Document Fluff not substance
A statement issued by the Arab Women's Solidarity Organisation, headed by Nawal El-Saadawi, says public discourse is impoverished and real issues whitewashed
It is a sign of political and economic helplessness, an indication of cultural deterioration and media impotence in our Arab countries, that the headdress should raise such fury; that Muslim scholars, politicians and media savants in Arab and Islamic countries should throw themselves into the debate with such abandon. We might have hoped such energy be reserved for the sake of real issues that touch on the essence of life for millions of women and girls in our countries.
Haven't those who stepped so gallantly into the headdress foray heard that 82 per cent of women who graduate at universities in our countries are unemployed and have little chance of getting jobs; that they face the threat of poverty and despair, physical and psychological illness, in economic and social conditions that only get worse and that turn their lives and those of their families into daily torment?
Haven't they heard of the millions of girls who are deprived of education or drop out of school to support their families or to give a chance to their brothers to continue their schooling; who are driven by need to take menial employment in workshops or work as house servants (some 98 per cent of house servants are impoverished women who support their families)?
Haven't they heard of the hundreds of thousands of young women who work without protection in unofficial sectors at home or abroad; who are driven by poverty and hunger to emigrate, only to end up working in bars, nightclubs, and bordellos as prey of the local and international trade in women's bodies?
Don't they know that women, particularly young women, are the first victims of free market globalisation, which gives the powerful the opportunity to devastate the weak? Girls in our country are being pushed into monotonous, hazardous, and low-paid employment to become part of international and local cheap labour. They frequently work over 10 hours for one dollar. They work as temporary skivvies, as farmhands in high season, with no rights whatsoever, and with no social, legal or health insurance either.
Haven't they heard that unemployment among Arab women is the highest in the world (64 per cent between the ages of 15 and 25), even higher than that in the Congo or the wastelands of Africa and Asia? Hundreds of thousands of women workers keep losing their jobs as factories close down because of privatisation and the deterioration in local industrial and agricultural products.
Don't they know that millions of girls in our country are driven into marriage against their will, forced to live in seclusion at home, hidden from sight; that most are beaten and humiliated by the men in their families; that their social standing is less than that of hired house help; and that some even get killed in the name of morality and family honour?
Don't they know that the essence of Islam is substantive: not about form, the headdress, the length of a robe, the beard or the moustache, or repeated, automatic rituals?
Don't they know that the true identity of the Arab woman or man is about the essence of personality and conduct, about individual and collective responsibility, about creative and productive work in all fields, not about the form of clothes or the use of cosmetics?
Don't they know that the Arab woman is falling victim to isolation and seclusion on the pretext of restoring past legacies: just as she is falling victim to openness, consumerism, and nudity on the pretext of modernity, globalisation, and the free market?
Don't they know that the uproar over the headdress at school (abroad, in France, or at home) is nothing but a deviation from the heart of the matter? It is an expression of our inability to confront basic issues -- the same inability that led us repeatedly to defeat at the hands of local and international hegemony.
