Feminism, Coups, and Democracies in Egypt

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The Muslim Brotherhood and Islamist networks and their TV channels repeatedly say that the protestors are hooligans and out of control men who don't respect their women and commit violence against them. Others think that the Morsi government is complicit in the use of violence toward women and that this strategy has been used during the past year and a half that he has been in office.  Life has become harder for almost everyone in Egypt under Morsi, but especially for women.

In a  joint statement by activist groups: Nazra for Feminist Studies, Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights; El Nadeem Center for Rehabilitation of Victims of Violence, New Woman Foundation, Operation Anti-Sexual Harassment, Tahrir Bodyguard and Women and Memory Forum, they speak out against the brutal sexual assaults of  January 25, November 2012 and June 30, 2013. 

They reject the mind-set that blames the women for being "responsible" for their rapes because they brought the circumstances upon themselves for being where they do not belong. The Egyptian Ministry of Health is charged with "negligence and unprofessionalism" in their treatment of assaulted women.

These organisations think that incidents of sexual assault in 2011 and 2013 are used to "smear the opposition movement" - and to "punish women for their presence in the public space". The Egyptian authorities use sexual assault as a political tool against the opposition, in an attempt to portray them as a group of prostitutes and `thugs'. Sexual Assault is used to "stigmatise women demonstrators" and with it the democratic opposition and is a violation of international human rights law.  

Meanwhile more than 100 women were brutally raped and beaten and many were hospitalised. And yet, women have returned and remain boldly in the demonstrations - disallowing violence to their bodies to be the arbiter of where they belong, where they can go, what they can do. Women have defied those who use them as political fodder. They are there in hijab and not and demanding democracy. Their insistence and determination to remain part of the pro-democracy movement should be recognised as an important move towards democratic life.

Nawal el Saadawi, who some call the mother of Egyptian feminism, has fought for women's rights and against colonialism for her 80 year life time. She is a medical doctor who has spent years in prison for her commitment to a life of freedom and justice for all. She has famously fought to de-veil the mind along with the body. She demonstrated in 2011 and has been in the streets in this recent confrontation. In personal emails she has denied that this movement can be simply seen as a coup and instead argues that it is a people's revolution.   

She writes on July 4: that the revolution in Egypt is winning and that it is a historical revolution of all peoples in Egypt. She says it is wrong to call this massive action a "coup". And, she also does not want the US government playing out their "foreign aid" hand because she says that US aid has simply continued colonial relations of poverty and corruption. She says her country needs fair trade, not imperial aid.

Reform or revolution, again

Things moved to the right and the economy hit bottom after Morsi's election. Moves to the right and a worsening economy could describe anywhere today, including the US.  In some ways I am jealous of the Egyptians. Their government became intolerable to them and they came out in force to demand something different -young and old, men and women, Muslim and Christian and Jew, gay and straight. What does not look like democracy here?