Historical and geographical glimpse:
The Arab states are the states which include the territory located in the east of Mediterranean Sea, the territory of the Arabian Gulf, the basin of the Nile River and North Africa. Theses states are alike in many aspects (characteristics and distinctions) which are logically put them all, as Arab states or Arab territory, under a wide item of the academic studies.
The majority of the population of these countries is Arabs who speak Arabic, which is the formal language. The religion of the majority of them is Islam. They share the same history. Their countries were in the core of the Islamic civilization, and in the center of the continuous Islamic states.
They were subjected to the Ottoman Empire for about four centuries and then to the domination of the victorious states in World War One. The liberation movements that were formed led the mentioned countries to independence in the 1950’s. These countries were subjected to the domination of royal or republican political systems, which were all tyrannous.
The Arab societies have nearly the same traditions. All the Arab states are enrolled in The Arab League.
A group of the enlightened intellectuals led a movement of knowledge in the last quarter of the 19th century. This movement formed the beginning of what was later called the Age of the Arabic Renaissance, in their call for liberation and knowledge. Liberation of women and revive the respect to her as a human being were of the most important items in these movements. The tyranny of the Arab political systems that remained attached to the occupying countries, which strengthened and supported its existence, stopped those movements.
The Palestinian issue forms one of the most serious challenges in the region and is an obstacle to the normal and peaceful evolution of our societies. The main principle of the Palestinian issue is the right of the Palestinians to return to their lands that they were driven of to the near Arab states, during the war of 1948 between the Arabs and Zionists. Israel, supported by the United States and the strong colonial states in general, occupied more lands of other Arab countries. The Arab-Israeli conflict is still on in the region. That conflict would not stop unless the Palestinian case was fairly solved and the rights were back where it belongs.
In spite of all the difficult circumstances of our peoples in the modern age, women made a great and rapid stride since the age of the Arabic Renaissance with the help of efforts of many enlightened men and pioneer intellectual women, although societies still look at women with inferiority until this very day.
The situation of women resembles in all Arab countries, with a very few simple differences between one country and another. This fact allows us to study the situation in all Arab countries in general usefully, focusing on what women had earned in some Arab countries and the reasons of that, in order to benefit those experiences and spread them in the other Arab countries.
The Arab women’s struggle to earn their rights could not be separated from the political circumstances of the Arab countries, which are considered as the most important challenges to the movement of women’s liberation in those countries.
The political challenges:
Living under the tyrannous systems:
The tyrannous, totalitarian systems grasped the peoples of the region, and “swallowed” the society with what is in it, putting society into custody and driving it away from political action. They even banned parties and trade unions, which played an important role in the strife against colonialism. The one party system which means one man system, transformed the other parties in the progressive front in Syria, into tails to authorities. The presence of these parties in the parliaments is false.
The oppositional parties are subjected to detection, prison and torment, to an extent that they are not real parties any more. The trade unions and public organizations, among them women’s organizations, transformed into useless governmental organizations. The various communities were banned.
The authorities also played a bad role against the meaning of democracy and civil society and pictured them as intruding concepts to our societies. The education of fear, on the other hand, led to spread the silence education, and dominance of strength against weakness. And, instead of dependence on the establishments of the civil society, the people depended on tribes, clans and ethnic buildings.
The movements of the women’s liberation stopped. We, the committee of Supporting Women Causes, which established for 4 years, are unregisted till now. We aim, under the above mentioned circumstances, to lift the level of consciousness. We make some studies, although we are threatened by the emergency law of 1963 which forbids also any activity. We finance our activities from our pockets.
Women and the situation of the political decision:
The situation of women in the center of the decision resemble in all Arab countries, so we can take Syria as an example to all Arab countries. But we should notice that some Arab countries, like Saudi Arabia and some countries in the Arabian Gulf.
Syria was one of the first countries that gave women the right to elect in 1949, and she was represented in the parliament for the first time by two deputies in 1960. Today, there are 30 deputies in the Parliament which is 12% of the deputies. But the members are either from the governing party, or from those parties in the Syrian Progress Front (SPF), or of those who support the governing party. 27 out of 30 female deputies are from the governing party. On the other hand, women in the parliament couldn’t demand or achieve any changes in the applied systems, laws or conditions for women’s sake.
We used to see two women in each government for thirty years. These two women are necessary for decoration.
Foreign tries for domination:
As mentioned above, the great colonial powers do not cease their continuous tries to dominate this region, because of its strategic importance, and valuable resources, especially oil. So, the Arab people suspect any relationship with the great powers in general, and the U.S.A in particular. They do not believe the American claims of sending thousands of soldiers and paying millions of dollars only to spread justice and democracy in Iraq, especially after they saw several terrible effects of the American occupation, which led to killing thousands of civilians, encouraged terrorism and established elections on racist basis instead of citizenship basis. Those factors and other ones would contribute in dividing Iraq and weakening it, those factors also contribute in making Iraqi women situation even worse from what it was in the previous days. Arab peoples do not trust the “great middle east project” which was supposed to be for fixing situations of peoples of the region, according to the American administration. The Arab peoples believe that that project aims to changing peoples of the region to be suitable with the American interests. This may be why Saudi women assured to Mrs. Hues, the assistant of American secretary for foreign affairs, that they are satisfied with their situation and society. I think they did that only to make it clear to her that they refuse any foreign custody. In fact, change comes from the inside of a society, and democracy cannot be forced, as Mrs. Rice stated a few days ago.
These suspicions led to suspecting the goals of any foreign funding or training. What assured those suspicions that some organizations that have foreign funding showed more loyalty to their sponsors more than they showed to their countries. Corruption has spread in about 70% of those organizations and they were separated from the societies they were created in, then they were separated from the goal they were created for, also from general democratic struggle, and the newly born movements of civil society, that should cooperate -considering the distinctions of circumstances in each Arab country- in a patriot strong movement that raises the basics for having a civil society and democratic system, in the framework of a democratic state.
The cultural challenges:
For many centuries, women were considered lower than men, until women themselves were convinced they are. Islam was interpreted to suit men and that pictured all forms of distinguishing against women as a holy action. Islam turned to a hostile religion against women after it was a great help for her. Both communist and national projects failed, so the extreme religious movements were at the front. All that spread the call for hijab and that women should stay at home, where she belongs, according to those movements, so movements of liberating women were stopped, after she played her role, besides men, in the battles of independence and building the national state.
The Challenges of Law:
Women and law:
Women suffer from unfair laws, especially in the field of personal laws. The items in these personal laws are very similar in all the Arab countries, with simple differences between one country and another.
The Syrian constitution acknowledges the complete rights of women, but this contradicts completely with the personal law in every thing; marriage, divorce, heritage, education, working, traveling without the husband’s permission, giving her nationality to her children, and so on. Criminal law is very unfair to women, that Syrian law acknowledges many special cases, like freeing a rapist if he marries his victim, or allowing a husband to rape his wife, and so on.
The demands for any changing in personal laws is faced with a previously prepared unconvincing reason: changing would contradict with Islam, although many recent Islamic researches proved that Islam is not the real obstacle to changing personal law, and that changing the law to make it more fair to women does not contradict with the goals of Islam. Also, most items of the Syrian modern civil and criminal laws were inspired by the modern western laws; slavery was banned, and the punishment for murder, stealing and infidelity were replaced with ones fit the modern age, and they are different from punishments in Islam. All that happened with nobody objecting.
On the other hand, law kept items that contain distinction against women that are still applied since the Ottoman Empire era.
What prevents modifying law is the paternal male mind, which is still controlling our societies in all aspects.
SIDAW convent:
To demolish all kinds of distinctions against women.
Most of Arab states signed the above mentioned convent. Although Saudi Arabia signed the convent, women are forbidden from being candidates to the parliament, having identity cards, or driving cars. We could see this contradiction because the convent gave the signing states the opportunity to make reservations that took off the whole meaning of the convent, so the convent didn’t achieve any positive effect on the situation of women in the countries that signed the convent. These objectives should be re-considered in order to have more benefit of the convent.
Women and social traditions:
The most serious distinctions against women are old traditions that are alike all over the Arab world. Those traditions makes family a tool to prevent women from their simplest rights, supposedly because they have to raise children and keep their virtue. There are no protective laws; all forms of violence on a gender basis are being hidden.
Women are not allowed to learn, and are forbidden from any kind of participating in social activities in the field of sports or in any other social field. Girls are forced to marry very young. Above all, traditions are actually stronger than law and religion in some communities, especially in the country where women are prevented from inheriting for example.
Women and work:
The situations of working women in all Arab countries are alike: her contribution is small and she works in the lowest sectors of the general working market. Many women work for the family without any wages, especially in the country. Usually, women work in traditional sectors (such as agriculture and services) and they rarely work in some more developed sectors (such as industry, trade, banking, etc.). Also, female work owners are very few compared to male work owners. The bigger salary and professional qualities, the fewer women we find. And in addition to all that, women makes a huge effort in domestic work and raising children without any help from man in most cases, even if she is a working women.
Women and education:
The rate of ignorance among women in general, is terrifying, but it is much higher among the women in the country. The rate of ignorance among women in Syria, for example, is 25.8%. It rises to 34.8% in the country, and it is 17.8% in the cities.
In spite of increasing the obliged learning to the end of the preparatory school (the 9th grade), the rate of pupils who do not go to elementary schools is 25-28%. And no more than 6% of them reach to the universities.
Women and health:
The situation of health for women in Syria is one of the best among the Arab countries; women still suffer from a high rate of fertility with an average of 3.8%, and from low conditions in the field of common health regarding bearing.
Future of Improving Situations of Arab Women:
The way is very long and very difficult, but the journey of a thousand miles starts with one pace. And if we still do not have steady paces, the newer coming generations will have steadier ones, no doubt.
We must conform that healing the situation of Arab women is attached to improving political and regional circumstances, so that negative effects of occupation, foreign interests and tyranny are demolished; with no democracy, and civil society there is no way to improve situation of women. The best raw model for success of the movements of civil society in Morocco, where crucial changes for women’s sake in personal laws were achieved by democratic struggle. In the same time, the American occupation to Iraq was a main reason to the terrifying situations of Iraqi women.
Struggle for liberating women includes spreading an alternative culture, that depends on equality between man and women, applying an alternative family law that keeps the rights for all family members, modifying all the items of law that contains distinctions against women, educating her, keeps her health services, creating all the suitable circumstances for her to contribute a real and effective contribution to all aspects of political, social, economic and cultural life and fighting trading her body, with giving a special care to country women and girls.
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