A woman’s voice is a revolution

To the spirit of the first martyr of the Egyptian revolution: Sally Zahran, a woman whose smile was enchanting.   The US backing of the Egyptian revolution did not last long. When America realised the Muslim Brotherhood’s policies towards women, they swiftly withdrew their support to Morsi’s government. A year ago, TIME magazine declared in an article that the Muslin Brotherhood was “Egypt’s best democrats”, ahead of the liberals. The piece, published at a time of conflict between the Islamist party and the liberals over the new constitution and the elections, described the Muslim Brotherhood as the best group to “understand democracy.” A few days ago, the New York Times highlighted in a report that the most disappointing articles in Egypt’s new constitution are the ones regarding women’s rights. These articles, the American daily said, demote Egyptian women and will cause them no end of harm, which will in turn harm all Arab women, according to the newspaper which also pointed out that the Constituent Assembly only included four women out of 85 members. The New York Times pointed out that the articles supposed to maintain the rights of Egyptian women were unclear. Egyptian feminist organisations agree that the new constitution does not represent Egypt’s women, but instead ignores them and discards their rights as citizens. This is especially disappointing after a great revolution in which women took to the streets to demand bread, freedom and social justice and faced the machine of repression, after suffering from discrimination and marginalisation for over 40 years. There is no mention in the new constitution of the Egyptian woman as a citizen and decision-making partner in any article in terms of wording or rights. All this backtracking must warn those who fear the advancement of the Islamist movement in the countries that have seen regime change [Tunisia, Libya and Egypt] as well as countries awaiting a change [Syria]. They are wrong to espouse that fear. They are ignoring the true foundation from which these revolutions arose, clad in leftist, democratic slogans exclusive to the left. Islamist movements can never respond to such slogans regardless of the countless facelifts they recently underwent. The views expressed by the author do not necessarily represent or reflect the editorial policy of Arabstoday.