Entries from Islam's Advance tagged with 'Egypt'
Islamists' Rise Could Benefit Women's Rights
Middle Eastern observers often assume that the deterioration of women's rights in the region is directly linked to the political rise and popularity of Islamist parties in countries across the region.
But this guest author argues otherwise. Dr. Isobel Coleman, a senior fellow for U.S. foreign policy at the Council on Foreign Relations and director of the Council's Women and Foreign Policy program, argues that the movement of these groups into mainstream politics is actually changing Islamist attitudes toward women.
At first glance, the continued strength of Islamist movements across the Middle East does not seem to bode well for women's rights in the region. Islamists' conservative, traditionalist values and narrow reading of religious texts often translate into policies that seek to limit women's public role, enshrine their legal inferiority and enforce gender segregation. Indeed, Islamists groups in various countries have taken a hard stand against reforming family laws in ways more favorable for women, resisted women's suffrage, and smeared local women's groups as puppets of an illegitimate Western agenda.
But something strange is happening on the way to the sharia court. As Islamist movements make the transition to mainstream political parties, they are increasingly recognizing the need to appeal to women as voters. They also are beginning to understand that their views on women are being closely watched by the broader society. To gain power through the ballot box, Islamist parties have to convince secular skeptics, both male and female, that they are ready to govern and have sensible policies to offer. Islamist policies that smack of creeping "Talibanization," or simply conflict with the reality of modern women's lives, alienate moderates.
Egyptian Filmmaker Faces Challenges
Following debate about censorship in the U.S., and the questionable decision of Random House to pull a historical novel about the Prophet's wife A'isha, I thought I'd show you a perspective on the challenges facing writers and filmmakers in Egypt.
Yousry Nasrallah is one of Egypt's leading directors, who has spent much of his career working out strategies for dealing with these challenges. They come from the state censorship board, representing the interests of Egypt's entrenched dictatorship; the Islamist lawyers who patrol the airwaves and publishers' lists for potential insult to Islam; ahd the political motivations of funders and distributors.
The trick, Nasrallah told me, is not to tackle religious or political subjects head on, but accept the dominant ideologies while subverting them from within. His 1995 documentary, On Boys, Girls and Veil, which followed a family of hijab-wearing women, is a masterful examination and critique of the veil that is still regularly shown on state-owned up buses as they travel the country.
It's worth noting that Nasrallah's best known work, at least in the Middle East, is his 2003 epic Bab al-Sham, which caused controversy for debunking some of the myths of Palestinian victimhood (based on the Elias Khoury novel) but which has sadly not found a U.S. distributor. Nasrallah suspects that's due to its equally staunch criticisms of Israel.
Lifestyle Islamism
Click here to read this post in Arabic.
The theme of our next guest voice explores two concepts not usually associated with each other: Islamism and consumer culture.
Islamists - those who believe the Koran is a political manifesto as well as moral guide - often chose to live differently than the rest of society, and as an increasing number of enterprising businessmen are now discovering, where there are choices, there's money to be made.
Ursula Lindsey is an American journalist who has spent the past five years in Cairo, the self-styled seat of Middle Eastern culture, and writes a blog on Middle Eastern art and culture. Here she explores this brave new world of Islam as a lifestyle choice.
Mideast Ambivalent About Next U.S. President
If the world could vote in the U.S. presidential elections, you might imagine that most would choose Barack Obama. After all, world opinion of America is at a 30-year low, and Obama is the candidate who embodies the deepest change in U.S. politics.
But according to a recent survey, the answer in the Middle East is closer to “None of the above.”
Egypt's Facebook Revolution
When most people log onto Facebook, the thought of fomenting revolution is pretty far from their minds. But in the Middle East, and most recently in Egypt, Facebook has become an important platform for dissent in countries that routinely clampdown on liberal activists, and where the mosque has traditionally been the only outlet for venting political frustration.
Last month saw the arrest of Esra Abdel Fattah, 27, after she formed a group on Facebook calling for protests against the high price of food and other commodities in Egypt. Strike action was already planned by factory workers in the Nile Delta city of Mahalla al-Kobra, and the Facebook group, which attracted 64,000 members, tapped into a national mood of unrest. During Fattah’s incarceration, police clashed with protestors in Mahalla, killing three; some 500 people were detained.
