A veil of uncertainty

While some Arab women embrace the rise of Islamist political parties, others fear they could end up groaning under Taliban-like regimes.

By Shahnaz Taplin Chinoy

Read more: Democracy, Palestine, Politics, Middle East, Egypt, News, Jordan, Hamas

June 13, 2006 | The stunned reactions in the West to the victory of Hamas, an Islamist movement that officially refuses to recognize Israel, in the January 2006 Palestinian elections largely overlooked a key issue: that these elections represented a political breakthrough for Arab women. Often shut out of corrupt or ossified secular parties, women now find themselves playing a more prominent political role. Under a quota system in the Palestinian elections, women had to comprise 20 percent of the candidates of both Fatah and Hamas. And the backbone of Hamas' support is its social service agencies, which are dominated by women. As Helena Cobban reported in Salon, one of the reasons Hamas won was that many wives voted for Hamas, even if their husbands voted for Fatah.

But the increasing political power of Islamist, as opposed to secular, parties throughout the Middle East -- not just in Gaza and the West Bank but also in countries like Egypt and Jordan -- also alarms many Muslim women. They fear that newly elected Islamists could impose sharia law, curbing women's freedom and independence. Under sharia, for example, marriage and divorce laws are harsher for women than for men.

Yet some also believe that, paradoxically, Islamism may in fact be a prerequisite in the transition from authoritarian regimes to democratic ones.

Islamists have engaged women in their political rise in distinct ways in different countries. Hamas did better among women voters than among men; seven women in that party won electoral seats, including the mother of a suicide bomber. In Bethlehem, a Fatah stronghold, Palestinian women in their early 30s went door to door just prior to the election, signing up women for classes in politics and elections.

In Egypt, women have long been part of the Muslim Brotherhood, an organization that has inspired other Islamist groups, including Hamas, to bring more women into the political process. Twice banned in Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood was persecuted by former President Nasser, tolerated by former President Sadat and repressed by President Mubarak. Since the 1980s the party has espoused nonviolence, political pluralism and parliamentary democracy. The Brotherhood's network of health, education and welfare programs enabled it to mobilize the participation of women alongside men in the November and December 2005 elections and win 20 percent of the parliamentary seats.

"After spending years in prison and making lots of sacrifices, the Muslim Brotherhood now deserves to be given a chance," says Amany Abou Fadl, a lecturer in English literature at Cairo University and a longtime supporter of the Islamist organization. Fadl says "political representation for women [in Egypt] is a big problem, but it is hard to address these issues with people who don't have money. For the average Egyptian woman, politics is a luxury." She says she is focused on getting the current regime to recognize the Muslim Brotherhood as a legitimate political party; in last winter's legislative elections, members had to run as independents to get around the government's ban on religious-based parties.

The Brotherhood's "five-year plan" includes a women's agenda, says Fadl, simultaneously asserting that women should not be given preferential treatment over men because "men and women are equal [in Islam], they are equal as [Egyptian] citizens, and they both suffer poverty, so why feminize poverty and treat women like cripples? We are not crippled."

Other Egyptian women are more skeptical about the Brotherhood's sincerity when it comes to women. Nadia El Awady, deputy editor of Islam Online, who chooses to wear the abaya, a full cloak, has serious reservations about how much power the Muslim Brotherhood will really give them. "When women in the Muslim Brotherhood are decision makers, at what level are they decision makers? What kind of role would they play? Would they have a real voice and real opinions? Or would they be puppets of the Muslim Brotherhood? I don't know." Awady is not as concerned about the possible loss of freedoms for women under an Islamist government because she does not believe it would strictly enforce repressive laws against women.

Aida Eltorie, in contrast, a 22-year-old student who works at a modern art gallery in Cairo, fears increasing extremism and its impact on Egyptian women: "I'm a Muslim girl with my hair showing. I'm not meant to openly announce that I'm Muslim ... or wear a veil just to say that I am Muslim. I am to be a Muslim from the heart ... Hair being shown ... should not be a trigger for anyone to enforce themselves on you."

In Jordan, widely considered to be the most moderate Arab nation, Islamists have been represented in Parliament for the past 16 years, and women there seem relatively less anxious about the growing strength of Islamist parties. Shadi Hamid, who was a Fulbright fellow in Amman, says that over time, the Islamists -- the only part to include female parliamentarians -- have become less idealistic and more pragmatic, with a more pluralistic, democratic vision overriding the importance of implementing sharia law. One Muslim Brotherhood hard-liner, elected to the Jordanian Parliament, Sheikh Abdul Monem Abu Zant, was initially eager to impose a ban on alcohol, but finally said, "If the majority doesn't agree, then let it be, but I will have done my duty as a Muslim in trying to introduce such laws ... Islam is democratic, therefore nothing can or will be enforced." Hamid also notes that Islamists' political language has evolved to include women's issues and democracy in the party's platform.

Nuha Ma'ayta, a former member of Jordan's Parliament, says the Islamist party made a "strategically effective decision" that resulted in incorporating several women in its legislative caucus, a step other parties have not taken. This, she says, has brought smart and highly educated women into the inner circle of the Islamist party. Yet, she adds, the Islamists "don't give women rights. They have their own agenda and ideology."

Next page: Images of Afghanistan's repressive Taliban regime are still fresh in women's minds