Multiple Stories on Arab Women's Roles Today, From All Along the Spectrum

As I'm still busy clearing my desk for the banquet tonight and the Annual Conference tomorrow, I thought I'd do a lengthy portmanteau list of links to a number of recent stories, from just about every angle imaginable, about the changing and uncertain roles of women in the age of Arab revolution. Barring something that can't be ignored, this may be my last post till Friday, so I've given you a lot to read.

Women have played a major role in the Arab Revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt at least, and with the emerging political strength of Islamist parties Arab feminists are trying to make their voices heard. So are female Islamists. When I say these stories range widely, I literally mean they range from a candidate who wears niqab (the full veil covering the whole face) to the first Arabic magazine to run an Arab woman in a bikini on the cover.

• We'll start with Egyptian politics. The Jerusalem Post recently addressed the question. As they note, one Islamic scholar and self-proclaimed Presidential candidate, Hazem Salah Abu Isma‘il,has been saying he would impose Islamic dress on women and arrest any woman wearing a bikini. Though he has had ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, they have distanced themselves from his candidacy.

• Indefatigable Egyptian blogger Zeinobia recently did her own roundup of women in the Egyptian Parliamentary elections which I'm going to quote for several items; she encouragingly calls her post "#1," so I hope there will be many. She begins with a poster from the Salafi Al-Nour Party shown at left. Now, Al-Nour attracts those Islamists who feel that the Muslim Brotherhood is way too liberal and permissive. As Zeinobia notes, Al-Nour held a conference on women at which all the speakers were men. It's that kind of party. (Not a partying kind of party, in other words.) Though they don't much approve of women in politics and such, the law says party lists have to have a certain minimum number of women candidates. Okay, so Al-Nour has women candidates. According to this political poster, one of them in this district is apparently a rose. (Bottom row, center.) Not only is she last on the list, they published a picture of a rose rather than show her face

• Somewhat related perhaps, Zeinobia also mentions that a candidate named Bahia Mohammed has become the first woman wearing full niqab to register as a candidate. As this longer account notes, she has her husband's permission. She's running as an independent, not for one of the religious parties.

• Shifting towards the more liberal side of the spectrum, the old and historically secularist Wafd Party doesn't put a rose on its poster, it puts the actual candidate (right), but since she's an attractive candidate and also blonde, that has had its own impact. Nihal ‘Ahadi is apparently drawing insulting comment through social media and is being labeled a member of the former ruling party.

• Meanwhile, an Egyptian woman has started a Facebook page urging men, if they're so convinced women should wear hijab, to try it themselves. (Another account here.)  Unfortunately the Global Voices links don't currently work for the Facebook pages, from either their English or their Arabic posts.

• While we're still in  Egypt, try fitting this into the links above: Egypt now has ten television channels devoted to nothing but belly-dancing videos. (Story is from Lebanon's Al-Akhbar.) And people expect the Islamist to do well in the elections. You square that circle for me if you can.

• While, in Egypt, candidate Abu Isma‘il is promising to arrest any woman wearing a bikini,a lot of the Internet is abuzz with the story that, for the first time (I haven't checked this against archives from the pre-Islamist era, so earlier instances may be posted to the comments), an Arabic magazine has put an Arab woman model on their cover wearing a bikini. Admittedly, my link is to that paragon of British journalism, The Times Daily Mail, but it appears elsewhere as well. Now it seems that model Huda Naccache is in fact an Israeli Arab from Haifa, 22, and not only that, has been chosen as Miss Israel for the "Miss Earth" contest. Now I've heard of Miss World and even blogged about the Arab-American who was Miss USA for the Miss Universe contest, who was rather improbably labeled a Hizbullah mole despite her swimsuit pictures. I've never heard of the "Miss Earth" contest. (If there's a Miss Earth as well as a Miss World and a Miss Universe, is there a Miss Solar System?) Lilac is an Arabic magazine published in Israel and circulated in the Palestinian Authority (not Gaza I suspect, at least this issue), and Jordan. Israeli bloggers are treating this from a different angle, arguing that Israel is hardly an "apartheid" state if they chose a Miss Israel who is an Arab. She's an Israeli Arab from Haifa, of course, not from the occupied territories. Purely for educational/anthropological/historical/cultural purposes, as I also did with Miss Universe candidate Rima Fakih, I reproduce as a cultural artifact with no prurient intent whatsoever, the cover of Lilac at left. If you want more pictures, you'll have to click through to the Daily Mail.

What's the moral or lesson of all these anecdotal issues? None I can think of, except that, as the Chinese say, women hold up half the sky. Arab men sometimes underrate that, and old stereotypes die hard. Are ten belly-dancing channels a step forward, or backward? Is Huda Naccache in a bikini a revolutionary or a stereotype, and whichever, how does she relate to the candidate for Parliament in niqab? As the father of a daughter, though not one who will grow up in the Arab world now emerging, I'm not sure, but there are many very different and seemingly incongruous things going on at once here.

Miss USA (You Remember: the Hizbullah Mole) is Fasting

You may remember the high weirdness that ensued when Rima Fakih, a Lebanese American, was chosen Miss USA/Universe last May. There were some utterly insane far-right Islamophobic posts suggesting she was some sort of Hizbullah plant (her father at least is a Lebanese Shi‘ite, though I get a sense it may be a mixed marriage), but since some of her cousins (in the usual Lebanese extended family) are alleged to have been Hizbullahi, the lunatic right decided she was some sort of Hizbullah plant to, um, take over our beauty pageants? Most Hizbullahis have tended to do well in pole dancing contests, after all. (And, as Hanin Ghaddar pointed out, it's not your average Hizbullah family, since the family home in Lebanon flies a big American flag. And also, the family celebrates both Christian and Muslim holidays, which is why I think it may be a mixed marriage.)

Now we are informed that she is, in fact, fasting for Ramadan, despite the fact that the Miss Universe Contest starts Monday. Ramadan Karim, Rima. (Why is this news? She can eat in the evenings. The photo below suggests she's not a big eater anyway.)

She's also modest, as noted in The Huffington Post:

Miss USA Rima Fakih talked to "Access Hollywood" about the Miss Universe promo shots, which will feature each contestant wearing body paint. Fakih said, "I love it. Oh my god. I've always wanted to do body paint and the fact that we get to do it with Miss Universe, that just shows you that there's going to be a lot of professional artists."
Some of the contestants offered to do it topless, including Fakih, but she will only be showing her back in the pics. "I told the [pageant organizers] I feel comfortable with beauty and with being unique. I'm known to standout and always wanting to do something different," Fakih said. She also mentioned the Miss USA lingerie photo controversy, remarking, "I think [people] need to look within what the pictures are trying to show, more than just what you just see on cover."

I guess if she's a Hizbullah mole, topless is okay as long as only your back is shown. And as soon as time permits, I will "look within what the pictures are trying to show." I obviously owe this to my readers.

If it isn't obvious, I consider the whole flap over her last May the stupidest story of all in the growing Islamophobia of the paranoid right. What, exactly, defines the alleged enemy? If a woman wears niqab, which the press will probably call a "burka," France, Turkey, and even Egyptian universities will ban it. Even hijab, the head veil only, is cause for suspicion. But then this young lady gets denounced as a Hizbullah mole?:



Okay, you guys, stop salivating. You just need to know the face (you are looking at the face, right?) of Hizbullah! (Though how she'd hide a suicide vest under the leopard-skin bikini is problematic.)

Now making fun of extreme Islamophobia is a bit unsporting since it's so easy, like dynamiting for fish at a dam, but if that young lady above is Hizbullahi, I'm converting. (Note if wife reads this: joke purely for rhetorical effect, dear.)

I don't pay attention to beauty pageants generally, and Miss Universe rarely at all, but this could be worth watching. (Umm, I mean entirely for its Middle Eastern resonances, of course.) And of course as an American, I'll root for Miss USA.

Qifa Nabki on Miss USA

Whenever something rather absurd involving Lebanon transpires (which is to say, fairly often), blogger Qifa Nabki — who most of the time is a fairly serious analyst — puts on his satirical cap, and he's usually quite good. While my own take on the right-wing alarm over the new Miss USA being labeled a Hizbullah mole was, I hope, suitably tongue-in-cheek, he tops me quite easily with a wonderful play on Rimah Fakih's name. Her surname — Fakih, but properly Faqih — means a religious jurist, and the principle Imam Khomeini imposed for the governance of the Islamic Republic is called velayet-e faqih (Arabic, wilayat al-faqih), and she's a Lebanese Shi‘ite. So Qifa spins it as "Heterodox Feminist Millenarian Group Pins Hopes for Armageddon on Miss USA Win." [Sorry. Had wrong link for some days. Now fixed.] It's absurd, but funnier than I was. And I think many male Mideast bloggers are probably paying so much attention because we so rarely have a valid excuse to link to cheesecake swimsuit pictures on Middle East blogs.

Most Ridiculous Controversy of the Day: Right Wing Furious About Arab-American Miss USA

Much Updated Below. As this story gets weirder, I'll update this post or add new ones.

My candidate for most ridiculous controversy of the day: the Miss USA Contest — a Donald Trump-run pageant several notches down from Miss America — has been won by an Arab-American of Lebanese origin. Apparently this has produced a lot of craziness on the far right, amid claims that she is a pro-Hizbullah mole of some sort infiltrating our beauty pageants in order to . . . what, exactly? Certainly the pictures of her in the swimsuit competition look like your standard Hizbullah infiltrator. (I wouldn't label these linked photos "not safe for work," but let's say she's not in a niqab.) And she went to Catholic High School in Dearborn, another sure indicator of Hizbullah ties. [Initially I didn't link directly to the insane stuff, but as it gets weirder and explodes in the blogosphere, you may want to read this diatribe, or this one, which flat-out calls her sharmuta, or whore (and not in the best sense, if you know what I mean) in Arabic (but wait: I thought she was a Hizbullah agent), and it gets worse.]

I thought anti-Arab, anti-Islamic paranoia couldn't get worse, but I hadn't realized that we needed to be on constant guard against the Islamist infiltration of our precious beauty pageants.

UPDATED: More evidence of radical Islamist tendencies are emerging: pictures in fishnet stockings and garter belts (see left), pictures of her pole-dancing in a "Stripper 2007 " competition, (also here), etc. She's obviously about one step away from strapping on a suicide vest, if she ever starts wearing much above her waist. Have we gone insane? She's being denounced over here as a (nearly-naked) Hizbullah mole and yet Hizbullah is unlikely to reprint these pictures. And this report says that 1997 "photos show Fakih pole dancing and with dollar bills in her bra.". ..

I'm pretty sure that's prima facie evidence of terrorist activity, aren't you? Obvious money laundering, by putting the dollar bills in her bra they figure they're going to escape detection . . .

Real Americans: Know Your Enemy (Just Kidding):


Ah, Lebanon.