It is not surprising perhaps that this has made her many powerful enemies. She has been forced out of employment, she was imprisoned by the Egyptian authorities in the 1980s and in the 1990s she lived under serious death threats from religious fundamentalists. Indeed, she was forced into exile. But now she is back in Egypt where, although now in her eighties, she took an active role in the demonstrations in Tahrir Square last Spring and continues to fight to ensure that women’s rights are part of the political settlement in Egypt. Her writing and activism are seen by women around the world as a beacon of light and she has received many awards, literary and academic.
Tess Woodcraft: What did you mean when you wrote in your autobiography: ‘writing is my sole refuge, it’s like breathing’?
Nawal el Saadawi: My work is my love and when you love your work you can do it well. Since childhood I was forced to study medicine, to become a doctor. But I didn’t dream of being a physician – I dreamt of art, music, poetry, dancing, writing novels.
Of course there is no separation of creativity in science and art, but when I was a child I loved to move my body, to dance and this is natural. But in Egypt at that time it was a taboo to be a dancer or a film actress, and it was very respectable to be a doctor. So I accepted the advice of my parents and went into the medical profession. But all the time I felt that my writing was my life, and all the time I kept a secret diary under my pillow, and I have never stopped writing from then till now. It is more than oxygen, it is my life. It is more than breathing
TW: How do you see the relationship between your writing and your political activism?
N el S: They are inseparable. Writing and fighting are inseparable. Why do we write? Because it gives us pleasure. Creativity gives us pleasure. The pleasure of creativity is above everything – it can cure us of all our pains. But of course creativity can also lead to you to prison and to exile because you challenge the system. But the pleasure of creativity is more than the pain
Nawal el Saadawi at the IKWRO conference
TW: You’ve tackled some of the most difficult issues, – one of these is female genital mutilation. Despite efforts to outlaw it, it is still practised in many countries. Is it possible to change this?
N el S: Of course, but there are many sexual problems in the lives of women – female genital mutilation, rape, honour killing, forced marriages. They are usually tackled separately, but we have to connect in order to cure. In order to cure the problem, we have to know why we have it. Why is the clitoris of women cut? (and we have to link male genital mutilation to female genital mutilation because it is cutting children). Why are children cut in this way?
We have to study history. These are ancient historical customs. They are political customs, economic customs, sexual customs – and they are all related.
If we can just understand the causes of any problem, then we can eradicate it. This is something we studied in medical school – you cannot cure anything (and that goes for Female Genital Mutilation (FGM), honour killing and so on) if we do not know the real reasons.
Honour. Whose honour are we talking about? It is the man’s honour. It is the name of the father that has the honour. In most countries, children who take the name of the mother are illegitimate. In order to be legitimate, to be legal, you must have a father. So ‘the name of the father’ is the reason for women’s sexual and political problems.
Patriarchy is based on the name of the father. In history, since the beginning, there was the feudal patriarchy, then the capitalist patriarchal system. We are still living under the capitalist patriarchal system today. In every country the name of the father has the honour. Indeed, the name of the mother is even considered dishonourable in Egypt. But I’ll tell you how we can change that. We are fighting to give the mother’s name some honour and to eradicate the concept of illegitimate children.
I think we should connect rape, honour killing and female genital mutilation to patriarchy and to class. And the name of the mother should be exactly as honourable as the name of the father. Patriarchal society is very afraid of the name of the mother becoming honourable because they want women to be monogamous. If it is easy for a girl to have sexual relations and carry a child outside of marriage, with the father’s identity being unknown, then this threatens the whole capitalist patriarchal system.
TW: Can you tell us what the situation in Egypt is now around honour killing? Is there still honour killing in Egypt?
N el S: Of course there is still honour killing in Egypt today. I can give you two stories that were horrible but significant. (But, despite this, I am also optimistic that we are going forward). We need to empower the mother because, as these two stories demonstrate, when the mother is weak, she may even help in killing her own daughter.
I live in Shoubra and the next district along is called Imbabe. It was there that there was a horrible honour killing. We saw in the street the mother cheering and walking in the streets. Next to her was her son who had killed her daughter; he was carrying the head of his own sister. He was carrying the head of his sister, showing the people that he had restored the honour of his family. And there was the mother of the girl, beside him, walking in the street and cheering because her daughter had been killed. So you see how the mother herself is a slave to the concept of patriarchy and how she can betray her daughter by leaving her to be killed. This woman was educated, which shows that education sometimes does not make any difference.
Another story from Northern Egypt shows an opposite situation. It is about a powerful mother who, though not educated, had dignity, common sense, intelligence and personality. She loved and protected her daughter who was raped by her paternal cousin and became pregnant. The father, the cousin who had raped her, his father and the uncles gathered together and said, this girl should be killed for the honour of the family. They said this even though they knew that it was the cousin that raped her. Because the honour of the family is above ethics, above conscience, above everything. These men planned to kill the girl, who was very young, only 16. But the mother said no. They decided to force the girl into having an abortion and then to kill her. They planned all this but the mother was aware and she went with them to the hospital and never left her daughter’s side. Whatever they said to her, she responded, ‘No, I am going to stay with my daughter until the end’. And in the end these men killed the mother and daughter together because they could not get rid of the mother. Of course, the mother failed in spite of her power but we need to train and educate mothers so that they can have dignity and understand justice and patriarchy. We need to empower women with education and economic independence so they are not so weak that they submit to the concept of killing their daughters and can help save them instead.
TW: That brings us very naturally to the situation in Egypt now. You took an active part in the demonstrations in Tahrir Square - and here at St Paul’s. You said that you had been waiting your whole life for the revolution.
N el S: I have been dreaming since I was a child that there would be a revolution in Egypt, but also worldwide, that would cause the whole world to change. So when the Tahrir Square revolution came, I found myself there, as if I was living my dream. I was staying under the tent with the men and women there in Tahrir Square as if it was a dream. For seventy years I have been dreaming of this revolution.
TW: Watching it on television here, there seemed to be many women involved in Tahrir Square and yet you have said women must move very fast if they are to secure their rights in Egypt.
N el S: My fear is of a counter-revolution. In every revolution in history, for example the British, French and American Revolutions, there has always been a counter-revolution.
TW: So do you think women’s rights are a divisive issue in Egypt?
N el S: No. We started the Egyptian Women’s Movement, the Egyptian women’s Union. While we were in Tahrir square, we feared that we would be excluded. So we started to re-establish the Egyptian Women’s Union, which was banned by Suzanne Mubarak several times. And half of us are men. There are many men, especially young revolutionary men, with women of the Egyptian Women’s Movement and we were together in Tahrir Square. So the women issue is not divisive at all. It is religion that is used to divide the country.
Nawal el Saadawi is published in the UK by Zed Books.
There is a report of the IKWRO conference, Whose honour is it anyway?, on the organisation’s website
Show/hide full transcript
Subscribe with…