Haiffa Al Mansour Quotes
It is a hard, tough time now in the Middle East, and it is up to people to change things.—not only by changing regimes and political stuff, but also by believing in women.
Haiffa Al Mansour, Film Director & Reformist, Bahrain, Quoted in Foreign Policy Magazine, December 2013
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
This statement is referring to the custom of women covering their eyes whenever a man who they did not know passed them. Turks did not ever use Burkas the way some other Muslim countries do, but they wore headscarves and covered their eyes when a strange man appeared. This was a shocking statement in a sexist Islamic culture. Although the process of modernization and reform in Turkey was relatively bloodless, Ataturk was prepared to and did use force to defend it. This and many others made the role of women not only uniquely equal in the Islamic world, but women were suddenly elevated to the level of most Western nations and in voting rights were ahead of most. He used his own family to set an example. See {584503}.
Jinnah was a modern Islamic reformer as this quotation demonstrates. Pakistan is not as backward as most of the Arab Islamic countries on the role of women. There are many Pakistani businesswomen and professionals. Pakistan has even had a female president. However, the fundamentalist Islamic forces that dominate the culture constantly preach and advocate the literal interpretation and following of Sharia which calls for a traditional, subservient traditional role for women; “honor killings” are common; “a rapist cannot be convicted on a female victims testimony; there are calls for the killing of adulteresses and other primitive throwbacks. Jinnah’s vision has not come to pass yet.
She was chiding the Egyptian military who in the Arab Spring, turned on demonstrators and soldiers in the middle of the central square stripped a female demonstrator half naked and beat her badly;
Islamic modernists like Serageldin are many among the educated Muslims but their views are often drowned out by the violence and extremist statements of the fundamentalists.
This was a very unusual statement for a major party, established, politician to make in a Muslim Arab nation where sexism is not only culturally entrenched, but strongly religiously enforced.]
Turkey, the only Islamic nation where women have equal rights, made huge developmental and reform strides immediately after Ataturk reformed Turkish society and gave women the vote, freed them from veils and chadors, educated them and gave them equal employment rights. Turkey moved from an impoverished 3rd world nation to a modern industrialized democracy.
First woman elected to Congress. She voted against the declaration of war in WWI and was the only member of Congress to vote against war in WWII.
