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 Re: ( لبنى ) ذئب فى ثوب حمل (Re: Yassir Tayfour)
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هذا هو مقالها
So you think you're a feminist? Wolves in sheep's clothing
I wrote the following critique for The Citizen newspaper, Khartoum, Sudan.
Lubna Hussein, darling of French President Sarkozy and trouser-sporting celebrity, has just been offered an astronomically priced book deal from a French publishing company (that would earn her more than she could have ever dreamed of with her previous job at the UN). I have to hand it to her, she knows how to work the media. And what international media doesn’t like to point fingers at President Bashir while celebrating the meager breadcrumbs of feminist successes? Yet what good does her (no doubt thrilling) autobiography do for the women of Sudan? She gets the opportunity to talk of her well-meaning but perhaps conservative parents, her struggle through the educational system, her battles with body-image, and finally her exponential slingshot to fame? Thank you, Sarkozy, we will put her on the next flight to France.
What the trendy idol Hussein lacks is popular support. For all the attention focused directly on her, she, like the worst of charismatic leaders, keeps it there, refusing to either let anyone else in, or take recommendations for strategic steps from her so-called constituency. Admittedly, we can not expect the sudden emergence of a King, a Gandhi, or even an endearing John Lennon to materialize overnight. Ms. Hussein saw an opportunity and she took it. For herself.
Frankly, women, you should be ashamed. Why do you let someone speak for you who clearly has no contact with the community she claims to represent, i.e.: YOU? See this for what it is – a ploy to further one woman's egotistical fantasies at the expense of all her doe-eyed sisters.
Wake up. This is not the beginning of a movement, this is ill-disguised idolatry and narcissism. Movements are built from the bottom up. It takes many years of thoughtful organizing, building relationships, and old-fashioned struggle for the right leader to emerge. Curb your delusions of Obamaistic miracle workers, because they do not exist, even in, dare I say it, Obama's own administration.
Let me say it another way: we are the ones we are waiting for. No Foucault-thumping heroine in shining armor is on her way to rescue you. If you want a women's rights movement, then by god, you have got to organize one. And that does not mean sending shocked letters to the newspaper saying how much you support Lubna Hussein or any other pop movement icon. Simply, you can not let a woman who is more concerned about whether her butt looks good in those contentious trousers than the message of a woman's right to chose, be the face on the frontlines.
And to our allies, the supportive and outspoken men of the new millennium, please take note. Equality does not mean that your concept of the liberated woman is the only decent variety of a movement champion and all others are "child-minded," as I recently read. Equality is not about "equality for those who are like me or who I judge appropriate." Rather, equality is about the basic rights of each individual to express his or her own personality and to move through this vast and beautiful world without fear of reprisal for their unique and inherently sacred identity. Bluntly: just because I have female genitalia does not mean I am like my 3 or so billion planetary sisters. Each of us deserves, like any man, the right to be who she is without expectation that she fulfill your static image of a well-behaved, properly-bred feminist (the very terms are nearly mutually exclusive).
Statements of conditional support have no room in either the global or, if I dare align myself with those daring and courageous women of Sudan, the national women's movement. Gentlemen, if you want to make proselytizing statements about why women shouldn’t drink alcohol, wear trousers, leave the house after 10pm, or let their hair uncovered, be my guest. But do not disguise your conservativism by hiding it among laudatory ramblings about Sudan’s best “lady” governor who’s state looks “as good as a man-governed state,” referring to Jemma Nunu Kumba's work in Western Equatoria. (Statements, for your information, that were declined acceptance to The Citizen's pages by thoughtful, women-supporting editorial staff.)
If you will decry the use of alcohol by women, to cite an extremely delicate but apropos example, why not condemn it among men also? Why not look to the number of women who are left to parent their children alone as their husbands waste their salary, meant for their children's education, at the bar? Why not look to the men who come home after a gada and beat their wives for the foul being cold or for not cutting the melon the way he likes it?
What we are talking about here is not only women's rights, but the rights of all marginalized people to represent themselves and be allowed their fair seats at the table. Despite the CPA's hallowed 25 percent quota of women in government, Sudan continues to lack real representation – and what venues do exist are further marginalized and ostracized by being labeled as "for women" in one way or another. Take, for example, the "Women's Manifesto" pages of The Citizen newspaper. Why should women's news be confined to a 2-page spread, rather than distributing news regarding patriarchy, feminism, or simply women themselves throughout the local news sections? To have 2 pages of any newspaper labeled "Men's News Bulletin," let's say, would be simply laughable. Or what about if all the news from Southern Sudan was featured on a few pages of The Citizen under the heading “Black Power” and the news from Khartoum and central Sudan was the only news on pages 1-9 of “Local” news?
The further we get from the center, the more titles we need to use to qualify it. This is the meaning of marginalization – those who are pushed to the margins by a need to qualify their existence because they are different from what is consciously or unconsciously “normal.” For example, the phrase: “The police officer knocked on the door.” What does the police officer look like? Is it a woman? No. Is the officer a Southerner? I live in Khartoum, so, probably not. If I were telling a story involving a police officer who was Southern or who was a woman, I would need to qualify that by saying, “The Southern woman police officer knocked on the door,” for you to get the right picture. This indicates just how far both women and Southerners are from what is considered “normal” in Sudan.
One more example of this tricky conciliatory strategy or quotas and designated spaces. The phrase “separate but equal" was used for decades to support horrifying “Jim Crow” laws in the United States that justified segregation. Under these often unwritten laws, blacks couldn’t sit in the same restaurant as whites, for example, unless they wanted to be hanged, disemboweled, and their corpses set on fire. Now tell me, how can separate ever mean equal? If women and men are allowed to have their news featured on the same pages of a paper or can both serve as governor, yet women are not allowed, because of some men’s idea of propriety, to leave the house without an escort, how is that any basis for true equality? These simplistic notions of what is appropriate behavior for women are not religious, they are prehistoric and I defy these men to call themselves feminists of any stripe. Look to your brothers’ behavior towards women; when you have made changes to your own conduct then you may assume a degree of authority to tell women how they ought to behave.
Men and women, we must see the true danger in accepting what amounts to concessions of integrity by allowing others to speak for us without our consent. If you want a democracy, you must demand it, you must fight for it, and you must live it in your own life. Neither Lubna nor Obama nor even John Garang can or could ever do this for you.
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| العنوان |
الكاتب |
Date |
| ( لبنى ) ذئب فى ثوب حمل | انور التكينة | 12-19-09, 09:38 AM |
| Re: ( لبنى ) ذئب فى ثوب حمل | انور التكينة | 12-19-09, 09:40 AM |
| Re: ( لبنى ) ذئب فى ثوب حمل | Elmosley | 12-25-09, 01:18 PM |
| Re: ( لبنى ) ذئب فى ثوب حمل | Deng | 12-19-09, 09:42 AM |
| Re: ( لبنى ) ذئب فى ثوب حمل | انور التكينة | 12-19-09, 09:47 AM |
| Re: ( لبنى ) ذئب فى ثوب حمل | انور التكينة | 12-19-09, 09:49 AM |
| Re: ( لبنى ) ذئب فى ثوب حمل | Deng | 12-19-09, 10:07 AM |
| Re: ( لبنى ) ذئب فى ثوب حمل | انور التكينة | 12-19-09, 10:10 AM |
| Re: ( لبنى ) ذئب فى ثوب حمل | Mohamed E. Seliaman | 12-19-09, 10:25 AM |
| Re: ( لبنى ) ذئب فى ثوب حمل | Mustafa Mahmoud | 12-19-09, 10:44 AM |
| Re: ( لبنى ) ذئب فى ثوب حمل | Hussein Mallasi | 12-19-09, 10:55 AM |
| Re: ( لبنى ) ذئب فى ثوب حمل | انور التكينة | 12-19-09, 10:57 AM |
| Re: ( لبنى ) ذئب فى ثوب حمل | Adil Osman | 12-19-09, 04:10 PM |
| Re: ( لبنى ) ذئب فى ثوب حمل | Balla Musa | 12-19-09, 05:43 PM |
| Re: ( لبنى ) ذئب فى ثوب حمل | Rihab Khalifa | 12-19-09, 05:55 PM |
| Re: ( لبنى ) ذئب فى ثوب حمل | Balla Musa | 12-19-09, 06:10 PM |
| Re: ( لبنى ) ذئب فى ثوب حمل | Rihab Khalifa | 12-19-09, 06:56 PM |
| Re: ( لبنى ) ذئب فى ثوب حمل | Balla Musa | 12-19-09, 08:17 PM |
| Re: ( لبنى ) ذئب فى ثوب حمل | Deng | 12-19-09, 08:36 PM |
| Re: ( لبنى ) ذئب فى ثوب حمل | Deng | 12-19-09, 08:56 PM |
| Re: ( لبنى ) ذئب فى ثوب حمل | Yassir Tayfour | 12-19-09, 09:35 PM |
| Re: ( لبنى ) ذئب فى ثوب حمل | عزالدين صغيرون | 12-19-09, 10:03 PM |
| Re: ( لبنى ) ذئب فى ثوب حمل | Yassir Tayfour | 12-19-09, 10:27 PM |
| Re: ( لبنى ) ذئب فى ثوب حمل | Yassir Tayfour | 12-19-09, 10:35 PM |
| Re: ( لبنى ) ذئب فى ثوب حمل | Adil Osman | 12-20-09, 04:59 PM |
| Re: ( لبنى ) ذئب فى ثوب حمل | Yassir Tayfour | 12-20-09, 07:28 PM |
| Re: ( لبنى ) ذئب فى ثوب حمل | حاتم علي | 12-21-09, 03:48 AM |
| Re: ( لبنى ) ذئب فى ثوب حمل | Bashasha | 12-21-09, 04:23 AM |
| Re: ( لبنى ) ذئب فى ثوب حمل | عزالدين صغيرون | 12-22-09, 08:26 AM |
| Re: ( لبنى ) ذئب فى ثوب حمل | Rihab Khalifa | 12-22-09, 09:55 AM |
| Re: ( لبنى ) ذئب فى ثوب حمل | Adil Osman | 12-25-09, 12:23 PM |
| Re: ( لبنى ) ذئب فى ثوب حمل | Adil Osman | 12-25-09, 01:15 PM |
| Re: ( لبنى ) ذئب فى ثوب حمل | Rihab Khalifa | 12-25-09, 02:21 PM |
| Re: ( لبنى ) ذئب فى ثوب حمل | Adil Osman | 12-26-09, 11:08 AM |
| Re: ( لبنى ) ذئب فى ثوب حمل | MOHAMMED ELSHEIKH | 12-26-09, 12:16 PM |
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Yassir Tayfour
فيس بوك
تويتر
انستقرام
يوتيوب
بنتيريست