Mother of the revolution

The Egyptian feminist Nawal El Saadawi, 80, has joined the struggle that she has dreamed of since she was a child

The atmosphere in Tahrir Square is festive. The protestors, in their bid to force President Hosni Mubarak to resign, have set up a tent city, sleeping out in the square so that it cannot be taken. Doctors are running makeshift hospitals with donated medical supplies and blankets. Casual traders hawk everything from Egyptian flags to socks. Amid a crowd of youngsters, an 80-year-old woman with a shock of brilliant white hair stands out. Dr Nawal El Saadawi, the Egyptian writer and activist, has been camping in this square for two weeks.

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.