(en) France, Alternative Libertaire AL #251 - Read:
Christiane Passevant "dissident Women in the Middle East" (fr, it, pt)
[machine translation]
Christiane Passevant book dissenting Women in the Middle East a set of four interviews
illustrated with many photographs of women, three Israeli and an Egyptian who have
dedicated their lives to try to change things in their countries. Including the rights of
women, of course, and Christiane Passevant continues to ask them about the situation of
women's rights in their countries (abortion, gender equality ...). All claim to feminism
and so struggling against the current in conservative and patriarchal societies. ---- But
they want to change things, also, more generally, for human rights, for justice and
equality among peoples, for socialism and democracy against fundamentalisms, whether from
Islamic fundamentalists or Zionists .
These interviews were conducted essentially at two points: the first in the early 1990s,
the second in 2006. In between, the situations in the countries concerned have changed
dramatically for the better and especially for worse: one and measures the continuous fall
in the hope of a just and lasting peace in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Since then,
with the revolutions of the Arab Spring, the situation is still deeply transformed. We
regret that the women interviewed did not have after these events, including, of course,
the Egyptian feminist Nawal Al Saadawi. Nevertheless, besides its obvious historical
interest, non-actual character of these interviews is to perceive the timelessness of
certain issues specific to the region.
Above all, they allow us to see that despite the barriers imposed by religious and racial
intolerance such as gender oppression, it is possible to give rise to solidarity. For Arna
Mer Khanis, disappeared in 1995, through the development of an educational project for
children of refugee-es Jenin camp in the West Bank. For the lawyer Lea Tsemel, defending
in court the rights too often violated by Palestinian men and more generally while leading
an anti-Zionist struggle. Michal Schwartz, informing on the abuses of Israeli armed forces
from the first Intafada (1987), which earned him to be arrested and imprisoned by the Shin
Bet. Finally, Nawal Al Saadawi, the Egyptian, was the struggle for the emancipation of
women and against religious fundamentalism her struggle since 1982, when it created the
Solidarity Association of Arab women. Offensive about their direct and allow for, after
all, living hope.
Vincent (G Paris-Sud)
Christiane Passevant, dissenting Women in the Middle East , 2015, libertarian Editions,
145 pages, 13 euros.
http://www.alternativelibertaire.org/?Lire-Christiane-Passevant-Femmes
