Nawal El Saadawi

Author(s): Nawal el Saadawi and Jo Beall

Source: Agenda: Empowering Women for Gender Equity, No. 5 (1989), pp. 33-39
Published by: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. on behalf of Agenda Feminist Media
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 33

INTERVIEW

Nowol El Soodowi
Nawal el Saadawi, the well-known Egyptian
feminist writer and activist was recently in London
attending a conference on Islam in Africa. Jo
Beall interviewed her for AGENDA.

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Nawal el Saadawi

I Jo: There are so many things I know our readers would like me to ask you
lq: aboutL I don't know where to begin! You are a medical doctor although women
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in Southi Mfrica know you better as a novelist and writer. But they know of
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you from what you have done as well as what you have written. You have
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 34

INTERVIEW NAWAL EL SAADAWI

I

spoken from many international platforms and in your own country you are
known for your militancy and your activism. For this you served time as a
political prisoner, a fate shared by many South African women. You are
perhaps most well known as an uncompromising feminist. As some South
African women would argue that they are against women's oppression but that
they are not feminists, perhaps we could talk about that first.

Nawal: Yes. In our region, in Egypt, in Africa - and I say this because people
sometimes think Egypt is outside Africa and it is not, I am an African woman
- in our region we understand feminism in the broad sense. We want liberation
from national oppression, from colonial or international exploitation, from
legal oppression, from sexual oppression and from family oppression. It has
all these dimensions. Where we differ a little from say Britain, is that we
cooperate with men in our organisation, the Arab Women's Solidarity
Association. Thirty per cent of our members are men. My husband is a
member. He calls himself a feminist and understands what we are doing. We
can be comrades and work together and fight together.

You see, we women cannot liberate ourselves as one half of the population in
isolation from the other half, men. This is the problem with the patriarchal
system. Men have tried to liberate themselves without women. And where has
it got us? This system has ended in what we are suffering now - war,
oppression, invasion, exploitation, colonialism and neo-colonialism. The input
of women over the last century is that we have said we want better than this.
But our task is to cure both men and women of this patriarchal class system,
because both are suffering from it.

So that is how we understand feminism. It is a battle on many fronts. It is a

political battle, it is a sexual battle, it is a psychological battle and we have to
fight on all these fronts. That is why feminists in our country go to gaol. When
I was speaking this exact same language under Sadat, I found myself in gaol.
When you understand feminism well, you endanger the class system. If
feminists in Britain understand feminism in this political and international
sense, they can threaten Thatcher!

Jo: Feminists have sometimes claimed a universal sisterhood exists or is

possible, based on shared experiences that all women have in common, by
virtue of being women. In South Africa, however, many women are doubtful
that sisterhood can be achieved there between black and white women and
women of different class backgrounds, under the present regime at any rate. In
some ways the problems that exist in working towards an international
sisterhood are found in South Africa in microcosm. Do you have any thoughts
on that?
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INTERVIEW NAWAL EL SAADAWI

I

Nawal: Well yes. Sisterhood in Africa, especially in countries like South

Africa - when you have the very hot issue of national independence, or foreign
invasion, or a racist apartheid system - all these political issues come to the
front. For women participating in the fight against apartheid, whether black
women or white women, of course this is a priority. This is the same with other
struggles in the world. With the Palestinian women for example, you cannot
expect them to think about feminist issues when the whole country is invaded
by Israel. Also, upper class women sometimes do not have the same problems
as women who are poor.

But, if we really understand the link between political, social, economic and
sexual oppression, we can put women's liberation within the liberation of the
whole country. And that is what we are doing in Egypt. The more we learn
about this linkage the more we become aware that feminism does not contradict
national independence or the fight against class. Fighting gender oppression
is part of it. And it is possible to create consciousness amongst women of
different classes about feminist issues because, for example, in Egypt women
of all classes, whether upper or lower, suffer under the Family Code laws which
in a court case is only worth half of that of a man. So two women have to
testify to equal the testimony of one man. Also women of all classes suffer
under foreign invasion or capitalist exploitation, even if it is in different ways.
So if you really understand this linkage and create awareness amongst women,
especially of the link between gender and class oppression in history, then you
can create a sisterhood amongst women from different classes, different
ideologies and different countries. And you can build a movement.

Jo: Some women in South Africa would still argue that the most one could
hope for would be solidarity amongst women sharing the same or similar
political views and goals, but not sisterhood which assumes a common
experience.

Nawal: Now I am trying to interpret your English language in relation to

sisterhood and solidarity. But I think if they are genuine, the input is more or
less the same. What is the objective of solidarity between women? It depends
on the objective. For instance here in Britain, western feminists are involved
in solidarity work with women in South Africa, or women in Egypt, or with
Palestinian women. If this solidarity is built on the real liberation of all women,
if it includes an awareness of international politics and our common
oppression under a certain international political and economic order, then
we can fight one enemy or one battle, but in different ways and in different
places. So I don't really see very much difference between sisterhood and
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solidarity because if you act in solidarity with other women, then you will be
creating the conditions for sisterhood because it can lead to sisterhood.
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 36

INTERVIEW NAWAL EL SAADAWI

I

Jo: You mentioned your organisation The Arab Women's Solidarity

Association of which I think you are president? Could you tell us something
about it and about its name. Why does it refer to Arab women?

Nawal: We in Egypt are part of the African continent and are African. But
we also share a common history of struggle against colonialism with countries
in the Arab world. We have much in common. So it not only an Egyptian
association and we have members from all over the Arab world. We call
ourselves Arab because you have to specify who you are struggling with and
for. You start small and build up. It is perhaps also not quite accurate to call
ourselves a women's solidarity association because our members also include
men who believe in our cause and who are against class and gender exploitation.
Me, I am also other things. I am Egyptian, I am African, I am Muslim, but I
also have Coptic blood and Turkish blood. I believe that to have these many
things inside me is healthy and democratic! There is no pure religion and
culture and the conflict is, after all, economic and political.

Jo: Could you tell us something about how you organise?

Nawal: How do we organise women? Well we organise women by creating

awareness that we should come together to gain political power because
women are without power and we can never achieve what we what in relation
to ourselves without it We also tell women that we should 'unveil our minds'.
With educated women we do this through publishing books and a magazine.
We organise seminars and conferences in Cairo and we have a library so young
people can come and read there as books are very expensive. We encourage
women to write and to publish and we distribute information.

We also have projects, for example in the villages because rural women are
very poor and you cannot talk to hungry women about sisterhood. We work
on projects with them and at the same time talk to them about poverty, divorce,
female circumcision and so on. We talk about why they are poor. This is
sometimes difficult because many women think they are poor because this is
divine law and that it is God who distributes the wealth. They do not know
about the politics of hunger.

Jo: This conference at which you are speaking is on Islam in Africa. You are
giving a paper on Women and Fundamentalism. Perhaps this is a good point
to ask you how you deal with the question of religion when you organise?
1

4 Nawal: First I should say that now I am talking philosophically. I think all
religions are patriarchal and class religions, not just Islam. All religions
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INTERVIEW NAWAL EL SAADAWI

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oppress women and put people into a hierarchy according to ownership and
gender. In religious teachings women writers are not there and all the children
are male.

But if we go back to ancient civilisations in Africa we find that men and women
were more equal. In Egypt for example, there were gods and goddesses and
the statues of them were equal in size. After slavery came to Egypt there was
a division in society between masters and slaves. From then the status between
men and women became unequal because gender and class go together. Statues
of women goddesses became smaller. Our great goddess Isis was the goddess
of justice. With the evolution of slavery she became the goddess of the body
and was owned by her husband.

In this earlier time of polytheism when there were many gods and goddesses,
there was a sort of democracy. But when monotheism came with its insistence
on only one god, it was like a form of monopoly. Monotheism went together
with dictatorship. And this shift from polytheism to monotheism went hand in
hand with the evolution of slavery and class society.

But we are not living with philosophy alone. We need to know how to act in
a strategic way in a certain political climate. For instance some women come
to us in the Association and they believe that putting on the veil is anti-western.
They see the veil as an anti-imperialist symbol and as a sign of their authentic
identity. Now they are really fed up with the western way of life that was
introduced under Sadat. For all the problems previously under Nassar, there
was good under him in terms of growing towards independence from foreign
control in Egypt. But the western way of life under Sadat did a lot of harm.
Women thought that Islam would solve their problems, including social and
economic problems. They thought that if they wore the veil men would not
rape them, because rape increased under western influence.

Also some of the women are in purdah because some of the Islamic groups give
them material support - food, money, shelter - and with that comes the veil.
You cannot say they are all backward and cannot be mobilised. So it is a
political struggle and it is a challenge. But this is our role, if we are real
feminists, to tell these young women and men what is real and authentic in
Islam and what we mean by identity. The shared language, for example, is
more important than hiding behind the veil. Also knowing their own history.
Many of them don't know about Egypt and the Sudan but they know about the
United States I think that if the struggle is only fought on the basis of religious
1
arguments there will be problems. The best way to convince people is to be

4
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active with them.

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 38

INTERVIEW NAWAL EL SAADAWI

I

Jo: There has been a religious revivalism in many parts of the world although
the western media tends to confine its attention to the rise of Islamic
fundamentalism. Has this affected your organising?

Nawal: We have to ask why, in this period of history, do we have this revival
of religion all over the world? This is a big question. Is it just a moral question,
a spiritual need? Or is it political? Is it linked to social and economic
conditions? Many politicians need god to justify injustices. It is very difficult
for a government to justify poverty and class discrimination and gender
oppression but if they use god they can justify it. And that is exactly why they
need god now. It is a universal phenomenon. So fundamentalism is not
exclusive to Islam. Islamic countries are not all fanatical. There is not one but
three fundamentalist states in our region - Iran, Israel and South Africa. They
have a bad effect but they have allies amongst the capitalist powers and links
with each other.

But in relation to Islam, we must also be clear about what we mean by

fundamentalism. The fundamental teachings of Islam say we must fight
against oppression and injustice and they can be very progressive. So we are
not against a religion if it is for equality, justice and freedom. Marxism can
also be a dogma against the people. It depends how it is interpreted. Any good
ideology can be against the people if it is badly interpreted. It also depends on
how it is used. And there are people using fundamentalism and they are using
it to divide people.

Let me give you an example from Egypt Because of the increasing power of
the working class and the peasantry, most of the laws became secular except
for the Family Code - laws affecting marriage and divorce which remained
under Islamic law. Why? Because women have never had the political power
to change their conditions. There was pressure from fundamentalist groups on
the government. The political parties tried to get the fundamentalist vote and
so they did not support women and women lost out. Now the Arab Women's
Solidarity Association is teaching women and trying to attract as many men as
possible to support us. We speak of what happened with the introduction of
Islamic Law in Sudan under Nimeiri. Disaster. I will give you just one
example. Young boys had their hands amputated under Islamic Law because
they stole food at a time when there was famine and starvation and when
Nimeiri was taking his money out of the country. Also he prohibited drinking
when he was drinking himself. These are contradictions. Most religions have
double standards, for example virginity for women and sexual chaos for men.
We need to stop this double morality. So we try to unite and organise and work
together as women and with men who support us, because we don't want to be
isolated. We are trying to express ourselves to change the law and to stop this
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INTERVIEW NAWAL EL SAADAWI

I
fundamentalism. But we are also trying to work within a social reality and must
work with the rank and file of the Islamic groups.

Jo: You have shared a lot of your ideas and experiences with us. Final y can
I ask you if you have a mes age for women in South Africa?

Nawal: Yes and the mes age is that women in South Africa have a cause which
is against political, social and economic op res ion as wel as against gender
op res ion. We should unite - women in South Africa with Egyptian women,
Palestinian women, African and Arab women - because women al over the
world should be fighting the same cause. Because the main enemy against
women in South Africa is the international political system and the exploitative
and imperialist neo-colonial powers and multinationals. They are really
keeping your govemment in power. They are the same powers that are keeping
the Israeli govemment in power and who are helping our many national
govemments in Africa and the third world to oppress their people. So we have
the same enemy; we are in the same boat so to speak, and we have to fight
together.

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