LONDON: Young Arabs are probably unfamiliar with Nawal al-Saadawi’s extensive work, but she is still at it.
Having spent decades fighting and writing about the oppression of Arab women, which got her jailed under the late Egyptian President Anwar Sadat’s reign, the eminent feminist is recognized as a leading authority on the subject, gaining wide recognition when her book, The Hidden Face of Eve, was published in English 20 years ago.
Having since included anti-globalization among her causes, Saadawi took the time to talk to The Daily Star during her last visit to London.
Even at 71, her energy and determination have not abated; on the contrary, she seems to find more power in the very causes she supports, including the Palestinian struggle. She still takes part in rallies, such as the April one in Washington and more recently the pro-Palestinian march in London, calling US President George W. Bush and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon “war criminals.”
For Saadawi, the concept of globalization, and of its abuse, is very simple: “Globalization means breaking the boundaries between countries, and we live in one global village. This is good if it is for the benefit of the people, and it is bad if it is for the minority that exploits all of us under capitalism and class patriarchy.”
Very in tune with the tools of the modern age, she is the first to encourage the use of technology and to take the best globalization has to offer while fighting its disadvantages.
On the dark side she names the main culprits as the US government, the World Bank, the IMF and the WTO: “We
call it globalization from above. It creates more poverty, and wherever there is poverty, there is conflict.”
And while it affects everyone, she agrees that women still face the brunt more harshly: “Whenever there is an economic crisis, or a military or any crisis, women suffer first because they are the first to be expelled from the labor force. The poor pay more than the rich, always.”
Saadawi takes comfort in the fact that many movements against oppression have rallied together: “The anti-globalization movement, which we call the globalization-from-below movement, the pro-Palestinian movement, the feminist movement, the Green movement, trade unions, peasants, they are all coming together in demonstrations. This is a new unity between different groups. I find it very positive.”
Fighting exploitation is partly in our hands, she says, taking the Arab-Israeli conflict as an example to argue that the most important battle is boycotting American and Israeli goods.
“If only each man and each woman in the Arab world would stop going to McDonald’s or to Kentucky Fried Chicken! Sainsbury’s left Egypt because people boycotted it, so if we did that with all the multinationals, we would win a lot,” she said.
This oppression by the multinationals and the foreign powers brings her to the subject of Arab governments, for which she still has little affection.
“It is the governments that divide us, and the US and Israel. In fact Sadat divided the Arab world with Camp David (the peace agreement with Israel), but all Arab governments, with no exception, benefit from the US and are more or less its allies, secretly or openly,” she said.
For her, the differences between the Arab positions are superficial: “They are the same, in spite of their rhetoric and speeches, I don’t see any Arab regime as different from the other.”
She finds the positions of Arab governments over Palestine disappointing, showing how inadequate they were and accusing them of being responsible for the Palestinians’ plight.
“Thousands of young men and women came out in the streets demonstrating for Palestine and against Sharon, and what happened to them? The governments pushed them back, they tear-gassed them and some of them were killed. There is very strong oppression by the local regimes that are supported by the US.” In contrast to their governments, Saadawi is convinced that the Arab people are united and share common feelings and goals.
Saadawi believes that women in the Arab world have come a long way, but there is still much to fight for. She mentioned last year’s failed attempt by an Islamist lawyer to forcibly divorce her from her husband of 37 years, under the cover of hisba (a concept allowing a Muslim to sue another for views thought to harm society), accusing her of having become an apostate because she argued that some pilgrimage rituals stemmed from pre-Islamic times. As far as she’s concerned: “God to me is justice, freedom and love,” much removed from the notions of forcing women to be veiled or secluded.
Still, she does not believe that religious fundamentalism is restricted to Islam: “It’s a universal phenomenon.” Having been in the US since the beginning of September 2001, she argues that the media brainwashes people and reverses facts.
“I saw and I heard everything, I lived this hypocrisy of the American media. And I saw the American government: It’s horrible, it doesn’t only oppress and exploit us, it oppresses its people under the cover of controlling terrorism,” she said.
Far from considering that the struggle for women is over, she simply does not split today’s fight against occupation and global oppression by gender. However, she acknowledges that Palestinian women probably have it tougher than men, saluting their courage and initiative.
“The Palestinian women are suffering more because they are more vulnerable. They are the first to die, but they are also fighting. All the uprisings rose on the shoulders of women: the intifada of stones was the intifada of mothers and their children.”

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