|
CONTRIBUTION
These three novels were the first ones by Arab women to reflect a very different vision and a completely different approach from that expressed by men. Hence, the outcry against these works, which almost led to their author's imprisonment and painted the latter at least as promiscuous works, calling for women's sexual freedom. In truth, what men found alarming about these novels was that they promoted a completely different social and political vision from that expressed by men at the time. The reason behind bringing a writer such as Layla Baalbaki to court for publishing her novel, Ana
Ahiya, (I Live, 1958) was not at all sexual, as it was claimed, but political. Ana Ahiya is a sophisticated political novel that links men's negative stands towards women's equality to their negative political attitude towards their country. Those who did not believe in women's rights were the same ones who were conspiring with colonialist powers against their peoples and the future of their countries. Layla Baalbaki took her own father as an example and therefore her cry for liberation was at the same time a cry against political corruption and treason. She says: "In a blink of an eye, we became so rich, and my father would sit and brag about his wealth and about his friendship with the French during the mandate. As if it is not clear that the wealth he accumulated was taken from the subsistence of thousands of families who were left eating barley and corn." It was this kind of dangerous argument in the novel that drove the authorities crazy and led to the author being subjected to social humiliation and imprisonment. It was not, as many critics claimed, because she had cut her hair or rebelled against patriarchal authority, but because she linked men's attitude to women as sexual objects with their social and political performance, which sometimes amounted to betraying their countries for personal benefits. Hence, she was trying to undermine the very foundation of political authority.
|
|
These novels demonstrate beyond any doubt that Arab women novelists were deeply rooted in the social and political concerns of their societies, but that their views on many crucial issues were very different from the views held and promoted by men. Perhaps that is why their creativity was neither welcomed nor appreciated by at the time, and that is why their creativity and even participation did not achieve better rights for them. The question at stake is not whether women were creative enough or whether their writings were good enough, but the real question is whether these writings were in line with what men were trying to achieve. As women did not share political power they were totally free of political corruption and therefore the views expressed by them reflected a genuine concern about the country and the future of the people. Perhaps that is why the issues discussed by these daring novels in the fifties are still the most urgent issues on the agenda of Arab women, liberal thinkers and reformers even today.
Dr. Latifa Zayat from Egypt opens the tradition of women war novels with her novel The Open Door (1960) which is still selling today. In this novel Zayat reveals the hidden links between men's attitude towards women and their attitude towards their country and people. Women participate in defending the land of Egypt against the tripartite aggression in 1956 and they feel one with the people and with the country. They discover that they can overcome the fear that has been lurking inside them for decades and find out that men who support women's equality are the ones who are ready to die for their country. The battle does not take place on the battleground only, but in the society and in the selves of both men and women. With this novel, Latifa Zayat started what later became known as women's war novels. This achievement increased women's status as novelists and contributors to the mainstream of Arabic literature.
Perhaps Miriam Cooke's book War's Other Voices was the first work to indicate the different way men and women write about wars, and the first work to give validity to the way women write about wars, even if it is quite different from the way men write. The first striking difference between men's and women's perspectives in this regard became apparent in the post 1967 war when men refused to acknowledge the disastrous results of the Arab-Israeli war, whereas women insisted on calling a spade a spade. Arab men described the results of the war as a "set back" and Gamal Abdel Nasser said we had lost a round but not the battle. Layla Osayran opens her novel The Birds of Dawn with this sentence: "I write this novel on the eve of the 1967 defeat."
Yet, the acknowledgement of defeat both here and in the novel of Balqis al
Humani, Samro al al Ahzan (Passing by Sorrows), helps the people to collect themselves for another type of resistance that may save future generations from the effects of such a defeat. Arab women novelists covered the partition of Palestine (1948), the Swiss war (1956), the Algerian war of independence (1954-1961) and the June war of 1967 before writing many novels about the Lebanese civil war. The two most important novels about the Lebanese civil war were Laylat al Miliar by Ghada
Saaman, and Hajar al Dahik by Huda Barakat, which finally received the praise of men critics which had never been awarded to earlier novels written by women. Laylat al Miliar concentrated on the economic causes which kept the war ablaze, whereas Huda Barakat stressed the psychological distortions the war caused in the minds and hearts of both men and women. What critics liked best was that both novelists chose male heroes for their novels. Tens of novels by Arab women were written about the Lebanese civil war and the general state of war in which the Middle East appears forever immersed. These novels reveal once more that the Arab women are deeply rooted in the social and political concerns of their people. Their novels reflect the broader engagement of women in the details of social and political lives of their countries. These novels prove beyond a shadow of doubt that women are not living on the margin of social and political events during the most difficult times in the history of the Arab world. Rather they are deeply engaged in discussing the destiny of their own people and in addressing the details of their battles against oppression and discrimination. To exclude all these novels from the mainstream of Arabic literature deprives this literature of a very valid contribution and of a genuine perspective that will serve both men and women in their struggle for a better future.
The one Arab novelist who has written one novel after another to show the inseparability of feminist issues form social and political concern is the Palestinian novelist Sahar
Khalifeh, whom I consider the best Arab woman novelist in the twentieth century. She established a line of Arab feminist political novels, which are masterpieces in both language and content. She is the one Arab woman novelist who is read in most if not all Arab countries, and she has followed the Palestinian struggle during the last three decades, identifying the women's distinguished roles and the reality of their contribution; a reality that is often overlooked or ignored. She is a novelist with both a feminist and political mission, who has proven beyond any doubt that that she uses her tools in admirable manner. In Al Sabbar and Abad Shams she wrote about the significant role women play in making life possible under occupation and then in Bab al Saha she concentrated on the role of Palestinian women in
al Intifada. Her latest novel, Al Mirath, is the only Palestinian novel that addresses the worsening conditions of people's lives in the post Oslo era. It is a widely read novel in the Arab world because it is the only window to the conditions of both men and women living in the areas controlled by the Palestinian authority. In all her novels Palestinian women are very much there as fighters, mothers, sisters, thinkers and political strategists. Only Sahar Khalifeh gave Palestinian women such a distinguished presence in the social and political lives of their people and such a leading role in forging their future.
After the publication of The Stone of Laughter by Huda Barakat, The Memory of the Body by Ahlam
Mustaghanmi, The Heritage by Sahar Khalifeh and Ghranata by Radwa
Ashour, men critics no longer felt embarrassed papers about novels written by women. These were novels which received a lot of praise from leading male critics in the Arab world. And as Ahlam Mustaghanmi won the Naguib Mahfouz prize for the best novel in the Arab world in 1998 for her novel Zakirat al Jasad a new recognition started to emerge for the contribution of Arab women novelists, Arab women, such as Radwa Ashour from Egypt and Nadia Khust from Syria began to write the historical novels and to redress the balance in the official history that neglected any mention of women. Arab women novelists are no longer satisfied to participate in writing history today. They are intent on rewriting past history from a different and more genuine perspective. Just as other women are engaged in reinterpreting the Quran and redefining their role according to the true spirit of Islam, against the attempts of Islamizations which deprive women of all rights, and just as women are engaged in trying to secure a better social and political participation, Arab women novelists are reflecting this new emergence of Arab women as well.
When I started this study ten years ago I used to meet with looks of surprise upon mentioning my topic, even from educated people working in related fields. With the century drawing to a close, Arab women's novels are trendier today, as topics for papers and lectures, than men's novels, and as usual many critics want to catch up with the trend. The one problem is that I found difficult to overcome in the last year or so is how to handle the great number of women novels that are published almost by the day from women's presses. In the book fair in Cairo, the Algerian novelist Ahlam Mustaghanmi was the best selling novelist after Naguib
Mahfouz. I think Arab women novelists have held the reign of storytelling now just as they did right at the beginning. It is not a coincidence that in 1999 Arab women novelists are perhaps the most popular in the Arab world, as they were the ones who started this genre in Arabic literature exactly a hundred years ago. The story of Arab women novelists is heartening, could we hope that one-day women in different disciplines would stand where they truly belong and occupy the positions which have always been theirs. Could women's creativity one day lead as it did in the case of Arab women novelists to the establishment of their rights?
Dr. Bouthaina Shaaban is a professor of literature at Damscus University, Damascus, Syria.
This article is a reprint of her keynote address given on November 19,1999 at the AMEWS Business Meeting, which took place in Washington DC, USA, as part of the annual Middle East Studies Association Meeting.
Reproduced with permission from
AMEWS
c/o Jennifer Olmsted, Editor
Economic Research Service
1800 M St. NW
Washington, DC 20036
|
