When not to quote Bush

As the movement for human rights gathers momentum all over the world, it should be inevitable that people will continue to demand and eventually achieve equality and dignity for people of colour, for the poor, the handicapped and of course for women. For women, the issue is very much alive in those parts of the world where marginalisation and subjugation of women still thrives. These tend to be traditional and religious societies, where the struggle has been an uphill battle; one that nevertheless, has to be fought until victory. We need to seek out allies amongst community and religious leaders to reach the public. Nothing will change rapidly enough without that.

The April-May 2012 issue of Foreign Policy carried a four-page article by Mona Eltahawi which has opened a flood gate of criticism, surprisingly by the very people she meant to defend against their oppression by their men. She entitled it "Why Do They Hate Us?" Eltahawi, is an Egyptian journalist who moved to the United States in 2000. She came to prominence after appearing on American television and radio news shows especially during the revolution in Egypt last year. It was a good and courageous article that needed to be written, but I did not like the word "hate" in the title, recognising that she was simply borrowing George W. Bush's infamous phrase. I therefore suggested on Twitter, which only allows 140 characters per message, changing "hate" to "despise" because it was shorter than "look down upon". The article also quoted another writer, Alifa Rifaat saying "We have no freedoms because they hate us." Again the word "hate" should have been replaced with "look down upon" or with "do not believe we are their equals".

Most people would agree that men, even those Muslim or Arab men Eltahawi was talking about do not hate women at all. In fact they love women in the many ways men can love women, such as romantically, sexually, admiringly and possessively. But the men she is talking about do patronise, look down upon and despise women who try to be independent or assertive or opinionated.

Healthy sign

Such women make them feel insecure and threatened. They truly feel that women have no business being so, and that their role, even in 2012 is the traditional domestic one of bearing and rearing children, cooking and washing dishes, and most importantly being obedient if not subservient to their husbands, or their fathers and brothers if not married. If there are people out there who disagree with that, then first, that would be a healthy sign of plurality of opinion, and second, let us debate it in the press.

But, to be fair to Eltahawi, let us remember that this woman suffered at the hands of the Egyptian security services more than the average person. Only six months ago, they beat her, dragged her on the ground, broke her left arm and right hand, and sexually assaulted her. She was also detained by the Interior Ministry and military intelligence for 12 hours. Her tormentors all happened to be men! She cannot imagine women doing that to her, even if they were in the police. It's easy to see why she would feel strongly about what happened to her, and why she would use her pen to get to the root problem that plagues many of her gender in the Arab/Muslim world. And yet some such women have written, to disown her and to tell her that she did not represent them.

Others have said that such an article by Mona gives the green light to those colonialists and imperialists who wish to attack the Arab world, simply on the basis that its men oppress women. That too reminds us of those ridiculous statements of Bush before the invasion of Afghanistan. But the world has long since realised the lameness of that argument. Mona should have resisted using the "hate" word in her title. The rest of her long article was great, and needed to be said, not only on behalf of women, but also on behalf of many men.

Dr Qais Ghanem is a retired neurologist, radio show host, poet and novelist. His two novels are Final Flight from Sana'a and Two Boys from Aden College. He lives in Canada.