Arab poet: empowered women building nations

Palm Beach Gardens, FL:

Arab women possess the DNA of social change.

When the Egyptian poet Hafez Ibrahim declared that “the mother is a school; empowering her is nation building,” he expressed a dream: if women were offered the social and economic opportunities they deserve, they would build strong nations.

Do poets today provoke the conscience of society as they did in the past?

For several centuries Arabs have been living too comfortably in a patriarchal society, where change in the right places is slow. Many women live under the protection of men with the faulty premise that they are the weaker sex. For too long men have exploited tradition, dictated the law and interpreted the scripture with self interest.

Underlying the marginalization of women are restrictive attitudes, customs and laws which regulate marriage, divorce, inheritance, enterprise, leadership and social mixing of the sexes.

Despite progress in access to schools and hospitals, the life of too many girls in the Arab world is regimented in childhood by authoritarian fathers and teachers, later by husbands and always by rulers.

Things are changing for the better in some aspects which do not require systemic change. For example, Arab women are flocking to the universities. More females are entering the labor market. Women are voting and have started to run for political office.

In closing the gender gap, there is more change in volume than in quality. Increase of female access to the academic institution and the labor market is not accompanied by quality education, creative output or equity of earning capacity. Arab women dramatically lag behind men in employment, salaries and access to political office. Female presence in the parliament, court and government is rare.

Men come up with attractive rationalization to justify personal and institutional discrimination. Authorities may opine that modernity is not culturally suitable. Men may view liberation of women as a form of rebellion against them; they often emotionally argue that sexual freedom of women degrades the honor of the family, fuels secularism and weakens morality.

Standard bearers in society are not pleased to see the status of their women compared with the status of women abroad. A recent global survey revealed that Arab states rank low on efforts to close the opportunity gap between men and women. See the 2010 Global Gender Gap Report -released this fall at the World Economic Forum in Geneva, Switzerland. The report analyzed differences of males and females in education, health and participation in the economy and politics. Among the 134 countries surveyed. With leading Arab scores in closing the gender gap, the United Arab Emirates ranked 103. Kuwait followed with a rank of 105, Bahrain 110, Lebanon 116, Qatar 117, Oman 122, Egypt 125, Saudi Arabia 129 and Yemen 134.

The majority of Arab states have signed the 1979 Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women. But they still retain serious reservations on some critical articles of the Convention, including those pertaining to marriage and inheritance.

Early in this decade Arab scholars reported that societal development is only possible when politics offers freedom, education engages the mind and the gender gap closes. See United Nations Development Program, Human Development Reports 2002- 2004. Such reports attract more dust than societal attention. Breakthroughs are hard to emerge when men are in charge of governance, public education and morality.

There are isolated signs of hope.

The theological argument for equality of women in family relations has already been successfully challenged in some countries. For example, polygamy is no longer legal in Tunisia.

The Moroccan feminist, Fatema Mernissi, and the Egyptian born, America- based Leila Ahmed have written on the rights of women to interpret the scripture. Ahmed explains that growing up in Egypt, like millions of other children, she did not acquire her faith through any formal training. Ahmed had absorbed her religion- of tolerance and appreciation of diversity- through daily contact with women in her extended family; and that was good enough, she argued.

Lifting women out of poverty through informal education is a story to tell. Reaching low-income mothers and young girls through community-based early child developed (ECD) programs has been effective in many areas of the region. Community-based ECD programs stimulate children’s growth, enable the mother and support the family. Empowerment programs targeting disadvantaged women have a multiplier effect in development.

Women should lead the gender movement, as it is the case around the globe. Arab women have over invested in charity work. They should call for the appointment of senior female judges, run for political office and demand quotas for participation in the parliament and leadership of labor. When women are active in courts, parliaments and governance, social change flows naturally. Resistance to gender equality is a product of hard-headed, self-serving male thinking.



Role models have emerged. Jordan’s Queen Rania is an international star of social causes. Perhaps the most popular Arab woman is Fayrouz, a Lebanese singer who embraced national unity during her country’s civil war. Syria’s first lady is supportive of civil society and modern business. Hanan Ashrawi, a Palestinian parliamentarian, is the most articulate spokesperson on the Arab Israeli conflict.

Arab women are experimenting with indigenous approaches to induce change in society. They deserve societal support in order to take additional risk in social action.

The potential for women as change agents remains largely untapped. The dynamics of inequality are largely political. It is not religion, stupid.

No security in US arms to Saudi Arabia

Palm Beach Gardens:

Often, the sale of arms may save jobs but not lives.

Thinking of Iran, Washington is selling expensive air power technology to Saudi Arabia and Israel. But the two client-states are neither in the same trench nor in a similar category of vulnerability.

While Israel worries about the possible development of atomic weapons in Iran, Saudi Arabia frets about the rise of power of Tehran-subsidized Shiite militia in the region, such as Hezbollah in Lebanon and Muqtada Al-Sadr Brigade in Iraq.

The Saudis do not need new weapons to handle grass-root opposition groups. Better treatment of minorities would go a long way to make the Gulf regimes safe. Israel may also not be much lacking in defense technology to enhance its security. Progress in the resolution of the Arab-Israeli conflict would significantly improve regional stability and weaken the raison d’être of militancy.

Saudi Arabia is about to squander sixty billion dollars in purchasing a large number of F-15 jet fighters, a fleet of the latest models of military helicopters and the most sophisticated of defense missile systems. In a deal recently submitted for congressional approval, the US will update existing Saudi weapons. In effect, Uncle Sam is soon to assume additional responsibility for military security in the Gulf. More billions will be spent by neighboring Gulf States on rearming.

The sixty billion dollar sale is being touted in Washington as an economic “stimulus” for generating American jobs. Washington’s massive re-armament recipe to strengthen Saudi Arabia is morally and strategically questionable.

The Saudis are paying top prices for American “protection”; the Israelis would pay with political tokens. The US asks Netanyahu to freeze construction on Palestinian land, for a mere two month period, to receive an overgenerous free package of support. Strange: while the Saudis run after Washington to buy its arms, Washington runs after Israel to dump foreign aid.

In what context is this deal taking place?

As the Mideast is desperately searching for ways to restart deadlocked peace talks, we find Washington, Israel and Saudi Arabia taking action on a possible war scenario. The pretext is “defending” the Arabian Gulf regimes against anticipated attacks from Iran, should a regional war flare up in the near future.

Washington is treating Iran as an adversary, not only of Israel, but also of those Arab countries who feel threatened by Ahmadinejad politics. Such a policy reinforces an already existing sectarian tension in the region, where Saudis represent the Sunnites and Iran the Shiites.

Is this unprecedented sale serving American interests?

Selling superfluous arms to the region may in the long run work against America’s interests. We are now pursuing the same policy we followed with Saddam Hussein in the 1980s, when we sold him arms during his war with Iran, a war which he started and did not know how to end. The US helped prolong the Iran- Iraq war; and this long war turned Saddam into a tyrant in search of external resources to survive politically. He invaded Kuwait and transformed his country into a full dictatorship. We ended up launching a war to end Saddam’s reign. And now we do not know how to end this Iraq war, which we started reflexively.

The Saudis could do much better with their money.

The Arabian Kingdom could improve its security without adding much to its military stockpile, a stockpile which is likely to remain largely unused and mostly managed by expatriates. Spending money on worthy causes in the region might do much better for Saudi Arabia’s security than amassing the latest of military hardware.

To illustrate, with ten billion dollars, the Saudis could pledge massive support for compensating and reintegrating Palestinian refugees as part of an Arab-Israeli peace agreement. The Saudis could challenge Israel and the US to pledge the same amount of money in contributing to the wellbeing of 4.7 million displaced refugees, whose plight poses a real challenge in resolving the Arab-Israeli conflict. With another ten billion dollars the Saudis could support its immediate neighbor Yemen, a miserably poor, war-ravaged and terror generating state.

The rush to war to resolve conflict fits the policy of rushing to sell arms in order to create jobs and justifies dumping of arms on foreign soil.