(THIS ARTICLE IS MACHINE TRANSLATED by Google from Norwegian)
Politics in both Egypt and the United States provides eloquent images of what lies at the core of the world's leading religious, economic and political systems. It makes me both nauseous and dizzy. Everything that happens is characterized by internal and external party conflicts, and oversized press coverage that pompous businessmen are capable of moving money on the stock exchange. There is a picture of a naked belly dancer dying of affection for Egypt, alongside an elderly scribe who admonishes: "The woman's duty to cover herself is one of the pillars of Islam."
Everyone who participates in the political circus is committed to destroying the opponent's reputation and flattering the newspaper owners while sharing constituencies, constituencies and money. It is a race of madness that tramples over human bodies that whine with pain, and girls who live amidst the unmistakable chaos of the number of parties and the number of wives.
I even saw democracy crumble and rage together during the period 2007 to 2009, when I lived in the United States and watched the election campaign until Barack Obama's victory. To get the campaign funded with millions of dollars from stock market speculators and Wall Street brokers, he assured them that his mother was a Christian, that Israel's security was the United States security, that Muslim women themselves chose to wear hijab, and that his father, Hussein, was Muslim. This is how he won votes from both Christian, Jewish and Muslim voters.
Promotions. Never in history has politics been separated from religion, economics or gender. After the election, Obama showed a clear bias towards the rich banks and Wall Street when the financial problems had to be addressed in 2008, at the expense of poor and women who were already in a difficult life situation. The spectacular theater repeats today with Hillary Clinton as presidential candidate against Republicans Jeb Bush. They each lead their aggressive campaign to get billions in election campaign funds. To achieve this goal, both stock exchange and speculation, rumor spreading and digging for economic pigs are used in the forest – and sex scandals. Everyone is breaking the civil laws to fund the election with profits from the stock exchange and the free market. Not to mention business financing, which is mainly driven by money laundering, cynical exploitation of people, arms sales, drugs, espionage and oil stolen through military and political warfare from Iraq to Nigeria via the Gulf states and Libya.
The head of the Federal Election Commission in the United States, Ann Ravel, has accused the commission of dishonesty and a lack of neutrality. Democracy has a fragile limit of tolerance for the opinions of others. In reality, little has changed since the popular movement that fought for the rights of colored people. Obama has stated that the system in the United States is based on racism. It is not long since systemic criticism and uncensored democratic freedom of speech were allowed at all.
The fig leaf falls. The church has run as much brainwashing in the West as the al-Azhar Mosque governs Islamic thinking in the East. Admittedly, many criticize both the Church and al-Azhar, and write about the need to renew religious thinking. Both the East and the West are also experiencing stronger support for feminism. Yet – as we continue to talk, the differences between women and men, between rich and poor, are increasing. The economic oppression of the wealthy classes is not separate from the sexual oppression of the patriarchate.
Never in history has politics been separated from religion, economics or gender.
A recently published book that addresses the growing differences in the world is The Racket by British journalist Matt Kennard. The author is awarded the highest distinction in US marine history. In the book's preface, he quotes from a speech General Smedely Butler held in 1933: "I have spent many years of my life serving in the Army. These years have also helped serve the banks and stockbrokers on Wall Street. For 33 years, I have participated in this crap life. In the country's service, I have robbed Mexico, Haiti and Cuba as well as half a dozen other Central American republics so that Wall Street could make money. In 1927 I worked for the oil company Standard Oil. I plundered in Nicaragua, the Dominican Republic and Honduras for American fruit companies, and I robbed in China. I outperformed all my colleagues by taking assignments on three different continents. ”
Hillary Clinton does her best to take advantage of women, the poor and the colored in the election campaign. But large demonstrations in Baltimore, Maryland, Missouri and California have caused the fig leaf to fall. The political forces of the twentieth century neglected the struggle for women's rights under the pretext of "taking the fight against poverty first" because purchasing power had to be what drives the world further – not gender. But this strategy has not eliminated poverty, not even in socially controlled countries. Class divisions are increasing, national divisions are increasing, women's burdens are increasing because they own little before and, not least, women's poverty is increasing more than men's. This has given birth to a new concept: Feminization of poverty.
Patriarchate. Women's problems in this century – in the East as well as in the West – are no longer economic inequalities, but social, religious and cultural values in education and upbringing. The state, the church and al-Azhar as well as other basic political institutions support these values. This is how patriarchal class thinking continues.
For women to achieve real equality, they must have as much social, personal and moral rights as men. But our men reject the idea of the woman as equal, even though it has been proven that in Egyptian families, the woman carries the same financial burden as the man, and has more than three-quarters of the responsibility for other duties in the family. It is completely unacceptable for women to have weaker personal and moral rights. The church fears that the woman was created by Adam's ribs and is thus subject to the man. Al-Azhar thinks the same.
Sharia commands the woman to cover herself, and it is the husband's right to discipline his wife by beating her as long as she does not become permanently disabled. The husband has the right to marry four women at the same time, in addition to being able to enter into limited marriage.
Is it at all possible to talk about religious thinking without acknowledging that the roots of this mindset grow stronger with unjust patriarchal values and daily life?
Saadawi is a New Age correspondent in Cairo.
Translated from Arabic by Vibeke Koehler.
