Fahmy Huweidi

Just sharing something I enjoyed reading...

Fahmy Huweidi:

A French woman journalist, after many words about the situations of the Arab woman, asked me if there was hope for the "liberation" of the Muslim woman catching up to European standards. The question irritated me, and I replied that the question for its part is in need of "liberation." The understanding of liberation is in need of precision since I do not support the claim that the Western woman is, in fact, liberated. My answer did not surprise her. She replied, "What do you mean by precision?"

I said, if what is meant by the liberation of the Western woman that which has come out of the Beijing document, then neither do we want it nor do we welcome it. Our "reactionary ways" are much more honorable and more noble than that kind of liberation. This because the Beijing doctrine mixes notions of liberation with the shattering of the family, escapism, and decadence wherein there is no respect for the home, and no respect for husbands, or children, or mothers. The woman is being pressured and is under attack to work outside the home, and to divide her sovereignty with the man in everything, from political and administrative leadership to washing the dishes and caring for nursing children! ... The document discusses adolescent pregnancy and the right a woman has over her own body. While we understand liberation as liberation of women from ignorance and backwardness, the guarding of her honor, and the struggle of traditions which sometimes diminishes her abilities, we must also deal with her considering her role as the nucleus of the family which in turn is the basic cell of society together with the desire for her actualization in mutuality, knowledge, and work.

I added that the Western woman has regrettably become more of a sex object than a collaborative co-partner and a constituent part in the building up of society. She prefers to be a "slave" to clothing designers, perfume manufacturers, and purveyors of makeup: those who mandate what she will wear and everything she needs to make herself pretty, how she will arrange her hair, sometimes even how she will walk and which shoes she should wear. She will not become truly liberated until she frees herself from the authority of those businessmen who rule over her life and who barter with and trade away her femininity and her beauty.

I said: I do not think that the Arab woman is better off, but, I believe that the European woman is even more miserable and wretched. Comparative statistics on the rates of suicide, the numbers of destroyed families, injuries at the hands of fugitives, criminals, and drug addicts all clearly indicate that Arab women have a higher percentage of stability and higher level of personal safety than their counterparts from the West.

Finally, I said, in summation, that of all the errors committed by many Westerners, and some Muslims, too, the worst by far has been to hold up the model of the Western woman as better and more advanced


..... if you would like to read more here is the link