The Egyptian feminist Nawal El Saadawi, 80, has joined the struggle that she has dreamed of since she was a child
She was here on Wednesday 2 February, when armed thugs riding camels and horses stormed the square. She says that these ‘loyalists’ were paid 200 Egyptian pounds each, and promised 5,000 if they succeeded in driving out the crowds. ‘I was sitting on the ground talking to the young people, and they came thundering towards us. They were armed with all kinds of weapons. I was about to be crushed by a horse, but the young people dragged me away just in time. Hundreds of them were injured that day. I saw them drop to the ground, bleeding.’
El Saadawi has something to teach the young about resistance. The author of some 47 novels, plays, and political works, she trained as a doctor and psychiatrist before turning to writing to describe the oppression of women in the Arab world. In 1972, she wrote Women and Sex. The book was fiercely critical of female genital mutilation, a procedure she had undergone as a child. In the West, it became one of the foundation texts of second-wave feminism.
The Egyptian government, however, was less enthusiastic. El Saadawi was dismissed from her post as director of public health and her magazine, Health, was shut down. Under the rule of Anwar al-Sadat she was imprisoned, though she continued writing from her jail cell. ‘Every day the jailer would come to me and tell me: “If I find a pen and paper in your cell, it is more dangerous than if I found a gun,”’ she recalls. ‘We were not even allowed toilet paper: just the Koran or the Bible. The prostitutes in the ward next door were allowed televisions and radio, because they were not political. One of them had read my books, and she wanted to help me.’ El Saadawi lowers her voice conspiratorially. ‘I asked her, “Zuba! Can you get me some paper, or something?” The next day she brought me a roll of toilet paper and her eyebrow pencil. Every night when the jailer left, I sat down on a piece of stone and I wrote. In the next three months I wrote Memoirs from the Women’s Prison with the eyebrow pencil of the prostitute and a roll of toilet paper.’ She chuckles.
After her release from prison in 1981, El Saadawi fled Egypt. She had received death threats. She went to America, where she held a succession of university posts, before returning to Egypt in 1991. At the turn of the millennium, however, the government turned on her again. Her works were censored, and in 2002 a trial was brought against her by a fundamentalist lawyer who believed that, as she had ‘abandoned religion’, her marriage should be annulled by force.
She says she has witnessed an increase in religious extremism in Egypt. ‘When I was a medical student during the 1950s, there was not a single veiled woman,’ she says. ‘But when Sadat came he encouraged religious fundamentalism, Christian and Muslim, to divide the country. To create conflict: divide and conquer, you know? Women started to be veiled under Sadat and under the Mubarak regime it was encouraged more and more.’
Who is more oppressed today, then, a woman in a veil or a woman in revealing clothes? ‘Veiling and nakedness are two faces of the same coin,’ says El Saadawi. ‘The women who are forced to be naked are sex objects in the so-called “free market”. I am against makeup. Makeup is a postmodern veil. Whenever I go to New York or any European country, they say: “Nawal, why don’t you get a facelift?” I tell them I am proud of my wrinkles. Every wrinkle on my face tells the story of my life. Why should I hide my age?’
El Saadawi argues that women have always been key figures in Egyptian history, especially in revolts against British rule. But the role of women has been ignored. This time will be different, she says. There are women of all ages here. ‘They are primary-school students, professional women, housewives, mothers with their suckling children,’ she says. ‘Women are side by side with men in this revolution. That is why I am so happy. So long as we stay in the revolution, we will have our rights.’
‘This revolution has united us,’ she adds. ‘There is no separation between Christians and Muslims, men and women. We all live in the tents together. These young men and women are secular. There is not a single Islamic slogan. They are all about equality, justice, freedom and secularism.’ I ask if, like the rest of the world, she was taken by surprise by the uprising. ‘The revolution, a surprise? No!’ she exclaims. ‘I had always seen it in my dreams! Ever since I was a child.’
‘I’ll tell you something you might not believe,’ she continues. ‘Young men from the Muslim Brotherhood approached me in the square. They told me: “Thank you for your books. We read them. We agree with some of your ideas, and we disagree with some. But we respect you and love you.” Can you imagine? Incredible!’ All at once, she sighs and asks if I have any more questions. She wants to rest, in preparation for another day of protest. ‘I have been facing adversity since I was born,’ she tells me finally. ‘In this square, girls and boys have come to me and told me: “We read your books when we were 12 years old, and it changed our minds.” It was like flying. Like flying with wings. I really felt that I had achieved something. This revolution? It was me.’
Comments