Me and my for husbands: gender equality and polygamy

Nadine al-Bedair has got some fame in the arab world since she started to work for the US financed TV channel Al-Hurra where she hosts a program about women issues. This young Saudi journalist has been the target of many comments a few months ago because of her pronounced taste for skirts which seem to be too short for other’s taste.

Again, she has been the focus of many comments in the arab media after she published, a few weeks ago, an article (arabic) in the Egyptian daily Al-masri al-youm about the right, for women, to have more than one man. Taking the arguments ordinarily used by men in order to justify their sexual “rights” to more than a woman, she explained how, in her view, real equality between men and women should also mean sexual equality and the right for women to polygamy.

Of course, Nadine al-Bedair “forgot” to mention that polygamy is licit – for the men – according to the religious texts. Furious condemnations have been pronounced from many parts of the arab world (an Egyptian MP for instance declared his intention to sue her and the newspaper’s editor for such a blasphemy), but there has been some people too, brave enough to defend, or better to understand, her views about gender equality.

In a second publication, under the title Now, you have tasted wrath savor (arabic), she explained her satisfaction for the discussions raised by her provocative writing, which, to her great satisfaction, did not provoke any official reproval in her own country. She also mentioned the legislation adopted in Arab countries like Tunisia or Morocco and called again for a real equality between genders, including in the sexual realm.

Obviously, there is some provocation in the outburst of a young journalist working for such a “pro-westernized” (if not pro-US) TV channel as Al-Hurra, and polygamy is not such a social problem in her country where, according to official statistics, it concerns no more than 1% of the population.

It remains that the “Saudi Nawal Al-Saadawi” as she has been called sometimes has reactivated the public debate about the women rights in the Arab society. Not a bad news at the beginning of a new year.

As usual, the link to the original post in French.

Sex & the Arab City: Arab winds of change.

Reading the countless comments in the press and on the Internet about the arrest and judgment of the “Saudi Casanova” who boasted his sexual exploits on the panarab LBC channel, gives the feeling that Arab sexuality is really an interesting topic (in the “West” at least).

More recently, female pop singers have moved once again the sexual issue to the top of the chart. In Egypt, first, when an Egyptian MP, close to the Muslim Brotherhood, protested against the coming of Beyonce, a symbol of depravation and immorality, to the rich and fancy Red Sea Resort.

Different characters but more or less the same story in Morocco after Haifa Wehbe performed at Agadir tolerance concert. Although a large number of the (masculine) audience was obviously fascinated by the "aura" of the Lebanese icon, wearing an offensive négligé, comments in the local press, for instance in the daily Al-Tajdid, close to the religious opposition, opposed violently what the perceived as a pitiful picture of a South ripping off clothes and dignity.

Such polemics are nothing new of course (see for instance this previous post) but it gives us the opportunity to mention an interesting discussion on a related topic between Brian Whitaker, the Guardian’s Middle East Editor and As’ad Abu Khalil, a Lebanese born professor of political science at California State University.

Under the title Arab Winds of Change, Whitaker underscores what he sees the real challenges in the region: “If asked where change is likely to come from in the Arab countries, I would not put much faith in "reformist" politicians and opposition parties – they're mostly no-hopers – but I would definitely put feminists, gay men, lesbians and bloggers very high on my list”.

Why? Because “In these highly stratified societies, people are discriminated for and against largely according to accidents of birth: by gender, by family, by tribe, by sect. Women, as the largest disadvantaged group, can play a major role in overcoming this and helping smaller disadvantaged groups to do the same. Once the equality principle is accepted for women it becomes easier to apply it to others. Contrary to popular opinion, most human rights abuses in the Arab countries are perpetrated by society rather than regimes. Yes, ordinary people are oppressed by their rulers, but they are also participants themselves in a system of oppression that includes systematic denial of rights on a grand scale”.

An explanation which infuriates the Angry Arab (As’ad Abu Khalil’s blog title) who denounces a “pathetic” analysis, “an insult to the people of the region.” (see his comment here, and Whitaker’s answer there.

Whatever opinion you choose, it is worth to note that discussion, for once, is not limited to the classical topics but embraces unusual topics.

Indeed, a bit like As’ad Abu Khalil’s blog, which focuses, as mentionned in the subtitle, on “politics, war, the Middle East, Arabic poetry, and art”!

As usual, here is the link to the more developed post in French.

About Marriage and Divorce in the Arab World

Four posts about related questions dealing with marriage and divorce in today’s Arab societies (links to the original ones in French).

In the first one, mention was made to Urîdu hâlan (I want a solution), a movie with (and largely thanks to) Faten Hamama. An interesting example of an art production which has had a real impact on the Egyptian society. After years of discussions, the Egyptian law finally gave the women the right – under certain circumstances – to divorce their husband.

Today’s Egyptian women publicly speak not only of their legal right to divorce but of the personal satisfaction they may find living as single, after a divorce or ever-postponing a socially expected marriage. Examples of this new attitude may be found in the writings of two bloggers whose writing have been published in books. In both cases, the colloquial form for “I want”, in Ghada Abdelal’s (غادة عبد العال) I want to get married (عايزة اتجوز) and Mahasen Saber’s (محاسن صابر) I want to get divorced (عايزة اطلق) is a clear reference to the classical verbal form used by Faten Hamama’s point, thirteen years ago.

The second post was about the rising number of unmarried young people (9 millions adult above 35 years in Egypt for instance). The cost of the wedding ceremony may explain this situation, probably connected to the growing phenomenon of sexual harassment in Cairo streets and which is exploited by all sorts of crooks using internet phishing sites. It is also linked to the rising number of non-official unions with the resulting issue of thousands of children born from such unions without any legal status as women does not have the right to declare a birth according to the actual Egyptian law. Considering the great number of students who are engaged in such “unlegal” unions (almost 20% of them according to various studies), one has to think that the sexual practices of many young Arabs are undergoing a radical transformation.

An evolution which is probably conformed by the rising number of divorces in many Arab countries (data in the original post in French from Saudi Arabia, Jordan, the Arab Emirates and even Gaza. Even in this last case, local analysts emphasize the fact that economical difficulties only cannot explain the breaking of so many unions – and the rising number of unmarried young people. On the contrary, for a growing number of young Arabs, the need to reach personal/individual fulfilment probably becomes more important that the necessity to obey the social requirement of a “family arranged” marriage.

Nonetheless, local traditions remain very strong in many areas, as it is the case with child marriage. Here again (see last post), the increasing denunciation of this phenomenon in the Arab press can be interpreted as the sign of a change. Even if too publicized stories in the Western media like the one of the little Nojood Ali in Yemen (among Glamour magazine “women of the year” !!!”) seem to show the contrary, recent public discussions and legal decisions in Yemen Saudi Arabia or even Morocco are a clear indication that sexual habits, representations and practices in the Arab world are changing.

The Slave Market: War, Prostitution and Creation

Sundus Abdul Hadi is a Iraqi-Canadian artist who lives in Canada. She draws her inspiration from Ancient Sumerian art and the early Islamic aesthetic and, in her own words, her work is “a commentary on the media, history, politics and social issues as related to being an Arab woman in today's world”.

Shortly after the US press did so, the online daily Elaph mentioned a few days ago one of her works, called “Inanna in Damascus” (Inanna is the Sumerian goddess for sexuality and war). As she explain in her blog, she wants, with this reinterpretation of Jean-Léon Gérôme, a French Orientalist painter, to “expose the sex industry that is currently running rampant in Middle East due to the consequences of the 2003 war in Iraq and the resulting exodus of refugees”. She sees that “these same connections of pimp and client, the soldier and the politician, and the Arab businessman [already] existed in the 19th century and today.”

To fully understand the strength of Sundus Abdul Hadi’s work(s), one has to remember how important the Iraqi school has been for modern Arab plastic expression, especially in the 50’s with the foundation of a local form of abstraction based on the use of the Arabic alphabet (a school called hurûfiyya in Arabic: see previous post.

Memories of such a fertile experience make the present time particularly bitter to the Arabs artists and intellectuals. The exodus of the Iraqi artists, which started in the 90’, is now so important that it is said that more than three quarters of them live abroad.

Thus, those who stayed in the country deserve a warm tribute, as does Artiquea, a gallery in London which has done its first exhibition with works done by twenty-three artists “who still live and work in Iraq”.

As usual, the link to the more elaborated post in French.

Divas and Politicians: the Dialectic of Body and Power

For a change, the subject of all conversations in the Arab world during the holy month of Ramadan was not the countless TV soap-operas aired at that time of the year, but the serialized novel of the murder of a well-known Lebanese singer, Suzanne Tamim.

Her body was found in her flat in Dubai and, a few days later, the police arrested the murderer, a former Egyptian cop. But, the real scandal came when it became obvious that Hishma Talaat, a famous Egyptian billionaire, leading member of the ruling Party and close friend of President Mubarak’s family, was charged with arranging the murder.

The Arab press (see this article in Elaph) has suggested many scenarios to explain the somehow unusual promptness of the Egyptian justice: rivalries among the ruling elite, the necessity of restoring the Egyptian Department of Justice reputation after various disputed decisions, the desire of calming things down considering the popular reaction, and also bearing in mind the fact that the Emirates authorities were urging for a quick and efficient elucidation of the case.

It is certainly not the first example, and the last one, of the "dialectic of power and body", to use Adnan Abuzeed's nice way to put it. After all, the famous Jahiz wrote in the IXth century his famous eulogy to the qiyans, a kind of Arabic variation of the famous Japanese geisha. Obviously, there is some sexual activity in the (supposedly) puritanical Arab world.

As another evidence of the many connections between sexual fame and politics, mention could be made to the famous Haifa Wehbe (see previous post). When she mentions, as she did more than one time, how fascinated she is by shaykh Hassan Nasrallah’s personality, we must ask ourselves if we are always right in using opposed categories like securalism and liberated sexuality on one side, and religiosity and moral uprightness on the other.

As usual, the link to the more developed post in French.

Oriental Fantasies on video: Haifa Wehbe

Since Edward Said’s seminal book, Orientalism, some forty years ago, it is well known that fantasies about the Orient exist. But what about fantasies of the Oriental people themselves? For Arab women, the Turkish TV opera soap “Noor” (see previous post), featuring the handsome Muhannad, provides may be an answer. And for the men, there is Haifa Wehbe, the “hottest” sex icon of the many videos aired on Arab TV satellites.

Being the target of so many Arab male fantasies at a time of public dispute about the right moral behaviour, Haifa Wehbe becomes, willing or not, a subject of political debates. Regularly, people protest again her coming to their country. It happened in Algeria, in Egypt and, recently, in Bahrein when the pop singer was invited for the celebration of the workers festival (!).

After very “lively” discussion at the Chamber of Deputies (dominated by “islamist” parties), a compromise has been reached: Haifa would come and give her performance, but dressed in a decent (محتشم) way (see pictures). In a rather smart move, the Lebanese singer paid a visit during her stay in Bahrein to some institution for disabled children, a “perverse” way to shut up critics by shifting her public image from the scandalous and glamorous sex icon to the untouchable one of the pitiful mother of sorrow and all pain, a strategy already used in a very successful way with her very ambiguous hit “Boss al-wawa” (with lyrics like "see the owie, kiss the owie, make the owie get better. When you kissed the owie, you made the owie go away. Hide me close to you, cover me and make me warm. Without you I am so cold aahhhh", etc.)

Following that link to the French post, you’ll find a translation to French of an article published in the Lebanese daily Al-Safir by Ahmad Moghrabi. He comments in a very interesting way on Haifa’s latest video which is there for you to… enjoy it!

Good and Bad: Two Faces of the Arab Modernity

Dancing with the Saudi flag, on which coranic verses are written, is not something to be done, especially when you have already been seen drunken on a stage in Dubai. All the worst if you have been the partner of the outrageous Dina whose belly dance was close to set fire to the Cairene street in October 2006 when an hysterical crowd of young men started to harass every passing-by woman. (An information which was mainly reported by the local bloggers whose importance began to be clear with that event.)

Thus, Saad al-Saghir (سعد الصغير) had many reasons to “repent” as many others did before him recording religious songs (see previous post). A contribution which raises some interrogations among the lovers of the high tradition of nasheed.

Nonetheless, others see nothing problematic with that modernization of the nasheed which can be heard on Arab TV’s among other (non religious) musicals songs.

With the success of Sami Yusuf’s songs, the modern nasheed has given up the old fashion style. Thanks to digitalization, the ban of musical instruments is no more a problem. Singers like Kuwaiti Alafassy make clear that today religious songs may deal with new issues like ecology. Even relations between men and women may be tackled in a musical genre strictly restricted before to divine love.

One could suspect, or even make fun of such a quick shift from shameless behaviour to a so pious one. But the coming back to virtuous behaviours is a complex phenomenon. For some singers, TV and movie stars probably, but certainly for most of the Arab youth who admire them and watch them, the “bad” cheeky fruit seller dancing in an outrageous way and the “good” devout young muslim singing his love to God are in fact two inseparable sides of the Arab modernity.

Follow that link to read the original and more detailed post in French.

And to whach an almost "satanic" dance by Saad al-Saghir follow this link and then shift to the pious singer with that video of Ahmidu rabba-na

Foreign and Domestic “Personal Services” in the Arab World (2/2)

After the problems that children face because of “careless” foreign maids, more and more articles in the Arab press and on the Web tackle another issue, that of the consequences of sexual relations which may occur with young adults, with husbands and sometimes between women.

A survey in Saudia was for example very much commentated because it says that almost 60% of the foreign maids would accept sexual intercourses before marriage. So that wise housewives do pay attention in choosing not to nice-looking maids for their home.

But maids and generally speaking female workers do not always come from non-Arab countries and it is quite easy to find on the Internet announcements for Moroccan girls “wishing a job in the Gulf”.

Normally, the business is run by private agencies but states may find it attractive too. In May 2007, an agreement between Egypt and the Saudi Kingdom was to be passed for the employment of some 120.000 “young Egyptians ladies” (less than 30 years).

For many people in Egypt, such a deal was a real scandal, an attempt to the national pride, In their articles, journalists made rather clear allusions to the sexual consequences of the sending of young Egyptian ladies behind the closed walls of foreign houses.

Hopefully enough, private houses are not the only place for unmarried sexual practices in the Arab world. Hotels and “massage parlours” are well known meeting points, and the authorities, as in the Emirates or in Jordan for example, have been obliged to change the regulations in order to channel the flow.

With the globalization of the sexual market, the local competences face more competition. A real threat for the many Moroccan “artistat” who work in Jordan for example. A phenomenon, so well-known that “Moroccan”, in modern Arabic, is largely used to mean a prostitute. Nicely enough, in French “professional” slang, “un saoudien” (a Saudi) is a client!

To read the original post in french

Maids Made in Asia: a Global Market (1/2)

The situation of the Asian maids “imported” by numerous Arab families is not exactly a taboo in the Arab media. But it is a subject which is mainly tackled from an educational point of view, because of the consequences for the family.

There is however an evolution. Recently for example, videos have been filmed in Saudia to remind viewers to be kind with the people working in their homes, especially during the holy month.

Since a few years, to employ a foreign maid is no more the privilege of well-doing families living in the rich states of the Arab peninsula. On the contrary, it is becoming something more and more casual in countries like Syria where the authorities are more used with the regulation of national emigrants than with the immigration of foreign workers.

With the generalization of education, finding a good and cheap little maid on the local market has become a real challenge and the business of trading “human commodities” is indeed flourishing.

Then, as any other product, prices are changing according to the origins (Sri-Lanka, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Somalia…) and to the “season” – Ramadan being the most expensive one!

A Human Right Watch Report: Middle East: Sri Lankan Domestic Workers Face Abuse
To read the original post in french