http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2010/983/cu5.htm
28 January - 3 February 2010
Issue No. 983
Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875
Let there be love
Two journalists, two women, two world views. Oprah Winfrey asked the questions,
Injy El-Kashef gave her answers
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"Would you consider yourself to be a closed minded woman, Injy?" was Oprah's
first question addressed to me on her episode on marriage around the world,
broadcast live from Chicago on 13 January and first aired in the Middle East
exactly two days ago, on the 26th. She had asked me the question teasingly,
with a girlish look on her face, a suppressed giggle and a mischievous bob of
the head. Her semi-rhetorical query, and my answer, made us both share a laugh
that was to set the tone for the rest of our encounter: reciprocal esteem,
underlying the mutual awareness of our cultural differences, and the
consciousness of the significant role our conversation would come to bear on
the global community. The Oprah Winfrey Show is, after all, the most popular
talk show in the world today.
"How did you land this?" a friend had asked me when she heard I was interviewed
on Oprah. "It landed on me!" I blurted excitedly, recounting how it all
happened. It was a perfectly regular afternoon. I was sitting at my laptop,
fiddling with my photography, when the mobile phone rang, drilling through
Anouar Brahem's piano in the beautiful afternoon light bathing the apartment. A
dear friend on the line asked in a haste: "Oprah is looking for Egyptian women
for an episode about divorce and marriage, are you interested?" Sure, why not,
had been my casual reply. Little did I realise, at that initial moment, the
seriousness of my response.
A producer, Lindsey, called from Chicago on the same day to chat for what I
assumed to be a preliminary interview. The line was terrible; we resorted to
Skype -- my first experience with this ingenious software. Curled up on my
couch in Cairo, I was bombarded with question after question on Egyptian women,
and it suddenly dawned on me -- as I laboured to offer as comprehensive and
clear an answer as possible to this American lady who was clueless about life
over here -- that social, religious and cultural dimensions of life in Egypt
were even more complicated and contradictory than I had hitherto thought.
I ventured to explain to Lindsey that "when you say 'Egyptian women', you refer
to one entity whereas, in truth, it is constituted of so many different layers
that to answer any of your questions comprehensively could take hours;
religion, as a set of rules, versus its current application in Egypt, could
take days." Lindsey was surprised, but hopeful that we could still shed some
light on these matters for Oprah's viewers, who were just as clueless as she
was about life in Egypt. "Anything you say will provide at least some
information; we know so very little, in the West, about how things really work
in Egypt, the Middle East and Islam," she encouraged me.
It was then that the sheer magnitude of the responsibility I would be assuming
if I participated in this episode dawned on me -- overwhelming. At a time when
misconceptions, misrepresentations and mistrust all but rule the relationship
between the Western world and the Middle East, every word I say would have the
potential to either bridge the gap a little, or widen it more and more. Despite
the responsibility it placed over my shoulders, or maybe because of it, I
realised that I must embrace this opportunity. I prayed; for three days, I
prayed, asking God to guide my words and to make of me a means through which
understanding and respect between the two polar worlds could increase, if only
a bit. Let there be love.
Stage One of the episode's segment on Egypt took the form of a round-table
discussion between sexologist Dr Heba Qutb, environmental economist Dr Hala
Abou-Ali, interior designer Heba Shunbo, and yours truly, moderated by Nanna
Norup, a lovely Danish lady whose participation Oprah had requested in order to
draw the contrast between cultures. For over two hours, at Dr Qutb's home, we
spoke of premarital sex, divorce, marriage, the veil and all their entwined
subtopics including education, employment, intramarital financial dependence
and single parenting. There were many laughs, but also moments of tension
engendered by a couple of judgmental remarks -- an increasing feature of
so-called "religiosity" in Egypt -- that served no purpose other than feed
Western perception of Islam as a rigid and prejudiced religion. I hoped that
said remarks would be edited out of the show, as we were informed that only
about eight minutes of our discussion were to feature in the episode to be seen
around the world. Sadly, they stayed.
The big day was finally upon us in Stage Two: Skype interview with Oprah, live.
I experienced a strange combination of serenity and nervousness: I was
internally calm, yet my hands remained icy. The world would be watching. The
crew adjusting the light in the studio, setting up the camera and microphone to
connect them with Skype provided welcome distractions until 4.55 pm Cairo time.
Then the countdown began and, five minutes later, in walked Oprah on the studio
plateau to applause. I thought the audience could hear my heart beating in my
chest all the way in Chicago.
Lady O was her usual welcoming and casual self, deflating the apprehension we
were experiencing on the Nile Corniche studio as we waited for the questions.
The producers' choice of interviewees had settled on Heba Shunbo and me -- each
of us representing a different Egyptian female voice, for a more realistic
demonstration of the complex fabric of current local society. I had already
answered questions about my hijab during the Stage One discussion, and knew I
should expect more to pop up. I was right. The local disagreement about the
necessity of hijab in Islam, the women who wear it without any conscious
understanding of it but out of cultural conformity, the girls who adopt it over
highly suggestive clothing and heavy make-up, those who take it to self-
imposed extremes never required of them and the back and forth judgments cast
among them all understandably confuses the West. Nor does the current Muslim
world's slipping into a general focus on appearances and neglect of spiritual
essence, translated into behavioural trends that are often self-sabotaging,
help to advance its cause at all. Of course they are confused. We are confused.
It is quite telling, and closer to an accurate image of Egypt, that Oprah's
questions elicited two opposing answers from her two Egyptian guests almost
invariably. What seemed to come as a surprise to Oprah, however, was that the
veiled woman felt the less "repressed" of the two. "Do you feel oppressed,
Injy?" My honest answer was "no". Coming back for more, O asked again, "But do
you wish you had more freedoms, Injy?" Again, in all honesty, "no" -- "Fill a
room with women from around the world," I told Oprah, "and you will find that
Egyptian women are just as qualified to compete 'as a woman' on all levels as
any other, if not more. We are educated, we have a mind of our own...we have
our obstacles and our challenges but we are perfectly 'capable', as women."
Divorce in Egypt which, according to Norup, was found to have reached the
highest rate in the entire Middle East, was another hot topic. My answer to
Oprah's question as to why so many marriages ended in divorce these days was
simple: "Men are no longer really men any more, nor are women really women.
There is a serious identity crisis here. Men and women still have a prototype,
in their heads, of what a man should be like and what a woman should be like.
Neither of them complies with this prototype, yet each of them expects the
other to comply with the prototype. The result is disillusionment, frustration,
and, hence, divorce." The more I spoke, the more I realised how confused our
society had really become.
Oprah, who sent me a beautiful gift following our encounter, described our
conversation as "fascinating". The world now has a clearer perception of
today's Egypt. My wish is that my fellow countrymen, briefly in the global
spotlight by proxy in every home around the world that watches the Oprah
Winfrey Show, would seize this opportunity to take an objective glimpse at
themselves through the answers provided on the show -- whether they agreed with
them or not -- by attempting to answer them themselves. Why do women wear
hijab? Why is divorce on the rise? Why do men and women not comply with the
prototypes they still retain of each other in their collective unconscious and
what are they replacing them with? Why is the economy not helping young couples
marry at a reasonable age for sexual gratification in an Islamic country? Why
do we judge the West while we lack basic understanding of our own culture? And
why, just why, do we judge each other when we have so much work to do on
ourselves?
European delight
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