Egyptian women are saying 'Enough!'
By Michael Slackman The New York Times
FRIDAY, JUNE 10, 2005
CAIRO Convincing men to acquiesce to the will of the authorities by
pressuring their female relatives has been a time-honored government practice
in Egypt. If the authorities could not find a wanted man, for example, they
might take their wives and daughters into custody.
But now, a recent attack on a small group of women, in which they
were groped and assaulted by a crowd of men chanting support for the ruling
National Democratic Party while the police stood by and watched, has helped to
unify and motivate various groups that have been calling for a more open and
democratic government.
The images of women being groped and beaten - particularly
offensive in this conservative Islamic society - have helped unite groups as
diverse as the religion-based Muslim Brotherhood and the left-leaning Center
for Socialist Studies in their calls for change.
For a country where political life has atrophied after more than
two decades of living under emergency laws, the attacks have also inspired many
new people to become politically active, in general creating a backlash that
has taken the government by surprise.
"At least now there is dialogue and meetings between us as
Communists and the Muslim Brotherhood," said Kamal Khalil, director of the
Center for Socialist Studies. "We share our visions and there is a kind of
coordination - of course the event, assaults of Wednesday the 25th, helped - we
can't deny this."
Those assaults last month also seem to have jump-started the
women's movement here. It is not a Western-style feminist movement but one in
which women have moved to take the lead in a political battle for empowerment.
"We are opening a real popular female movement," said Ghane El
Halafawy, a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, speaking Thursday night at a
forum called "The Street is Ours," which was organized by women who were
attacked.
It has been less than a year since the once unthinkable began to
occur in Egypt's political life: Groups of people started taking to the streets
criticizing President Hosni Mubarak, a line few had been willing to cross
before. But the movement called itself "kifay," or "enough," and its goal was
to stop Mubarak from a sixth term as president.
In February, Mubarak agreed to allow more than one candidate,
himself, in the race for president. On May 25, on the day of a scheduled
referendum to amend the Constitution, a small group of protesters met in
central Cairo, insisting that the referendum was no more than a fig leaf. They
were greeted by an army of riot policemen and undercover security agents and
uniformed officers. Witnesses said groups of men who arrived in buses were
allowed, with the police standing by, to attack and beat the protesters.
Witnesses said that in some instances the police kept protesters cordoned in,
while the men beat them.
While the violence made for national news here, the images and
stories of women whose clothes were torn and bodies groped have caused the
greatest backlash against the government. The ruling National Democratic Party,
or NDP, has condemned the attacks and government supporters deny that there was
any strategy to intimidate women.
"That was a crime, no doubt about it," said Abdul Moneim Said, a
member of the party and director of the Al Ahram Center for Political and
Strategic Studies, a government-aligned research group. "It was denounced by
people from the NDP as well as from the outside. It could be anything, a number
of zealous people from the NDP who did it. It could be certain people who are
offended by some of the slogans made against the president or something and it
could be a mix of all this. It is now under investigation; there is a case in
front of the public attorney."
But Said acknowledged that whatever the cause, it has helped
inspire those who have taken to the streets. "It is actually attracting more
attention because it makes people furious, it touched on women," he said.
Since the attacks, newspapers have reported on the event with
headlines like "The Scandal," which appeared last week in Al Khamis, an
independent weekly newspaper. There was a call for a national day of mourning,
there was a sit-in, protesters have begun calling that day Black Wednesday and
crowds have begun to grow as protests have become more regular.
On Thursday night, several hundred people stood at the foot of the
mausoleum for Saad Zaghoul, a temple in central Cairo that honors the
nationalist former prime minister who is a symbol of resistance against the
British. As the crowds held candles and shouted "Enough, enough we've reached
the end," an army of security agents stood at the ready, riot police officers
in full black uniforms, and a small cluster of the city's security chiefs, men
in dark suits, nearby watching, quietly.
Rabaa Fahmy, a lawyer who was groped during the attacks, stood
quietly in the back of the crowd, a candle. in her right hand.
"I came here after I saw you in the papers," said Sumaya Ahmed, 26,
an accountant, as she approached Fahmy. "I am very provoked by what happened. I
wasn't intimidated by what happened on Wednesday; it encouraged me because we
must assert the rights of those people who were beaten and humiliated."
The protest had a festive feel as some of the protesters taunted
the security agents, who stood by quietly. When one of the security chiefs
approached the crowd and said it was time to depart, a group mocked him,
shouting in his face, as he walked away slowly, flicking prayer beads between
his fingers.
"Overnight we have become national symbols," Fahmy said.
Then on Wednesday, about 350 people filled a conference room at the
Journalists' Syndicate, a building that houses what is essential a union, or
professional organization. At the forum, which was attended by equal number of
men and women, those who spoke covered the diversity of Egypt, from a poor
farmer in the Deltas, to a university professor at Cairo American College, to a
member of the Muslim Brotherhood. Their anger poured out, uncorking a list of
grievances, including being groped regularly on buses, and calls for ending
emergency laws enacted after the assassination of Anwar Sadat in 1982. But the
message was all about fighting for political power.
Mona El-Naggar contributed reporting to this article.
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