PALESTINE: Sexual Violence, Women`s Bodies, and Israeli Settler Colonialism

Nov 17 2014 by Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian, Sarah Ihmoud and Suhad Dahir-Nashif

[“Deaths.” Drawing by Suhad Daher-Nashif]

They not only invaded our home, took over our space, and evicted us—they even arrested me and took me to the Maskubya—the police station.  I was put in room number four, alone, for a long time.  Then, a big and tall man, a police officer, entered the interrogation room.  I was alone, and started shivering from fear as he closed the door, started moving things around in the room and examining me from head to toe.  I was terrorized, and my heart was beating so fast.  His eyes penetrated my body, as he was opening the drawers looking for something.  Then, he left the room and came back five minutes later holding a box.  He pulled out a pair of blue plastic gloves, and put one on each of his hands, while looking at me and saying “…Come here…” I must tell you that I was terrorized when they invaded the house and evicted us. I was extremely anxious when they arrested my son. But my fears of ‘you know what’…You know…being abused…being raped by his blue big hands and more…were the most terrifying moments of my life.[1]

These were the words of Sama, a thirty-six-year-old Palestinian woman who lost the intimate familial and physical space of her home, only to experience further terror with the threat of sexual abuse.  Sama’s narrative is not uncommon, as colonized women living under severe deprivation and dispossession are subject to daily attacks against their sexuality and bodily rights. Sexual violence is central to the larger structure of colonial power, its racialized machinery of domination, and its logic of elimination.  This is readily apparent in the history of settler colonial contexts, where the machinery of violence explicitly targets native women’s sexuality and bodily safety as biologized “internal enemies” since they are the producers of the next generation.

SYRIA: Seeing the women in revolutionary Syria

The battle for Syrian women’s liberation is multi-faceted; and from first-hand experience, we learn just how often the intersectional modes of oppression are themselves used to undermine power.

‘Syrian women, revolt against every authority!”. Poster courtesy of The Syrian People Know Their Way collective.

TUNISIA: Feminism Attack! Anarcha-Feminism in Tunisia

25.09.2013 by Nath & Cris

Tunisia, with a strong feminist movement for over a hundred years, is often considered the most advanced in terms of women’s rights among countries of the Muslim world. Since 1957, the Personal Status Code recognizes the rights of women, such as abortion, contraception and the right to education. Although the Tunisian feminist movements have allowed for these advances, the status of women, as in many places on the globe, is still far from anarchist ideals. Nothing new under the sun of male domination: women are still seen as mothers and wives before citizens . After a few days in, it is easy to see how the judgment of others and fear of compromising a reputation may hinder the engagement and activism of women. There are currently at least three feminist collectives in Tunisia:

Democratic Women, a group consisting of bourgeois who gather themselves without political purpose or claims, Femen, recognized in Tunisia for their struggle (their actions, however, do not induce unanimous approval), and Feminism Attack, a self-managed and self-funded collective movement, whose members have an average age of about 20 years. It is inspired by anarchist ideas to search for radical solutions to social and political problems, and the dangers that threaten the position of women in society.

صراع النسوية الأفضل فيمين/مسلمة برايد

المصدر: الغوص عميقاً

تشن فيمين حملة لإنقاذ النساء “المسلمات – العرب” عن طريق محاربة أسباب قمعهم المتمثلة في الحجاب والنقاب، فتخرج “مسلمة برايد” لتعلن أن النساء العرب “.والمسلمات لا يحتجن لإنقاذ خصوصا من ”أمثال فيمين

فيمين تريد انقاذي، ومسلمه برايد تعلن أني لست بحاجة للإنقاذ! أنا – للسخرية- فخورة بحجابي وإسلامي، والمجموعتان ضد بعضهما فيما يشبه الحرب لإثبات من هي النسوية الافضل

The fast-food feminism of the topless Femen

10 April, by Mona Chollet

Blond young women stripping off their shirts to protest for…women’s rights. Le Monde Diplomatique’s Mona Chollet reviews the purportedly feminist protest group called the Femen, finding little evidence of feminism and a budding affinity with France’s anti-Muslim right. Amina Tyler, Alia el Mahdi and other young Femen of the Arab Spring would do well to have a second look at their Ukrainian mentors, she suggests.

WESTERN SAHARA: Notes from Western Sahara

An Interview with Fatma El-Mehdi   24.03.2012

As the Arab Spring spread across several countries in the Middle East and North Africa, American philosopher Noam Chomsky argued that it did not originate in Tunisia, as is commonly understood. “In fact, the current wave of protests actually began last November in Western Sahara, which is under Moroccan rule, after a brutal invasion and occupation,” Chomsky stated. “The Moroccan forces came in, carried out – destroyed tent cities, a lot of killed and wounded and so on. And then it spread.” 

TUNISIA: Femen Strikes in Tunisia – the Case of Amina

Mar 26, 2013  by Sara Salem

Femen has struck again. After reports the Ukrainian based feminist group would be focusing its activism on locations outside of Europe, fresh controversy has erupted following events in Tunisia.

EGYPT: Egyptian Female Cartoonist Pokes Fun at Fundamentalists

March 29-31, 2013 by MEDEA BENJAMIN

One of the women who spoke at the Women’s Assembly during the World Social Forum in Tunisia was not a political activist, but a cartoonist. Dooa Eladl is 34-year-old Egyptian woman who calls herself a Muslim anarchist. Her work appears in the prominent newspaper Al-Masry Al-Youm She has become one of Egypt’s best-known political cartoonists, in a field completely dominated by men. (One of her humorous drawings is a portrait of herself marching to work, her hair tied to the mustaches of four of her male colleagues.)

Tunisia: Amina’s Breasts Are Not Yours

26 March 2013   by Josh Shahryar

“Anyone who feels dishonored by her actions doesn’t have much honor to begin with. If they did, they wouldn’t regard a woman’s body as public property.” A strong take on the case of the controversial FEMEN activist.

LEBANON: Women and politics in Lebanon

Article by a Lebanese woman describing the position of women in both Muslim and Christian communities as the country slid into civil war.