Middle East November 2005

Female Chaplain Has Afghans Confounded. [Afghanistan] The Afghan soldiers rested in their cool, dark barracks at a former Soviet base. When the American soldiers walked in, they jumped up from their bunk beds and floor cushions, shaking hands warmly all around. But when they got to the American lieutenant, the Afghans simply stared open-mouthed: A woman. In a U.S. Army uniform. With a cross on her chest. The interpreter tried to explain, but the Afghans seemed at a loss until Lt. Rebekah Montgomery told them, "I'm like a mullah" -- an Islamic religious leader. At that, the Afghan soldiers smiled and nodded. But their glances at one another showed that the idea of a female mullah army officer was about as realistic as a flying cow.

Conservative Afghan City Elects A Woman. [Arghanistan] Fauzia Gailani is an unlikely election winner in this conservative, western city: an aerobics instructor, a mother of six and, most obviously, a woman. But somehow Gailani won 16,885 votes in the recent parliamentary race, more than any other candidate in Herat province and more than any other woman in Afghanistan. Only 20 men nationwide won more votes than Gailani. Her campaign posters hang in living rooms and stores. Women talk about how she has helped them lose weight and how she's better than any man. Men talk about her as if she's a sex symbol. Her victory is all the more shocking because it happened in Herat, the province where the one-time conservative governor oppressed women almost as much as the Taliban officials he replaced. It's just one sign of how life has changed for women since strongman Ismail Khan was removed as provincial governor in September 2004. Under Khan, it was rare to see a woman on the streets of Herat, even in a burqa. Now women shop in the markets. Although many still are in burqas, some wear the Iranian-style chador, which cloaks a woman in black but shows her face. Women work in some shops. A few women even have a driver's license. Not everything has changed. Women still set themselves on fire to protest unwanted marriages. Although some women have driver's licenses, they rarely drive. One woman in a burqa chastised another woman for wearing only a head scarf. The win by Gailani, who often wears just a head scarf, has significance beyond Herat. For many, women such as Gailani, with no ties to the brutal past, are the bright spot in the new parliament, which will be filled largely with former warlords, fighters and clerics. Final results in the historic Sept. 18 parliamentary elections are expected to be announced soon. But unofficial results indicate that many women would have been elected even if 68 of the 249 seats had not been reserved for them.

Chatterjee Confident Women's Bill Will Be Passed Soon. [India] Saying India has a unique Constitutional provision to reserve one-third seats for women in local bodies both in rural and urban areas, Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee today expressed confidence that Women's Reservation Bill will be passed in Parliament in the near future. Pressure from women's groups and other concerned citizens would prove to be successful in empowering women further in the political sphere in the near future, he said while inaugurating the fourth international congress on 'Women, Work and Health' here. He expressed the hope that the bill to provide 33 per cent reservation for women in legislative bodies would be passed during his tenure as Speaker.

Women MPs Walk Tightrope on Khushboo. [India] South Indian actress Khushboo’s remarks on premarital sex seem to have become the proverbial hot potato for women MPs with most too scared to comment, some criticizing her outright and only very few defending her. Khushboo has been under virulent attack in Tamil Nadu, where she is accused of hurting Tamil sentiment by her statement that premarital sex was okay if it was protected. Several defamation cases have been filed against her and prominent actress Suhasini Maniratnam who came out in her defense. While the treatment meted out to the beleaguered actress, who was reduced to tears and made to apologize for her statement, provoked outrage amongst liberal circles, most women MPs were scared of joining Suhasini’s ranks by supporting her outright. They belonged to all parties and all levels of seniority in parliament.

Women Speak Out. [India] Sania Mirza and formula One champion Narain Karthikeyan were asked what they made of the "Kushboo controversy". A news agency reported Sania as saying, "I think there are two separate issues, AIDS and pre-marital sex. Whether it is before or after marriage, people should have safe sex. And about pre-marriage sex, you can't stop people and hence the best way is to play it safe." Karthikeyan was reported saying, "South India is a closed society. There was nothing wrong in what Kushboo said, but it spiralled into a big issue because of the media." Karthikeyan is a Tamilian but there were no "spontaneous" demonstrations across Tamil Nadu condemning his support for Kushboo who has been charged with defaming "the Tamil people". In fact, what Kushboo said was not very different from Sania's remarks. She was speaking in the context of the spread of HIV and advocating safe sex in all situations. It is precisely this kind of celebrity endorsement of safe sex that is used by AIDS activists to create awareness about the issue. Yet, it appears that women celebrities are not entitled to make a "safe" remark about sex.

Chess. [Israel] The quadrennial World Team Championship is underway in Beer Sheva in Israel. A super championship for the top teams in the preceding continental championships and Olympiad, this generally has a field of 10. Unfortunately, this time the African champions, Egypt, declined their invitation, so there are just nine teams " but they're a highly impressive group nonetheless, consisting of Russia, Ukraine, the US, Armenia, Georgia, Cuba, China, the Chinese Women (winners of last year's Women's Olympiad) and Israel themselves.

Appointees in Charge of Women’s Status from the Civil Service Commission Visit the Arab Sector. [Israel] 55 appointees in charge of women’s status from the Civil Service Commission participated in a visit to the Arab sector that was organized and initiated by The Abraham Fund Initiatives, as part of The Abraham Fund’s program to promote ties with the government and as a result of increasing cooperation with the Civil Service Commission. The visit took place within the framework of the annual convention of the Civil Service Commission’s Appointees in Charge of Women’s Status and was accompanied and planned by the appointee in charge of promoting and integrating women in the Civil Service, the training department of the Civil Service Commission and The Abraham Fund Initiatives. This year, the annual conference was devoted to women in Arab society. In this context, appointees were exposed to a number of issues related to Arab women in Israel.

Three Iraqis Linked to Al-Zaraqwi Carried Out Bombing. [Jordan] Jordan said Sunday that three al-Qaida in Iraq bombers from Iraq carried out the Amman hotel attacks while one of their wives was arrested before blowing herself up. Deputy Prime Minister Marwan Muasher identified each of the militants, including the woman, who he said was also the sister of Jordanian-born Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's former righthand man in Iraq's volatile Anbar province, who was killed by U.S. forces in Fallujah. Muasher identified the three Iraqi bombers as Ali Hussein Ali al-Shamari, from Anbar; Rawad Jassem Mohammed Abed, 23; and Safaa Mohammed Ali, 23. Al-Shamari's wife was identified as Sajida Mubarak Atrous al-Rishawi, 35, who is also the sister the slain former militant Mubarak Atrous al-Rishawi.

Khoury-Ghata Digs Up Her Past in 'A House at the Edge of Tears'. [Lebanon] Venus Khoury-Ghata has published 16 novels and 13 poetry collections. She has won the Mallarme and Apollinaire literary prizes and was a finalist for last year's National Book Critics Circle award, nominated for her groundbreaking cycle of poems entitled "She Says." Though she writes in French (she has lived in Paris since 1973), her work has been translated into Arabic, Dutch, English, German, Italian and Russian. She was named a Chevalier de la Legion d'Honneur in France in 2000, the latest in a long line of accolades that began with her winning the "Miss Beirut" title in 1959. It took more than 40 years of writing, however, before she tackled her own life - and with it her family and her childhood - as subject matter. Her novel "A House at the Edge of Tears" was published in French in 1998. Now, with a translation by fellow poet Marilyn Hacker, it is being released for the first time in English this month. Khoury-Ghata's autobiographical turn is all the more significant for how much her writing is about language and the process of writing itself, and for the fact that she began writing the day her brother stopped. "Forty years later," she writes, "I throw sentences on the page in great shovelfuls, with a noise of falling earth, as I dig into my shame like a grave." "A House at the Edge of Tears" is, in many ways, the story of Khoury-Ghata's brother more so than the story of her. It is written for, about, in honor and in memory of a him who is rarely named ("Victor") but is almost always addressed in the second person ("You"). The shame Khoury-Ghata digs into is rooted in an incident, circa 1950, which opens the novel. After tossing his wife and three daughters out onto the street, her father ties his son to the floor and beats him nearly to death, waking the neighbors in five ramshackle dwellings arranged around a dank pool, a garden of nettles and a pomegranate tree.

A Karachi Girl's Life as Exchange Student in U.S. [Pakistan] Half a world away from her close-knit family and her home in Karachi, Pakistan, Tayyaba Rizvi has found herself warmly welcomed into the busy household of her new "mom," Bonnie Schutts, and new "sister," Kayla, age 11. Rizvi finds Dunn County's rural landscape and comparatively low population density a marked contrast to the very crowded city of Karachi. Schutts' large extended family gathers often, giving Rizvi, one of 16 foreign exchange students this year at Menomonie High School, a familiar connection to home and to family life. She remembers how at first she was surprised at "how few people are around."

Pakistan Gang Rape Victim Gets Glamour Award, $20,000 in New York. [Pakistan] A Pakistani activist who says she was gang-raped by men seeking revenge on her family was honored at Glamour magazine's Women of the Year awards ceremony Wednesday night for her fight against oppression in her homeland. "This award is a victory for poor women; it's a victory for all women," said the activist, Mukhtar Mai, who has spoken often of her battle against a system in Pakistan that allowed a tribal council to deem it acceptable that four men could rape her to avenge their honor after her brother allegedly had sex with a woman above his class

Women Run For First Time in Saudi Polls. [Saudi Arabia] Seventeen Saudi businesswomen are among candidates in an election beginning on Saturday for a local trade and industry chamber, the first vote of its kind in the conservative Muslim kingdom to include women. A total of 71 candidates are bidding for 12 seats in the November 26-29 election of board members for the Trade and Industry Chamber of Jeddah. “We all are very excited and optimistic. I could not sleep in recent days,” candidate Lama Sulaiman said. “As new faces in the polls, we had to work very hard ... The feedback we have had so far was encouraging.” Ulfat Qabbani, who runs a firm manufacturing perfume for export, was optimistic about the outcome of the polls, for which most of the voters will be men. Women account for only about 10 percent of the chamber’s members. “We should win at least two seats in these polls,” she said. Saudi Arabia held its first nationwide elections for municipal councils earlier this year. Women were barred from voting or standing for office but officials have said that they will be allowed to stand in the next vote in four years’ time.

In Syria, a Tale of Romance and Power. [Syria] It was a love story that captured the imagination of many Syrians: a man and a woman defied her father, eloped and lived happily ever after. But for many people it was not the romance that made the story compelling, it was how the tale spoke of power. The woman was Bushra al-Assad, the daughter of the former Syrian president, Hafez al-Assad, and the man, Asef Shawkat, was to become Syria's head of military intelligence. The father - who was president from 1971 until his death in 2000 - and his oldest son, Basil, opposed the marriage of Bushra and Shawkat, a divorced father of five who was 10 years her senior. But after Basil died in a car crash in 1994 and Bushra insisted, they eloped, and a decade later they have emerged as one of the most powerful couples in Syria.

Turkish PM Links Head Scarf Law to French Riots. [Turkey] Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has linked the ban on the wearing of Muslim head scarves by girls in French schools to the unrest inflaming poor suburbs of French cities, according to a press report Monday. In an interview with Milliyet newspaper, Erdogan said "the process begun in France in the schools" was one explanation for the worsening violence marked by the destruction of thousands of vehicles, vandalism of schools and attacks on police stations. Erdogan, who became involved in Turkish politics through the now-disbanded Islamist National Salvation Party and in 1999 was jailed for four months on a charge of inciting religious hatred, said the law banning the hijab (Islamic headscarf) in schools had contributed to migrants' sense of exclusion and "stirred up" the violence.