(THIS ARTICLE IS MACHINE TRANSLATED by Google from Norwegian)
From 8. to 11. June 2015 I attended a conference on women and war at the American-Lebanese University of Beirut. My post was titled "Women, War and the Revolution". War causes both internal and external change processes to be suppressed. Popular revolutions often fight for the liberation of women and the poor. This has been researched at several universities since the mid-1900 century. The establishment of women's research institutes created a new approach in research, based on the interaction between researchers and between science and the humanities.
It is not possible to understand women's affairs without seeing the links between history, philosophy, medicine, literature, economics, religion, gender and politics, and war. Nor can we understand the causes of war or any other problems without understanding these connections. The women's issue has a particular need to be seen in light of an interdisciplinary approach that links the private, the public and the personal, the political, the sexual, the philosophical and the moral. This has been researched in some women's studies that have explored the depth of patriarchal exploitation and oppression of women and the poor throughout history.
Compounds. At the medical school, we had to dissect corpses, both men and women, without having to learn anything about the real problems these bodies are experiencing. We pegged anatomy and passed the exam, and understood less than when we started. Man is no longer an entity integrated into a living society, but separated individuals into a dead system. Medicine has studied some of the abused female body parts with methods we have learned from a British colonial government based on Puritan religious values.
I've been criticizing this kind of medicine in my articles for half a century already. I cannot accept this duality, this contradiction – the distinctions between mind, body, spirit and society. I have also criticized the interventions performed on healthy boy and girl bodies and called purification, or circumcision.
The connection between war and women's liberation reminds me of my own childhood. Nothing encourages more free thinking than activating memories so that the past can be connected to the present and the future. As a child, I experienced World War II, and lived in a British colony where both Allied and enemy troops clashed. Like several colonies, Egypt fell victim to other countries' wars and interests. Enemies became allies and friends became enemies, but the colonies still remained slaves. Neo-colonialism arose from old colonialism, and the people had to pay the price for the war. Especially women and the poor.
Victim. The foreign ruling class ran away with their booty and left only crumbs. Thus, the local upper class got the motivation they needed to betray the interests of the people. The most important thing, of course, was to hand out honorary awards to kings and presidents, and toast with intellectuals, writers and researchers who kept their mouths shut about all the injustice and corruption, and supported the country's government with speeches and articles. The poets encouraged people to sacrifice themselves for God and the fatherland, and no one was more deceived than the women. Sacrifice, in the name of femininity – you should sacrifice yourself as a mother, and submit to your father and your husband and your Lord. Women, especially the poor, pay the price for war and for peace. Because they are always isolated in their homes, under the absolute control of men.
Women have a potential collective political power to change any law in their favor – if they had acted as an organized force in the political parties dominated by men. Nevertheless, in today's parliamentary elections we see how easy it is for the parties to marginalize their female members. Even after two major revolutions in which women have been important participants, and have the right to participate in shaping the political parties in Egypt – and even though women make up over half of the population – a small minority called "Salafists" are allowed to abuse the new the constitution and preparing to form a political party.
It is not possible to understand women's issues without seeing the connections between history, philosophy, medicine, literature, economics, religion and war.
disinformation. Under the new parliament, women are only allowed by law to form associations that run social activities. This political exclusion of women is part of the old slavery system. Organizing collective political influence is the only way women can change anything. Perhaps women are not a power factor that could achieve justice in the family and the state? Today, it seems that women have no other ambitions than the state and the dominant parties. Imagine if a woman became president – without concealing the realities of women's oppression and poverty. We have already seen that a colored man could become president of the United States.
It is being demonstrated against our government for the same reasons as it is being demonstrated against the persecution of people of color and the poor in the United States.
There is a strong historical connection between economic and gender-based oppression, which has led to the start of a war against today's popular revolutions. They are attacked with weapons and disinformation.
The traditional direction in academia sees it as a conflict between the masculine and the feminine – as if biological processes in the body are related to war. As if an oppressive, armed regime that misleads the media, culture and education system has nothing to do with the case.
Translated from Arabic by Vibeke Koehler.
Saadawi is an Egyptian feminist, author, physician and psychiatrist, and has written a number of books on women in Islam. She is a regular correspondent for Ny Tid.
