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Al-Ahram Weekly 9 - 15 March 2000 Issue No. 472 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 9 - 15 March 2000 Issue No. 472
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Lawyer, politician and writer Fikri Abaza claims a prominent place in the manufacturing of public opinion during the first half of the 20th century. His memoirs, serialised in Al-Mussawar in 1949, reveal him as a sharp thinker who had no qualms about disagreeing with government decisions. He expressed strong opinions on many issues, not least the rights of women. In the following extract, he mocked the women's movement, which had developed after the 1919 Revolution:
Fair and square
To mark Women's Day on 8 March, UNESCO has suggested that newspapers the world over place women at the helm for 24 hours. In Egypt, most of the press has dismissed this recommendation as a joke; but, writes Fayza Hassan, less than a century ago a woman member of parliament was also considered an incongruity
Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Features Focus Books Travel Living Sports Profile People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons In 1922, "after a particularly rough fracas with the powers that be... and since my passion was journalism, I had decided to distance myself from political writing. I made up my mind to tackle the fair sex momentarily, instead of the British. That year, a women's movement had started, its cause upheld and publicised in the press by two persons. The first wrote a series of articles published under the pseudonym of Al-Khansaa [the name of a poetess of the pre-Islamic period]. She had a pugnacious style and used very strong words. More than once, we exchanged journalistic blows and she rebuked me powerfully. I discovered later that 'she' was our great professor, the writer and stalwart lawyer Mohamed Lutfi Gom'a. The second group of exposés was authored by a very well-educated, refined and very ardent young woman who appeared to be inflamed to the extreme: Munira Thabit. She was asking at the time -- and that was almost 28 years ago... imagine! -- that women be given the right to vote in the making of the new constitution. [Abaza uses the word taswit, which means 'vote' but also 'scream'.] I wish to record here that Munira Thabit was the first to demand such a right, soon after the 1919 Revolution. I wrote to her in Al-Ahram of 25 June 1922, saying: 'Women and girls wish to make their voices heard on the occasion of the setting up of the new constitution. In all honesty, has the 'un-fair' sex ever been able to stop them, whenever they have felt like screaming? They have enjoyed this right from the beginning of time, and have exercised it to its full potential at funerals, in altercations, surgical operations, catastrophes, love affairs, divorces and any other circumstance that has disturbed in any way the sheltered gender's feelings.'
"Imagine with me, dear reader," he continued, "a female member of the Chamber of Deputies getting involved in an argument with a male counterpart; he attempts to shut her up for the public good with a glare, a rude word or a rough gesture and she, her feelings wounded, begins to sob or holler, or maybe even showers insults, curses and swear words on him, as women usually do; what if her anger grows to the point where she has a fit and needs a zar in the middle of the day to exorcise her demons?
"Or imagine her as a loving mother, carrying her new-born into the conference room: in the course of one of the heated debates customary among the deputies, a flea bites the baby, who wakes up and begins bawling loud and clear. Don't you think, dear reader, that the howling of that infant will be reason enough to interrupt the discussion of the budget and completely disrupt the work of the committee?!
"This is what I said 28 years ago. Miss Munira Thabit was prompt to write back a strong riposte and we quarelled vigorously then, but consider what is happening today, 28 years later: I am retracting my words and recanting on my position. While Munira is vindicated as the struggle for Egyptian women's political rights flares up again, I have changed camps, and become their staunch champion!"
