Nawal El Saadawi is founder and president of the Arab Women’s Solidarity Association and co-founder of the Arab Association for Human Rights. In 1972 she published Al-Mar’a wa Al-Jins (Woman and Sex), confronting various aggressions perpetrated against women’s bodies, including female circumcision. As a consequence of the book as well as her political activities, Saadawi was dismissed from her position at the Ministry of Health and, later on, was imprisoned by Anwar Sadat’s regime. Her life was also threatened by Islamists. She was accused of apostasy and forced to flee Egypt. She then accepted to teach in foreign universities such as Harvard, Georgetown and Sorbonne. “I gave classes of creativity of dissent and I had a long life abroad, but as soon as I heard that young people were fighting in the street to overthrow the regime, I went to Tahrir Square to take part to the revolution. This has been my dream since I was child, that one day the Egyptian people would wake up and revolt against slavery and colonization. I’ve participated in many demonstrations since I was a child. When I was at medical college, I was fighting King Farouk, then British colonization, against Nasser, against Sadat who pushed me into prison, Mubarak who pushed me into exile. I never stopped. It was like a dream; it was the accumulation of small revolutions.”
In two weeks Egyptians will have to choose their president between Ahmed Shafiq, prime minister of the last Mubarak government, and Mohammed Mursi, leader of the Brotherhood Party. According to these results many fear that the revolution has eaten its children, is it true?
These results just confirm us that elections were fake and not democratic at all. From the beginning Shafiq was supported by the army and the government. He represents the former president Hosni Mubarak and he wants the abortion of the revolution. The army has a plan to rebuilt the old regime. We have removed just the head of the regime, but its body is still there. The country is full of little Mubaraks who want to regain power. It is not the revolution that has eaten its children, the counterrevolution is doing that. It can work for a short time, but in a while the revolution will come back. No one will be able to stop it.
Are you worried about both a Shafiq success and a Brotherhood victory?
I think both candidates are very bad. This result was planned. Shafiq and Mursi want to kill the revolution: the previous under the name of democracy and the latter under the banner of Islam. The Muslim Brotherhood has the support of the United States, they are negotiating with them since a long time. Nowadays there is no separation between local and global. All that is happening in Egypt is followed by the Americans. We can speak of a glocal world.
Women played a very important role in the 2011 revolution and this was also an opportunity for them to continue their feminist struggle. Are you concerned about the future of Egyptian women?
In Tahrir square there was no separation between women and men, we were all together under the same tent. But as soon as the army took power the atmosphere changed and now we have to fight again for our rights. I am really worried. Our future is in our hand and we have to work hard. Nobody is going to liberate me except myself and nobody is going to liberate women except women. We have to unite. Unity is all our power. We need collective power, and that is why we always organize meetings with the Egyptian Women’s Union. But this is also the reason why the former Egyptian first lady Suzanne Mubarak banned our union. Because organization is power. We don’t have to fight against men. We have to fight against the patriarchal mentality that also many of women have. We have to fight against these ideas, we cannot divide people looking at their gender. I look to people minds. Do you believe in justice, freedom, equality and real democracy or you are with capitalism, war and violence? It’s a matter of mentality.
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