moorishgirl, has a long review essay in the Nation about Irshad Manji and Ayaan Hirsi Ali, two women we’ve written about here before. It’s the most intelligent review of their work I’ve seen so far, particularly as people tend to either dismiss them (as I tend to) or praise them as Courageous Reformist Arab Personalities (CRAP). The late unpleasantness over Hirsi Ali beyond stripped of her seat in parliament and Dutch citizenship was a rather pathetic affair I didn’t feel like commenting on, but it did highlight the manipulative nature of at least some of these people. But that’s beside the point. Lalami’s critique goes to the heart of the problem:

Meanwhile, the abundant pity that Muslim women inspire in the West largely takes the form of impassioned declarations about “our plight”–reserved, it would seem, for us, as Christian and Jewish women living in similarly constricting fundamentalist settings never seem to attract the same concern. The veil, illiteracy, domestic violence, gender apartheid and genital mutilation have become so many hot-button issues that symbolize our status as second-class citizens in our societies. These expressions of compassion are often met with cynical responses in the Muslim world, which further enrages the missionaries of women’s liberation. Why, they wonder, do Muslim women not seek out the West’s help in freeing themselves from their societies’ retrograde thinking? The poor things, they are so oppressed they do not even know they are oppressed.

The sympathy extended to us by Western supporters of empire is nothing new. In 1908 Lord Cromer, the British consul general in Egypt, declared that “the fatal obstacle” to the country’s “attainment of that elevation of thought and character which should accompany the introduction of Western civilization” was Islam’s degradation of women. The fact that Cromer raised school fees and discouraged the training of women doctors in Egypt, and in England founded an organization that opposed the right of British women to suffrage, should give us a hint of what his views on gender roles were really like. Little seems to have changed in the past century, for now we have George W. Bush, leader of the free world, telling us, before invading Afghanistan in 2001, that he was doing it as much to free the country’s women as to hunt down Osama bin Laden and Mullah Omar. Five years later, the Taliban is making a serious comeback, and the country’s new Constitution prohibits any laws that are contrary to an austere interpretation of Sharia. Furthermore, among the twenty-odd reasons that were foisted on the American public to justify the invasion of Iraq in 2003 was, of course, the subjugation of women; this, despite the fact that the majority of Iraqi women were educated and active in nearly all sectors of a secular public life. Three years into the occupation, the only enlightened aspect of Saddam’s despotic rule has been dismantled: Facing threats from a resurgent fundamentalism, both Sunni and Shiite, many women have been forced to quit their jobs and to cover because not to do so puts them in harm’s way. Why Mr. Bush does not advocate for the women of Thailand, the women of Botswana or the women of Nepal is anyone’s guess.

This context–competing yet hypocritical sympathies for Muslim women–helps to explain the strong popularity, particularly in the post-September 11 era, of Muslim women activists like Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Irshad Manji and the equally strong skepticism with which they are met within the broad Muslim community. These activists are passionate and no doubt sincere in their criticism of Islam. But are their claims unique and innovative, or are they mostly unremarkable? Are their conclusions borne out by empirical evidence, or do they fail to meet basic levels of scholarship? The casual reader would find it hard to answer these questions, because there is very little critical examination of their work. For the most part, the loudest responses have been either hagiographic profiles of these “brave” and “heroic” women, on the one hand, or absurd and completely abhorrent threats to the safety of these “apostates” and “enemies of God,” on the other.

It’s one of these long pieces that present a structured argument over multiple pages, so this excerpt won’t do it justice. Read the whole thing.

And by the way Angry Arab once again proves that he’s a complete curmudgeon by whining in his take on the piece. Was The Nation ever a radical magazine? Did it ever pretend to be one? But it does not mean it’s not a good one, even if it’s gauche caviar. (For that matter there are good right-wing magazines too. The bad magazines are the ones who pretend they’re lefty but are actually rightly, like the New Republic.)

New study on FGM

A new medical study on Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) commissioned by the World Health Organization adds new reasons — as if they were needed — to condemn the practice:

WHO’s study, to be published Friday in The Lancet medical journal, found that women who have suffered the most serious form of genital mutilation have a 70 percent greater chance of experiencing post-childbirth hemorrhage compared with women who weren’t mutilated. In countries where childbirth mortality rates for women are already high, “this particular process is practically a death sentence for them,” Phumaphi said.

Children of genitally mutilated women also are at greater risk, the study found. Depending on the severity of the mutilation, neonatal death rates for these children range from 15 to 55 percent higher compared to other babies.

The above is lifted from this WHO press release, but you can read the whole technical study from The Lancet, which also has a commentary on it. One of the study’s main findings is that arguments from “mild cutting” or sterilized operations instead of traditional ones — which are carried out in the name of cultural sensitivity — still leave women more at risk from complications during birth-giving and also puts their children at risk.

I know next to nothing about medicine or public health, so if someone wants to leave a more cogent explanation of the study, please do so in the comments. I thought the study was worth pointing out, particularly as Egypt is one of the places where FGM still routinely takes place.

Update: The NYT has more.

Arab dictators’ wives club

I find the way that Suha Arafat has emerged suddenly as a potential rival in the Palestinian leadership struggle rather amusing — if you ignore that it’s yet another slap in the face of the Palestinian people’s quest for for dignity and decent leadership:

In a one-minute telephone call to the Arab satellite network Al-Jazeera, she set off a political storm Monday, accusing her husband’s top aides of conspiring to replace the 75-year-old leader in a behind-the-scenes power grab.

The 41-year-old Mrs. Arafat, who until now remained largely outside the political scene, said top officials aimed to “bury” her husband “alive.” A Christian convert to Islam, she ended the phone call with “God is Great” — often used as a Muslim war cry.

While the idea of Suha Arafat really being a contender in the leadership struggle is proposterous (and the AP and other press outlets should know better than to propagate this notion) it made me think of the roles that Arab dictator’s wives have had from country to country. In Palestine’s case, she had played a negligible role apart from serving as a conduit for Arafat’s stash taken from PA funds.

But if we turn to Egypt, Suzanne Mubarak plays in important role in the country, with some people even saying that she has a lot of influence on domestic politics (particularly health and education), the composition of the cabinet, and that she may even be behind the rise of her son Gamal as a possible heir. I don’t know how much credence to give all this, but it is certainly true that she is a woman of great influence. Try to set up a NGO that deals with women, literacy, children, or education, and you’ll probably be made an offer you can’t refuse and be absorbed by “Mama Suzanne” and her National Council for Women, at which point virtually every activity you undertake will be subject to constant bureaucratic hassle and the whims of the first lady. While her endorsements do bring advantages, they can often also constrain the activities of a NGO (which will have to vet everything with her people to make sure they don’t embarrass her). In other words, it’s a poisoned chalice.

In Tunisia, Leila Ben Ali owns a variety of businesses that her position had, of course, no influence in creating. For instance, she owns the country’s near-monopoly ISP, which has milked the emerging internet market while complying with the state’s need to have what is probably the most invasive monitoring of the internet in the region.

Saddam Hussein’s wife Sadija (who was also his first cousin) was the symbol of feminism in her country, as well as the leading public figure promoting education. Can’t say she set that good of an example with her two boys, though. According to a widespread rumor reproduced in Said Aburish’s biography of Saddam and elsewhere, Uday Hussein went to great extent to protect his mother’s honor:

In 1998, Uday killed Hanna Jajo, Saddam’s most trusted food-taster and procurer of women. Jajo had acted as the go-between for Saddam and Samira, who became his second wife and the mother of now-teenage Ali. (Saddam remained married to Sajida, despite at least two other known marriages.) It was reported that Uday, said to be closer to his mother than to his father, arranged a party for Suzanne Mubarak, the wife of the Egyptian president, on the banks of the Tigris in downtown Baghdad. Across the river, on the Island of Pigs, Jajo was also entertaining. He and his rather rowdy bunch were shooting salvos in the air. Uday crossed the Tigris and asked Jajo to stop. Some time later Jajo fired again. Uday returned and clubbed Jajo to death.

According to Aburish, Saddam was furious at Uday not only because Jajo was a “trusted” procurer of women and food-taster, but also because Jajo’s father was his cook, which provided an added precaution against being poisoned since the father would not have wanted to poison his own son.

Come to think of it, it seems that infamous Arab leaders’ wives tend to come mostly from republics, not monarchies. Whenever there is some kind of regional meeting (usually on women’s issues or some pageantry event) I kind of wonder what these women talk about, how much rivalry there is between them (are they all jealous of the young and beautiful Queen Rania of Jordan, or perhaps King Muhammad VI’s wife?) and so on. Does anyone have good gossip on Arab first ladies?

Veiled is beautiful

Nyier Abdou has an interesting article in the Independent about the rise of muhagaba fashion in Egypt:

The increasing number of women wearing the hijab has brought about a radical change in the image of the Egyptian woman. As young, urbane women increasingly take the veil, age-old associations between hijab and the traditional religious conservatism dissipate. “It’s not a matter of old women getting veiled, just out of a habit,” says Nesrine Samara, project manager at the new English-language magazine Jumanah , a fashion bible for veiled women due to launch this month. “It’s not a matter of just covering up; it means a lot of other things.” Ms Samara, a 27-year-old marketing executive, is a political science graduate of the American University of Cairo. Smartly dressed in camel boots, a long coat and a bright orange scarf, she resists the notion that being veiled is simply about being modest. Women are increasingly taking the veil as a way of identifying with the larger culture of Islam, she argues.

The increasing number of women wearing the hijab has brought about a radical change in the image of the Egyptian woman. As young, urbane women increasingly take the veil, age-old associations between hijab and the traditional religious conservatism dissipate. “It’s not a matter of old women getting veiled, just out of a habit,” says Nesrine Samara, project manager at the new English-language magazine Jumanah , a fashion bible for veiled women due to launch this month. “It’s not a matter of just covering up; it means a lot of other things.” Ms Samara, a 27-year-old marketing executive, is a political science graduate of the American University of Cairo. Smartly dressed in camel boots, a long coat and a bright orange scarf, she resists the notion that being veiled is simply about being modest. Women are increasingly taking the veil as a way of identifying with the larger culture of Islam, she argues.

This is part of a much bigger trend that is still under-studied: the commodification of Islam (Google cached page, original is gone.)