generalspeaking

Leading Ladies

Going backward in time, in social custom, back to another era entirely.  The people have chosen.  And women in Egypt now have an entirely new, yet very elderly tradition to inform their social norms.  Modesty certain does have its place, yet intelligent choices and logic also have their place.  What practical sense does it make for women living in intemperately warm climates to completely encase themselves in stifling dark-coloured fabrics?

Covering themselves in lengthy garments that do not provide for freedom of air passage, let alone physical movement; awkward, concealing and accepting of a pernicious demand of male-dominated societies that demand their women not be seen nor heard by any but themselves, and even then discreetly.  The Taliban in Afghanistan decreed that all women must wear the burqa, and even so, fully covered and concealed, forbidden to present themselves in public without a male family escort.

To exhibit the foolish and unacceptable effrontery to defy those edicts was to bring down the deserved wrath of young men wielding whips and batons, enforcing rules.  Egypt may not go quite that far as to institutionalize that totally demeaning unequal relationship between women and their modest garb, but since the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood is on the cusp of sharing ultimate power with the military, it will come to some vestige of female public constraints.

The Muslim Brotherhood plans to restore friendly relations with the Islamic Republic of Iran which were sundered by the signing of a peace treaty with Israel.  Whether that determination presages a break with Israel is yet to be determined; the Brotherhood has already announced that there are Judaic holy sites within Egypt that will hitherto be off limits to Jewish worshippers. 

Egypt is a sovereign country and it may do whatever it wishes to do.  The women of Egypt who live liberated lives of equality and who dress in whatever manner personally suits them may find their choices somewhat curtailed in the near future.  If, as seems likely, the military and the Brotherhood reach an accord for joint administration, the military will opt to rule the country's foreign relations up to a point, along with its security.

While the Brotherhood will largely content itself with the social aspects of administering the country's fortunes, from finances, the budget and the economy to the social contract in acceptable social presentation that will affect women.  It is doubtful that women would be denied educational and workplace opportunities, but nothing is beyond the realm of possibility in the application of fundamentalism.

Naglaa Ali Mahmoud, wife of president-elect Mohammed Morsi, appears nothing like the wives of former Presidents Mubarak and Sadat.  She is sedately and almost-completely covered in a black all-encompassing robe, absent only the niqab.  To many more westernized Egyptians she exemplifies backwardness.  Yet she appears as well a woman who has involved herself in the social affairs of her people.

While her husband attended university in the United States she did volunteer work, helping women who wished to convert to Islam.  When on their return to Egypt he taught engineering, she instructed young women about marriage duties.  Even in that strictly patriarchal society, Mr. Morsi speaks glowingly of his wife, that having married his cousin eleven years his junior was "the biggest personal achievement of my life.

If that impression remains, despite his having achieved the presidency, there may be hope for Egyptian women, after all.

Labels: Egypt, Heritage, Islamism, Particularities/Peculiarities

posted by Pieface @ Saturday, June 30, 2012