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Al-Ahram Weekly 13 - 19 May 1999 Issue No. 429 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 13 - 19 May 1999 Issue No. 429
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Monthly supplement
Food for thought
A word from the Editor-in-Chief Hosny GuindyTime for forgiveness?
Mona Anis revels in a 1960s memoir vividly chronicling the underground life of Egypt's angry young writersA sun which leaves no shadows
Mokhtarat (Selections), Ghaleb Halasa, Al-Ahram (Kitab fi Garida), February 1999Mothering the populace
The Pure and the Powerful, Studies in Contemporary Muslim Society, Nadia Abu Zahra, London: Garnet Publishing,1997. pp.308Lights, camera, chit-chat
Cairo: From Edge to Edge, essay by Sonallah Ibrahim and photographs by Jean Pierre Ribière, Cairo: AUC Press, 1998. pp21+ 70 photographsThe art of conversation
Tawfiq El-Hakim Yatathakar (Tawfiq El-Hakim Reminisces), ed Gamal El-Ghitani. Cairo: Supreme Council of Culture, 1998. pp183Not quite another country
Alnesaeyat, Malak Hefny Nassef. Cairo: The Women and Memory Forum publications, 1998. pp246Journey of a giraffe
Zarafa, Michael Allin, London: Headline Book Publishing, 1998. pp215Village life from within
Denys Johnson-Davies offers insight into Mohamed El-Bisatie's work, and translates an extract from his new novel, appearing this Saturday in the Al-Hilal series
And the Train Comes
Short Reviews:*Al-Kotob: Wughaat Nazar (Books: Viewpoints)
*Soheir El-Qalamawi, Nabila Ibrahim
*Sifr Amal Donqol (The Book of Amal Donqol), ed Abla El-Reweini
*Al-Sayida allati wa'l-Rajul alathi lam... (The Lady who and the Manwho did not ...), Sabri Moussa
*Buka'iya illa Hafiz Al-Shirazi (Elegy to Hafiz Al-Shirazi), Abdel-Wahab Al-Bayati
*Al-Ibna Faten (Daughter Faten), Naim Sabri
*Siwa Door: Poems 1993-1997, Tom Lamont
*Ragul Tayeb Yukalim Nafsah (A kind man who talks to himself), Girgis Shukri
*Nizwa: A quarterly literary Journal
*Al-Tifl Al-Manbuz (Testaments Betrayed), Milan Kundera
*Arba' Masrahiyat 'Iraqiya (Four Iraqi Plays)
Illustrations courtesy of International Commitee of the Red Cross
"Folk drawings and tales", Cairo, 1996Not quite another country
This volume is the first of a planned series published by The Women and Memory Forum, intended to commemorate the memory of Egypt's female pioneers. Published to celebrate the 80th anniversary of Malak Hefny Nassef's death, the book is actually a reprint of a 1910 collection of essays that Nassef had first published in Al-Jarida newspaper. This earlier collection, with an introduction by Ahmed Lutfy El-Sayed, was followed in 1925 by a second volume that expanded the collection of essays to include letters exchanged between Nassef and another pioneer Arab female writer, Maii Zeyada, along with the speeches and poetry that had been written to commemorate Nassef's death.
This 1998 publication, with an introduction by Dr Hoda El-Sadda of The Women and Memory Forum, is, then, the third edition of Alnesaeyat to appear. One of the most interesting features of this, the latest collection, is the chronology of events, prepared by Nadia Wassef, that marked the social, political and intellectual life of Egypt between 1832 and 1924. But is this enough to justify a reprint?
In her introduction, El-Sadda sketches an answer to this question, suggesting that the intention of the publication is both to celebrate the 80th anniversary of Nassef's death and, also, to aid in the creation of a continuum between past and present contributions of Arab women in public life. And, certainly, it can be by no means a coincidence that the current volume provides such rich material for researchers.
By situating Nassef's essays in their historical context the publishers are providing new meanings and a new understanding of these debates and essays, something which, in turn, provides a forum for discussing and critiquing current debates. And in her introduction El-Sadda broaches several ways in which Alnesaeyat might offer a new take on contemporary debates, reviewing Nassef's writings on the veil, modernisation and the status of women in the early twentieth century -- issues that continue to reverberate in present-day Egypt.
Alnesaeyat can usefully be read as an early attempt to break away from the modernisation paradigm, for in her writings Nassef directly challenges the antithesis between East and West that lies at the core idea of the paradigm. And in challenging, critiquing and questioning the modernisation paradigm, she finds herself questioning all those analyses based on polarisation and antithesis, not least that promoted by Egyptian feminists. Certainly, the majority of voices advocating the liberation of women in Egypt in the early twentieth century adopted the discursive patterns of the modernisation paradigm, the odd thing being, of course, that it was Egyptian women who were allocated the necessary role of the incomprehensible other. They became themselves those unfortunates whose only consolation is the thought that, provided they do as they are told, do not think for themselves and do not talk back, they will eventually become modern and liberated.
Nassef refused to play the role designated to her; she thought for herself and talked back and was keen to give other Egyptian women the chance to do so. One of the most striking examples of her independence is the position she adopted towards veiling. The veil has been, and still is, a potent symbol in the tradition/modernity antithesis: traditionalists insist on veiling, modernists reject it. Such an over-simplified confrontational duality did not satisfy Nassef, who challenged the representation of the veil, and hence women, as somehow symbolic of tradition. She voiced her refusal of the objectification of women, arguing that the veil does not carry lasting, unchanging meanings, but that meaning and connotations change and vary according to historical, economic and social circumstances.
Above all, Nassef argued that women are free human beings who should be able to choose and decide their own dress codes, among many other things. In reprinting Alnesaeyat, The Women and Memory Forum are joining hands with Malak Hefny Nassef to give women a voice of their own; a voice capable of analysing, critiquing, accepting and refusing.
Reviewed by Amany Abouzied
