Egyptian women: stock up on hijabs or support military dictatorship

As the Arab spring turns into winter for liberal secularists, dress codes for women are about to change. No more mini-skirts and uncovered heads are likely to be on public view. 

Islamist parties have topped the polls in recent elections in Tunisia and Morocco.  Egypt, it seems, is following suit. Egypt, moreover, has caught a more virulent form of Islam than Tunisia and Morocco, with predictably worse consequences for liberated women.

In the first round of voting in Egypt, the bloc led by the Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) is expected to win approximately 40 per cent of the vote. The second, more extremist Nour Party bloc is predicted to have secured 30 per cent of the vote.  If these predictions hold up, the Egyptian electorate will have chosen a conservative Islamic identity for their country.

Both parties threaten any notion of separation between mosque and state for Egypt. The electoral power of the Nour bloc is especially alarming, both for Egyptian women and for the West.  One segment of the Nour bloc, the Building and Development Party is the political arm of Jamaah al Islamaya, a former terrorist group with links to al Qaeda.  The Nour bloc seeks to impose Shariah law more swiftly and more severely than the FJP.

But neither the FJP nor the Nour bloc is free from anti-Semitism:

“A week ago in Cairo 5,000 people joined in a rally at the Al-Azhar mosque chanting a passage from the Koran, ‘one day we shall kill all the Jews.’ The rally was hosted by the Union of Muslim Scholars, whose leader, Youssef Qaradawi, is also the spiritual guide of the Muslim Brotherhood.” Editorial, ‘Egyptian women, stock up on scarves’, The Washington Times, December 5, 2011

Islamist electoral victories signal a retreat in women’s rights.  In Tunisia, for example, radicals have occupied a university, taking students and professors hostage, and demanding segregated classrooms and full-face veils for women.  And these are the very early days following democratic elections.

I suppose that, if women vote such ideologues into office, they deserve what they receive. Many Iranian women must have deeply regretted their support in the overthrow of the Shah during the thirty years of female oppression that have followed:

“Italian parliamentarian Fiamma Nirenstein  noted the ‘naive enthusiasm’ of western media coverage showing ‘Egyptian women queuing to vote, with their heads covered or uncovered, wearing  jeans or skirts, joyful, and hopeful about the wonderfully powerful instrument of elections.’  The scene will not be repeated in future elections under Islamist rule, if there are any. ‘Women,’ she warned, ‘prepare your scarves.’ ibid.

In Egypt, one alternative remains. Women may yet choose to pitch in their support for the military and a continuation to some form of secular dictatorship! 

In that event, Hosni Mubarak may yet climb out of his cage and return to his throne, emulating King Charles II of England in the Restoration of 1660.

 

Tags: Muslims win big in Egyptian elections, role of the generals, Shariah law extends its grip, women's rights back the the dark ages