Tuesday,
March 8 2005
THE ARAB STREET RISES - WITH WOMEN: Given that today
is International
Women's Day it's probably appropriate to focus on the plight
of women in the Arab world. As I
mentioned last week, there have been some encouraging signs
of late, one of which was Prince Saud al-Faisal of Saudi Arabia
declaring to Newsweek that "women are more sensible voters
than men."
In
Kuwait yesterday more than 500
women took to the streets demanding the right to vote. Despite
being some of the most well-educated and (as you can see from
the picture to the right) liberal women in the Arab world, they
are still denied the franchise and the right to stand for office.
The battle
these women are fighting is one they've come close to winning
before. Back
in 1999 Kuwaiti Emir Sheik Jaber al-Ahmad al-Sabah issued
an order giving women the right to vote, but after being approved
by the Kuwaiti cabinet that order was subsequently struck down
by Islamists in parliament.
Now
the hardliners
are at it again, declaring at a rally the other day that ""based
on Islamic sharia law, women have no political rights." This
time, however, the Kuwaiti Prime Minister is threatening to dissolve
parliament if the suffrage bill is blocked.
In addition
to lacking political rights, we in the West have little understanding
of the sort of discrimination women in the Arab world endure on
a daily basis. Here is a glimpse from a striking personal account
that appeared in the Yemeni
Observer last month.
"How
does it happen then, that I—as well as every Yemeni woman
I have spoken to—am constantly harassed when men should
not even be looking at me? Every single day in Sana’a
I suffer horrendous verbal abuse. Often I suffer physical abuse.
It
seems illogical to me that the gender that is stared at, ogled,
harassed, molested or even spat upon in wholly unprovoked attacks
is expected to cover with the sole intention of preventing these
occurrences, while the harassment—the crime—is taken
as a cultural normality.
I have
been to over forty countries on six continents and have lived
in many of them, but before I came here I had no idea there
existed a country with so little respect for others. Never have
I felt as defeated as I have in this country. I have to force
myself to leave my home every day, as I know there will be the
inevitable barrage of abuse from the moment I leave the house."
Of course
there is the issue of domestic violence as well. Many
have argued, quite convincingly in my opinion, that domestic
violence is expressly permitted by the Koran and thus tolerated
(and perhaps in some places encouraged) in parts of the Arab world.
Thanks
to courageous women like former Saudi journalist Rania
al-Baz who was beaten to within an inch of her life by her
husband and lived to tell the world about it, the cultural acceptance
of such hideous behavior is becoming more widely publicized and,
hopefully, much less prevalent.
The revolution
we're seeing in the Middle East contains many facets. Progress
for the rights of Arab women is perhaps one of the most important
and least appreciated parts of the story. It
shouldn't be overlooked. - T. Bevan 9:32 am Link
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