Nude photo of Egyptian blogger is a scream against Islamism
From Maryam Namazie's blog: Student, atheist and blogger, Aliaa Magda Elmahdy, 20, posted naked pictures of herself on her blog to show her “screams against a society of violence, racism, sexism, sexual harassment and hypocrisy”. Showing her body particularly at a time when Islamists in Egypt are trying to secure power is the ultimate act of rebellion. Don’t forget Islamists despise nothing more than a woman’s body. In case you didn’t know, women are the source of corruption and chaos and must be covered up at all times and not seen and not heard.
The Islamists in Egypt, for example, have replaced the photos of their female candidates with flowers and covered up a statue of mermaids in Alexandria. They have refused to appear face-to-face with female TV hosts, unless the presenter put on a headscarf or a barrier was placed between the two! Soon there will be nappies on donkeys and birds will have to stop singing but that must wait until they have put women in their places.
But we mustn’t let them.
Elmahdy’s blogger boyfriend Kareem Amer (who by the way spent four years in jail for calling Mubarak a symbol of tyranny) posted on Facebook: “I think we should not be afraid of those in power or Islamists, as much as we should be worried of politicians claiming to be liberal. They are ready to sacrifice us to avoid tarnishing their image.”
Hear, hear! Now do you really need any more reasons for defending Aliaa Magda Elmahdy unconditionally? Do it now.
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Tweet with hashtag #NudePhotoRevolutionary, support her Facebook page, and blog.If you haven’t done so, you should sign the Manifesto for a Free and Secular Middle East and North Africa. Secularism, the separation of religion from the state, is a precondition for minimum freedoms and rights for all.
'...There are plenty of progressive views around, but in reality life is difficult for liberal-minded women in Egypt. Women are too often the scapegoats for the ills of society. Take Amr Derrag, the head of the Freedom and Justice Party in Giza – the offshoot political party of the Muslim Brotherhood – who told me recently that the societal problems facing Egypt in the past three decades are “directly related to women not staying home and building the family.”
Not only is this assumption wrong, and scary – the FJP wants to push women back into the home – it shows that the problems facing Egypt socially are being pinpointed and put on women. There are many examples of women being “protected” from men in the Middle East. One would think that the rise of ultra-conservatism, namely the Salafi project emanating from Saudi Arabia, would be more tolerant of Islam’s historical support for women’s rights and their mobility in public – think of the era of the prophet and the openness of that society. The prophet was adamant that all people were welcome in Medina and that women were to be treated with the utmost respect. At the time, unlike today, there was no sexual apartheid in the mosque, with men and women praying together in a show of unity. Now, what we are witnessing is the rise of a movement that is as vehemently anti-women as it is anti-progress.
“Whenever the conservatives enter a society they don’t talk politics or economics, they talk of the honour of women”, said Hibaaq Osman, the founder and chair of the women’s organisation El Karama, in a previous interview. She argues, rightly, that what is important to these conservatives – and she is quick to point out this is not a problem limited to Islam – is that women are the key to society. She added that in all societies, women are the building blocks of forward thinking. She believes that once women have shaken off the need for a male guardian and have entered the workforce, then freedoms and laws against sexual violence can be implemented for the betterment and progress of society...'
and: Egyptian Feminist Creates Firestorm By Posting Nude Photos Online
