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Al-Ahram Weekly 11 - 17 March 1999 Issue No. 420 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 11 - 17 March 1999 Issue No. 420
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Focus Special Features Travel Sports People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters
SAFIYA'S STRUGGLE
While the world pauses for a day on 8 March to remember the women who gave up their lives for freedom, but also to think of the ordinary women whose daily struggle is equally eloquent and enduring testimony to the fact that the cause is not yet won, Egyptians also commemorate another event: a demonstration by more than 500 women on 16 March 1919, held one week after the British occupation authorities arrested nationalist leader Saad Zaghlul and banished him to Malta. Another women's demonstration led to a clash with British troops. Many of the women who took to the streets were taking a great step for womankind, but also a small step for themselves -- out of the harem, and into the often harsh light of public life.Often forgotten in the years that followed is Safiya Zaghlul, fondly called 'the mother of the Egyptians', both as the wife of Saad Zaghlul, leader of the 1919 Revolution, and as an outspoken activist in her own right. She insisted on keeping her home open for the meetings of the nationalist leadership in spite of the threats she received from the British military authorities.
But the shadow of Safiya Zaghlul has been dwarfed, with the passing of time, by those of the larger-than-life figures who surrounded her, and whose lives could not have filtered gently through the historian's sieve. On one side, Saad Zaghlul, who will go down in the history books as "the most important pre-Revolutionary nationalist figure". On the other, Huda Shaarawi, whose name is synonymous with the Egyptian feminist movement -- a movement, indeed, encapsulated for many in a simple gesture: the lifting of her veil.
see Focus & Chronicles
