American Enterprise Institute

October 10, 2006

[Edited transcript from audio tapes]

9:00 a.m.	Registration and Breakfast
9:15	Welcome and Introduction
	Speaker:	Michael A. Ledeen, AEI
9:30	Keynote Address
	Speaker:	Wafa Sultan, Syrian-American writer
10:30		Panel I: Social and Religious Reforms—The Battle for Women’s Rights
	Panelists:	Amel Grami, University of Manouba Mireille Chidiac-El Hajj, Lebanese activist
		Sawsan Hanish, Libyan Social Researcher
		Rasha Shokr, Cairo Radio
	Moderator:	Michael A. Ledeen, AEI
12:00 p.m.	Luncheon
12:30		Panel II: Political Reforms—Legal Rights for Women
	Panelists:	Ruthie Blum, Jerusalem Post
		Mariam Memarsadeghi, Freedom House
		Pascale Warda, Iraqi Council of Representatives; Iraqi Women's Center for Development
	Moderator:	Michael A. Ledeen, AEI
3:00	Adjournment

Proceedings:

[Note:  Some participants in this event are non-native English speakers, hence some of their statements are not formal or proper English grammar, and therefore hard to understand some comments words.  Also, there are many references to Arabic and foreign names and terms, which when discernible were spelled phonetically.]

[Start of Panel I: Social and Religious Reforms — The Battle for Women’s Rights]

Michael Ledeen:  … happy Tuesday.  This is one of those Tuesdays that feel like a Monday because of the long weekend.  So I know it is difficult and I am grateful to all of you for coming.  So our conference on “Women in the Middle East.”  I actually wanted to call it “Women of the Middle East,” rather than “Women in the Middle East.” 

And the reason for this conference, aside from the sheer delight in having all these wonderful women come to Washington and being with us, the reason for this conference is because it seems to me and it has seemed to me for sometime that in our discussions of Middle Eastern questions, that we had drawn a whole series of categories and boxes and we were thinking of Middle Eastern problems always over and over and over again in the same boxes, which I will not go through all of them.  But the major boxes, as you know, are terrorism and counter-terrorism, and then maybe a subdivision or a higher category than that, which is Islam, generally, or radical Islam, or extremist Islam, or Islamism, and all of that. 

And I was getting concerned that in the midst of all of these, one was losing sight of some very important elements in the Middle East.  Above all, women.  I mean, anyone alive over the age of 10 knows that women run the worlds and I do not see why more attention has not been paid to women in the Middle East because we know they are running … the only question is how are they running them?  And for those of us, like me, who lived in Mediterranean societies for extended periods of time we are used to the game that is played in those countries whereby the men are permitted to think that they are the dominant force in society, whereas in reality the women are running it all the time. 

So I thought, I hoped, that if we got these powerful women here today that they would let us in on exactly how it works and we would open a different kind of window into the Middle East.  Because these people who are, as you will see, enormously talented, brave, resourceful, imaginative women who are living in society, some of which are really dreadful, and dreadfully oppressive, in constricting kinds of dictatorships and so forth.  These are people who are thinking very hard in ways that many other people in the Middle East are not thinking about what it is going to look like and how are the fundamental ways to change those societies and so forth. 

So I am grateful to all of them for coming.  For some of them it has not been easy to get here, and in some cases even one had to scream at their government to permit them to come over, to have a visa put into their passport and have them come to Washington.  Okay, that is it. 

Let us get on to the talented part of the program.  Wafa Sultan has kindly agreed to be the keynote.  Wafa is one of the most famous people in the world because she called a nasty little bigot on Al Jazeera one day by his proper name.  And since then … what is it?  A million-and-a-half?  Does anybody know how many times that video clip has been watched?  Is there a way to keep tracking…?

Wafa Sultan:  … I was told eight million times.

Michael Ledeen:  All right.  So eight million.  That video clip is going out around the world more than eight million times.  She has been named one of the Hundred People Who Shape Our World, which is certainly true.  She has certainly shaped our world.  And that is from Time magazine, and they know.  So we are thrilled to have her.  She has an upcoming book called, The Escaped Prisoner:  When God is a Monster.  And please welcome Wafa Sultan.

Wafa Sultan:  Good morning, everyone.  I am very thankful to be here today.  I would like to thank Mr. Michael Ledeen for inviting me, and I would like to thank each of you for being here today.  Although what I will state does not apply to all the women of the Middle East, it holds true for a majority of them who are still living under a mixture of oppressive religious rules and traditions. 

First, I would like to start with this account of a tragic event that took place in 2003 in the Palestinian territories.  “Tonight you die, Rofayda.”  She told the girl before wrapping the bag tightly around her head.  Next So-ad [phonetic] sliced Rofayda’s wrist, ignoring her muffled plea, “No, mother, no.”  After her [indiscernible] went limp, So-ad struck her in the head with a stick.  The killing of her sixth-born child took 20 minutes, So-ad tells a visitor through a stream of tears.  “She killed me before I killed her,” said the 43-year-old mother of nine.  I had to protect my children.  That is the only way to protect my family’s honor.” 

I wanted to open with this chilling account because I thought it will be the most effective way to paint a clear picture of how hellish the lives of some women in the Middle East could become.  This is what is commonly known and accepted in that part of the world as a crime of honor.  What makes this one so repulsive is that this poor teenager’s sin was being raped by her two older brothers.  What makes it so inhumane is that it is committed by her mother.  The strongest love in the world is the one that binds a mother to her child.  What made this mother act against her motherly instincts?  What made her withstand the sight of her child suffering and begging for 20 minutes? 

This is another shocking story as reported by BBC in 2002.  Saudi Arabia’s religious police stop the schoolgirls from leaving a blazing building because they were not wearing correct Islamic dress, according to Saudi newspapers.  About 800 female students were inside the school in the Holy City of Mecca when the tragedy happened.  Firemen confronted police after they tried to keep the girls inside because they were not wearing the head scarves and the abaya, the black robes, required by the Kingdom’s strict interpretation of Islam. 

One witness said he saw three policemen beating young girls to prevent them from leaving the school because they were not wearing the abaya.  The Saudi newspaper quoted witnesses as saying that the police, known as the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice had stopped men who tried to help the girls and warned:  “It is sinful to approach them.”  Young lives were forced to barbaric practices because their sin was trying to escape this flame wearing what most of us are wearing right now.  The religious police, applying the Sharia, murdered with cold blood.

In the most outrageous act, these innocent schoolgirls, what vice were they preventing and what virtue were they are promoting by imprisoning these poor souls in a burning building?  What makes such horrific and inhumane acts an acceptable incident?  Why is a group of zealous men allowed to commit such murder with impunity?  On a trip to Qatar, I discover the inhumane conditions under which the foreign maids are kept.  I read in two weeks about four rape and violent abuse incidents against these defenseless creatures.  Are these the captives whom their right [indiscernible]?  Are Muslim men authorized to sexually assault enfeeble women? 

The answer will be found once we understand the cultural drives behind these brutal acts, once we realize the cruelty of an ideology that can harden the heart of a mother or can consider young lives as expendable worthless human beings.  Then we will be able to find remedies for librating and freeing the women of the Middle East.  In the Middle East where countries are, to different degrees, ruled under the Islamic Sharia, grant the males full control over their female relative’s lives, threatening women with divine condemnation in the afterlife and with physical punishment in this life. 

The Sharia justifies and legalizes for the Muslim men the same abusive acts that are considered criminal in our modern society.  In this Sharia are inspired societies.  Boys are brought up to believe that they are way superior and more appreciated than girls.  They are taught that their honor and dignity reside in the bodies of the women around them.  They grow up in a culture where men are not supposed to be able to control their sexual desires.  They are helpless victims of the seduction of a woman’s appeal, so the female is always to blame for any elicit sexual encounter.  When a young boy is brought up enjoying preferential treatment over his female siblings, and when he grows up watching his father’s socially condoned abusive acts against his mother and sisters, he applies the same unjust norms in his adult life. 

On the other hand, woman in the Middle Eastern societies are raised into the belief that they are a handicap.  Little girls are taught that they are worthless compared to boys, and their potential sources of shame [indiscernible] on their families’ males.  They are convinced that their bodies are temples where the honor of their families resides and that their virtue and virginity define their family’s reputation.  They are trained to become obedient servants to their husband’s wants.  Their life’s duties are reduced to pleasing their husbands and to giving birth to male children.  Once they fail to perform any of these duties, they are shunned and despised. 

This is, ladies and gentlemen, the core of the problem - a culture and the traditions based on religious extremism have kept the women in large parts of the Middle East in miserable conditions.  Culturally instilled low self-esteem combined, with fear of the [indiscernible] divine condemnation has produced a majority of women who are simply resigned to their status quo.  A group of these women become indoctrinated themselves in the sanctity of what they are taught.  They condition themselves to accept their inferior roles in society to the point of describing any attempts at reforming their unfair and degrading condition as misconceptions based on Westernized cultures.  This is what turned the mother into a child killer.  This is what repressed the outrage of those parents who have witnessed their little girls burned to death.  The powerful grip of the culture makes the task of freeing some of these women very difficult.  They have an implanted belief that any attempt to free themselves is against the divine will of God. 

How can all this be changed?  On an individual level, a lot of courageous Muslim women have come out and spoke against these gender-based injustices.  Their voices should be heard, and their lives should be protected.  I personally received death threats on my life because I dare to speak.  These women’s personal experience and their religious beliefs make them the best candidates to start a revolutionary reform.  They should be provided continuous media attention to spread their views where mostly needed.  Radio, TV broadcast, and internet websites addressed to the people of the Middle East should be available to expose them to the life in a free society and to dispel the distortions spread around the Islamic world about the evilness of the Western culture and its deteriorating morals. 

On the official level, the Free World should the liberation of the women in the Middle East as a main priority.  The United States is leading the war against terror.  It is obvious that a great part of this war should be fought on the ideological front and the societies that breed the terrorists, women have no say or role.  Oppressed women tend to bring oppressors with a wrong sense of a humor [sounds like].  Only a free and loving mother can nurture fear [indiscernible] to children.  The United States should push its strategic allies in the region into reforming their loss in order to protect the women and to promote gender equality.  Countries like Saudi Arabia should understand that they cannot be allied with the United States when their female population suffers human rights abuse in their daily lives. 

Ladies and gentlemen, the rights of the Muslim woman are a pre-request for any reform in the Middle East.  Societies where women are considered a liability will never thrive.  Free women are assets and indispensable builders of any society.  Their self-esteem is reflected in their children.  This is why women in the Middle East should believe that they are not inferior but equal to men.  A man is not worth [sounds like] to a woman.  Women in the Middle East should know that they are not a burden on humanity, but a blessing to humankind.  On the other hand, Muslim men should understand that there is nothing holy about demeaning or controlling the lives of their female relatives.  They have no divine right to control or, in some cases, own a woman.  Decent Muslim men should realize that it is ungodly to prevent women from obtaining their natural rights to freedom of will and self-determination. 

The free world should refuse to partner with any country that still applies seventh-century Islam on its female population.  The free world should not stand unshaken by the daily crimes committed against women under the guidance of extremist Islamic rules.  Countries where millions of women still live as oppressed prisoners can never be true partners in our free world. 

When I was in the Middle East, I cried because often I suffered.  Now, that I am free, I still cry, and a lot harder, for all those women whom I left behind.  My dream of one day having every one of them savor a taste of my freedom should be the dream of all humanity.  Thank you very much.  Thank you.

Michael Ledeen:  Wafa, do we have to be nice to all the women?  Would it not be enough to be nice to most of the women?

 Wafa Sultan:  To all of them.  We are a blessing…

Michael Ledeen:  Yes.  You do not have to convince me.  [Cross-talking].  Yes, I know that.  Yes, I believe so.  Okay.  We will move on with our first panel, which deals with social and religious reforms.  See how we are organized?  You can read all the biographies here in your package. 

But going around the table facing the table from left to right we have Mireille Chidiac-El Hajj from Lebanon, Amel Grami from Tunisia, Sawsan Hanish from Libya, and Rasha Shokr from Egypt.  And I think just the easiest way to do it is to go around the table.  If you want to come here and speak, if you are more comfortable standing up, by all means do so.  If you are more comfortable sitting down, just talk from where you are sitting, but take the microphone.  Sawsan, if you are going to sit, take the microphone and push the button so the red light goes on.

 Sawsan Hanish:  Thank you.  Hello, everybody.  I would like to begin my comments, if I may, with a simple definition.  Violence is a human behavior or action characterized by attempted force, obligation, or aggression.  It is directed by an individual or organization toward other individuals or official organizations.  It aims to exploit or subjugate by establishing a relationship founded on actual or trained coercion.  It causes physical or emotional damage to the weaker party and contravenes their human, legal, and ethical rights.  It is unfortunately widespread.  The report issued by the Vienna Violence Control Conference informs us that 1.6 million people die every year as a result of violent injury and a further million people experience physical and emotional suffering. 

Let me focus my comments still further.  Violence directed against women frequently takes the form of force or coercion using violent forms of discrimination, persecution and aggression, both mental and physical in the context of the family or, more generally, in society.  The effect on a woman who is the victim of violence is that she frequently finds herself in physical danger.  She frequently loses her sense of existence, her self-confidence, and her trust of others.  Her loss of security erodes.  Her ability to deal with work, her role in the family, and society progressively diminishes [sounds like].  Clearly every human in this planet has the right not to be exposed to violence of this type. 

Social violence against women is frequently characterized by a set of social restrictions and limitations imposed by dominant male members of society.  These are calculated to minimize the contributive role of women in society.  They exist to make it difficult for her to take important decisions and indeed to withdraw from her the very right to make any sophisticated [sounds like] decisions at all. 

Such societal restrictions are often a product of narrow-mindedness and hard-line conservatism and traditionalism.  For some, they are the product of complete misunderstanding of religious directives, whatever original such restriction served only to devaluate women and expose them to significant risks, to persecution and abuse.  It is a sad fact that in many countries in the world and even now in the 21st century, gender inequality is perpetuated by poor education and parenting.  Women remain excluded from full participation in public life and find themselves victims of wide rejections, unfair employment practices, and sexual abuse in the workplace. 

Let me now move on the position of women in Arab Libyan society as an example.  Regardless of the position of women in my own Libyan Arab society, I would like to say that the rights of women do not perhaps receive absolute recognition under Libyan Law, the legal framework under which our society [indiscernible] that can be considered favorable at least in theory. 

Let me explain.  The key aspects of employment law are firmly in place, such as appropriate maternity leave provision, or the inability of an employer to require a woman to undertake labor which conflicts or is inappropriate to her physical structure.  Aside from such basic revisions, Libyan Law clearly aims to treat both male and female citizens equally in terms of their rights, duties, and legal liabilities.  The political structures in Libya furthermore provide for the making and execution of decisions that practice of people authority regardless of gender.  Intended pattern of equality of social is recognizable in the Libyan Jamahiriya. 

Gender issue plays the [indiscernible] path in citizenship, education, employment, legal responsibility, or finance, and home ownership.  Women have the critical right to choose their own husband.  Women benefit from social security in the case of disabilities and injuries at work, occupational disease or senility.  They can exercise their political rights and can occupy senior positions in the state and civil society.  Libyans signed up to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CDAW) and certified the operational [sounds like] protocol attached to the convention in May 1989 with reservation toward any provisions which can be considered contrary to Sharia law. 

Furthermore, Libya was one of the first countries to sign up the Protocol on Women’s Rights attached to the African Charter on Human Rights.  The protocol aimed to ensure that women in Africa have access to justice and equal protection and respect of law.  Member states undertake to prevent or eliminate all forms of violence against women and punish those who commit it.  As a state, therefore, Libya is clearly committed to gender equality and has made considerable efforts to establish a nondiscriminatory legal framework. 

What is now needed in many countries in the Middle East is to address societal issues which still encourage violence and discrimination against women.  May I offer a few examples of the kind of problems still being faced from a societal perspective.  In societies where the extended family retains an important social function, there often remains the problem of transference [sounds like] of prejudice towards the ignorance of women from previous generations.  Women simply remained marginalized in the family from one generation to the next. 

Similarly, the society where male authoritarianism has grievously reviled [sounds like] women seldom had either the voice or the economic and social influence to stand up for their rights or participate in decision making.  Women who do try to voice their concerns and stand up for their rights often find themselves unfairly risking their reputation for decency and dignity.  Early learning practices within the family often perpetuated by mothers and grandmothers sometimes instill a notion of gender inequality of children at a very young, impressionable age.  Women sometimes remain unaware of the principle of gender equality incorporated into the school curriculum.  The adult is generally ignorant of their rights as citizens and completely unskilled encountering discrimination. 

May I finally offer a few proposals for countering social violence against women.  There is no single solution to this.  Countering social violence against women demands in many countries legislative reforms together with the development of an effective and independent judiciary.  But this is not itself a solution.  This must be combined with the achievement of the qualitative shift in social and cultural thinking activity through action and through effective use of the media.  In practical terms, this means, firstly, developing a high-level social strategy that promotes nondiscrimination values and encourages life-long learning and change. 

Secondly, activating religious [indiscernible] to condemn social violence against women and encourage women to stand up for their rights. 

Thirdly, encouraging the media to elevate the status of women in society and family by representing women as being more than merely a beautiful face and a commercial body.  The media should also be encouraged the present [indiscernible] picture of social violence and the persecution towards women.  Fourthly, encouraging research by governmental and non-governmental bodies into women’s issues and for them to provide enhanced support network for abused women. 

And finally, enhanced prioritization of gender issue in the primary, secondary, and tertiary education curriculum.  Only through these combined and integrated measures will we eliminate crime of evil of social violence against women.  Thank you for listening to me.

 Michael Ledeen: As we move along, please keep in mind that one of the central questions that we want to get to when we get into discussion is the role of leadership.  And that is to what extent would it be possible to change the attitudes of a significant number of people if the leaders behave differently,  that is, if leaders acted as if they believed in real equality, in what their own laws say instead of having the laws to one side and then their actual behavior in a completely different world, which is lawless?  So I just want to mark that along the way.

 Amel Grami:  Thank you, Mr. Ledeen.  Good morning, everyone.  My name is Amel Grami.  I am from Tunisia.  The title of my intervention is the “The Battle for Women’s Rights:  Women and Interpretation of Koran”.  I will start by speaking about some examples of the battle for woman’s rights.  Secondly, the reception of the works by Muslim woman activists in their own countries.  And finally, I will talk about the price to pay.  The Battle of Women’s Right:  Women and the Interpretation of Koran. 

Now, there are some groups of Muslim thinkers who call for restricted application of the Sharia Islamic Law that goes back to medieval times and which in practice contains corporal punishment, discriminatory family laws restricting women’s rights to divorce, inheritance, the exercise of certain professions, et cetera.  The impact of such discourse has intensified through increasing access to the Internet, satellite TV, and other means of mass communications.  Watching Islamic satellite TV programs, we discover a discourse that affirmed the subordination of woman to man, justifies domestic violence against women, disseminates quotes that restrict freedom of choice, and legitimizes the control of women’s lives, the autonomy, dress, sexuality, and choices. 

However, it is important to know that there is a barrier separating the media religious leader discourse from the everyday life of Muslims and the world around them.  In front of these situations, we find various faults of responses.  A growing group of educated women are engaged in the new effort to use their education to, as they say, ”look deep into the spirit of the Koran and find there the gender justice they believe was the original intent of the prophet Mohammed. 

Hundreds of women’s groups have sprung out all over the Middle East.  They had been formed not only as secular consciousness raising groups but also as Koranic study groups.  In the past, men interpreted the Koranic verses and the Hajiv saying of the prophet Mohammed that prescribed women’s right.  Women themselves are now arguing for new evaluations of those older interpretations and supporting their arguments with evidence from the sacred text.  The new women exegesis in Egypt, Morocco, Syria, et cetera have become today not only the subject of intense religion debates but also participant in that discourse. 

Today, such women’s movements frequently called Islamist are at the forefront of change in many Moslem nations.  In this paper, I will focus on two types of woman activist.  On one hand, they are individual works by some secular, intellectual women.  On the other hand, we find an Islamic feminist movement.  Intellectual Muslim women declare that Islamic law is not God’s law as is always said by those who promote it but human creation codified over the past centuries in the context of patriarchal societies in which women were considered the property of men, and the religious discourse lay in the hands of men.  These women’s rights movements consider that the degradation of Islamic tradition and distortion of the sacred text has taken place. 

Many Muslim women scholars and activists have attempted to change and some have no doubt even survived their attempts.  There have been some isolated successes.  These women have been working hard in order to change customs and laws that deny women’s rights.  Some of these activists called for reforming Islamic family law in their respective countries by, for example, educating women about their rights to refuse forced marriage and violence. 

In a society strongly influenced by Islam, the only change for women’s true emancipation is taking part in theologic juridical debates and deciding for themselves on what is essentially Islamic and what is not, and which laws will govern the coming change and which will not.  In order to reach this aim, scholars choose to reinterpret the Koran and deconstruct the jurisprudence from a feminist perspective, focusing on issues like gender segregation, mandatory veiling, forced early marriage, unequal [indiscernible, sounds like “bloody??”] money, polygamy, domestic violence, strict domestic laws, the unequal inheritance laws, the obligation for women in many Muslim countries to obtain permission from their husband to travel, the ban in some Muslim countries on women to work or even to drive. 

Many women argued that resistance to reinterpreting the Koranic law is strong, but the truth of the matter is that Koranic law has been modified and reinterpreted in the past to suit men and serve their own interests.  For this reason, it is important to deconstruct myth of masculinity and how many historic and current interpretation use masculinity to support patriarchy.  We can mention for example the work of [indiscernible] from Saudi Arabia.  Some scholars like the journalist [indiscernible] and the sociology professor Zail Zandibar [phonetic] engaged more directly with jurisprudence.  Others like [indiscernible] apply their rereading of the Koran to the examination of the various formulation of the Sharia.  She believes that jurisprudence must be capable of responding to widely diverse needs and problems. 

People are widely familiar with the works of Turkish [indiscernible] and the Moroccan Fatema Mernissi.  Mernissi has used the tools of classical Islamic methodology to examine the Hajiv relating to issues of women in gender, demonstrating how many widely circulating Hajiv are weak or superior and how some which are of more solid provenance had been read out of context.  Various secular women working in the [indiscernible] maintain that it is necessary to reinterpret the Koran and Sharia from the basis of internationally recognized human rights.  The Koran tendency among the few women jurists is that of preferring human rights to Sharia.  They think that laws must conform to human rights seeking in private matters where there is a possibility of choice to tend towards Sharia. 

But it is not a principle.  It is not a necessary rule.  Some women go even further.  [Indiscernible] of Yemen lectures at the University of Judea and who simply says that all the contents of the Koran that do not correspond to the mentality and principles of contemporary life must be left out as belonging to the mentality of 17th century Arabia.  These secular Western-style feminists were not, however, the only ones to battle for women’s rights in the Islamic world.  Religious women have also organized movements to improve women’s access to health care, jobs, and education.  Some of these activists however continue to argue that Islam protects women’s rights and that Muslims need not abandon their religion or culture heritage in the pursuit of greater opportunities for women. 

The Islamic feminist movements discourse emerged as a reaction to the spread of Islamist or political Islam.  It started in the beginning of 1919 and [indiscernible] in other parts of the Arab East Mediterranean.  Islamic feminism is a discourse of educated urban women and a few men who reread the Koran in early Islamic history to recuperate [sounds like] their religion from patriarchal and violent interpretation and to make the case for women’s participation and rise in the religion idiom.  Since religion equals power, Muslim women moved to work for gender justice through the existing power structure which seems reasonable and advantageous decision.  The leaders of this movement affirm that Islam contains important elements of liberation and call for the recovery of those elements as a framework for social emancipation. 

Concerning the public sphere, Islamic feminists argue that women may be heads of states and imams, persons charged to guide the prayer.  In the private sphere, Islamic feminists are challenging the conventional notion of male authority over females in marriage and the family.  Examples of local forms of Islamic feminist activism include demands for women to hold the position of judge, mufti [sounds like], official who issues religious ruling and [indiscernible] an official who registers marriage.  Believing that Western feminism has promoted hostility between the sexes, confuses sex roles and the sexual obligation of women, a number of writers have proposed an Islamic style feminism that would stress gender complementarity [sounds like] rather than equality and that would pay full respect to motherhood while also giving women access to education and jobs. 

The feminists’ campaign to reform the Muslim Personal Status Code was an exclusively Muslim campaign led by feminists who employed fully Islamic arguments to push the case for more progressive Sharia-based law.  The new women exegisists like Umayna Abu Bakr [phonetic], [indiscernible] from Egypt, [indiscernible] from Iran, Saudi Arabia Fatima Naseef consider that such an approach therefore would stress the urgent need for equipping women with appropriate tools.  For instance knowledge of Arabic, the Koran and [indiscernible] as well as feminist theories and methods that enable them to redefine, reinterpret and reform Islam to be a more woman- friendly and gender egalitarian religion. 

The basic methodologies of this Islamic feminism are classic, such as [indiscernible] independent investigation of religious sources, [indiscernible], interpretation of the Koran.  Used along with these methodologies are linguistic history, liturgic criticism, sociology, anthropology, et cetera.  We can recognize that both Muslim women activists and women belonging to the Islamic Feminism Movement have the strength to challenge men’s clout [sounds like] that defines most of the Muslim world.  Meanwhile, liberal scholars do not have a holistic project as Islamic feminists have.  They may be helpful to a particular kind of Islamic movement. 

But what is the reception of the works by Muslim women activist in their home countries?  Traditional religious leaders and fundamentalist thinkers who represent Islamic orthodoxy refuse the call of modernist thinkers and Muslin women activists for the new reading of Islamic text, and the possibility of gender equality [indiscernible] minority rights within an Islamic reforms framework.  The fundamentalists consider that Islamic society should be built upon men among themselves.  They deny modernity and sustain that it is against Islam. 

According to them, accepting modernity values will lead to the abandonment of the Sharia law and the Islamic identity.  Some of the traditional religious leaders and fundamentalist thinkers reject Muslim feminist discourse as well as the struggle of women activists for equality.  To many these women are the bad daughters of Islam.  They are considered as rebels of the nation, even spies.  Women who think differently are denigrated as Westernized and unreligious.  Secular liberal groups in the Arab world and the independent secular feminists are increasingly being criticized as Westernized.  The financial support provided by Western donors and the promotion of Western ideals of democracy and women’s emancipation are cited as proof of this alleged Westernization.  This attitude against women is shared by many religious leaders in the Islamic world. 

Unfortunately, one of the tallest hurdles these women face is an internal one.  Traditional gender roles and subjugation to fathers and husbands have been ingrained in the minds of women from birth.  Mothers, too, pass this mindset onto their daughters, and so most women defend their second-class status whenever it is challenged.  For the women’s liberation movement to get off the ground, we must first convince the women who do not support women activists.  The price to pay, and here we should distinguish between the case of women fighting for the rights of women in European countries and the US, like Amina Wadud, Asma Barlas, Azizah al-Hibri, et cetera, and even Wafa Sultan. 

In the case of women leading in Islamic countries, that is why I will speak about the price to pay.  It is clear that the public sphere in a number of Islamic countries is changing, and civil society is becoming feminized due to women’s greater social participation, the proliferation of women’s organizations, their involvement in, or initiation of public debates in national dialects as well as access to various forms of media.  But in many cases, just getting more women into hierarchy does not necessarily change their patriarchal fundamentals.  It is evident that it is more complex than that.  In fact, it is understandable why we are so resistant to engage in the debate about the family law reforms, since historically, most religious institutions are patriarchal. 

Liberal women leading the campaign for women’s rights are excluded from Islamic media and other forms of public opinion.  Women scholars, who choose not to put the veil, specialized in Islamic studies and call for a reformation of religion education, more equal family laws, are never invited to attend important Islamic conferences or panel debates in their respective countries.  Traditionalists and fundamentalists argue that Islamic scholars from famous religious institutions like Al-Azhar remain the only ones permitted to interpret the Koran and to speak about Sharia. 

Islamic extremists are imposing the infallibility of the basic Koran text or interpretation of the text.  In Iran, over recent years women have been increasingly receiving instructions in theological schools, and their education is not different from that of men.  But unlike their male counterparts, they are not allowed to serve as [indiscernible], the source of [indiscernible], or together, religion following their degrees, therefore have less social relevance.  They are not allowed, for example, to take positions valuable to men with theological degrees.  The writings of some scholars are censored by Al-Azhar or other religious authorities.  They are considered dangerous because they reflect Western secular feminism. 

Fundamentalism believes that feminism is abnormal product of contemporary social disintegration.  They argue for the incompatibility of Islam and feminism.  In fact, Muslim men have felt threatened by modernities, challenges to traditional arrangements between the sexes.  Religious extremists issued a Fatwa, a religious verdict given by a Muslim scholar on an issue of religious importance against some feminists/women activists who are against radical Islam and the marginalization and visibility in the exclusion of women in male-dominated religions, culture and social practices, and political spheres. 

Some Fatwa have been issued by well-known institutions like the [indiscernible] and some by individual Mulawi or Imam leading prayer in the mosques.  We can mention here the case of Nawal A’Sadawi from Egypt, who was considered an apostate.  One of the common intimidation strategies used by fundamentalists is sending insulting messages and death threats to some activist women like the Yemen [indiscernible], the aim being silencing them. 

And yet, these very few women who dare stand up for reform are greatly threatened by the authorities.  They are such as Wajeha al-Huwaider from Saudi Arabia, who had been calling for change, trampled on by the state.  In 2003, Wajeha was banned from writing for a Saudi newspaper because of her strident criticism of the way women are treated in the kingdom.  In September 2006, Wajeha al-Huwaider has been warned to keep quiet and had her passport taken away from her because she criticized the government and society.  It is evident that women who are prepared to speak out in favor of reform are few in the Islamic world.  They are punished by both the state, the forces of conservatism, and fundamentalist religious groups for showing the courage of their convictions and being visible. 

Let us conclude.  A fresh interpretation of the Koran is the fundamental step in the reconsideration of the [indiscernible] and the bridging of a new jurisprudence.  It is only by sharing information, experiences and strategies of all the religions that we can be successful in confronting the danger [sounds like] and help the new generation to find new orders.  Some women activists think that dialogue with progressive women and moderate men from religious groups could give us alternatives to religious extremism.  Others consider that it is necessary to contribute to the consolidation of Islamic feminism as an international movement. 

The question is can we talk about possible cooperation between secular women and Islamic feminists?  Or is there a competition between them?  Margot Badran says that Islamic feminism destroys all binaries [sounds like] that have been constructed, suggesting a supposed clash between secular feminism and religious feminism may either be the product of lack of historical knowledge or, as in many cases, a politically-motivated attempt to handle broader solidarities among women.  It is simplistic to say that it is time to change history, but reform takes more than a few things. 

Those who would call for a new interpretation of the Koran and the reformation of family laws are small in number, and have limited access to key reform institutions.  Muslim women should be encouraged to take a leading role in Islamic academia and [indiscernible] which have been interpreted predominantly by men.  As long as religious monopoly lies with a particular group and religion continues to exercise the social, political, and spiritual influence it does, it is hard to see how less fortunate groups are ever going to get a fair hearing. 

According to my modest experience as a woman scholar and academic attending many religious conferences, especially in Europe and North Africa, I believe that it is necessary to help Muslim women who are fighting for the visibility of their work and writing.  In today’s violent environment, it has become almost impossible to defend legal reform in favor of women.  The fear of being condemned in their own countries holds many scholars back.  Thank you for your patience.

Michael Ledeen:  You should title your talk when you publish it “Islamic Feminism Is Not An Oxymoron,” which most people would take for granted.  Thank you very much.  Rasha?

Rasha Shokr:  Hello everyone.  I want to say at the very beginning that I am very pleased to be here today.  I am not here because of anything related to my work experience, though everything adds to who I am  today.  I am here today because I discovered is powerful medium called blogging, through which I established so many relationships with [audio skips] who are just concerned with human rights, freedoms and liberties.  Among them is the American Enterprise Institute.  I feel honored today to be here, and I thank the American Enterprise Institute for giving me the chance to talk about women in the Middle East, and in my case, it is Egypt. 

I am an Egyptian blogger, and my place is behind the screen.  This is my first time ever to go public  among such a distinguished audience.  Blogging brought me a window to express myself with freedom, without fear, that I suffered for years in my country, Egypt.  I believe that the day I started blogging, I felt that I am not afraid anymore, and that was a turning point in my life.  When I came to the United States three years ago, or less than three years ago, I was still acting like an Egyptian citizen, in the sense that I was afraid to express myself with comfort.  I was still trapped in my culture of fear.  It took me one year to realize that I arrived at the land of freedom, and to understand why people here express themselves within what is called the freedom of speech.  And that was one reason why I started my blog. 

So, allow me today to blog live for the first time about the story of Egypt and the story of the Egyptian woman.  Before writing this paper, I thought of reviewing Egyptian women problems in Egypt.  But then I thought they might be too individual or personal, and I found that the list is really huge.  I can write a book, not a paper, about Egyptian women problems in Egypt.  That is due to the complex nature and diversity of problems, according to each class and region in Egypt.  I decided at the end to tell the story of women in Egypt in modern history from a different angle. 

For more than half a century, Egyptian women issues and troubles have been melting under the umbrella of Arab women problems in general, which is one reason why the Egyptian women liberation movement witnessed deterioration and sluggishness over the past 50 years.  The Egyptian women’s liberation started with most of the world’s countries by the 19th century.  The rise of the Egyptian women’s liberation movement did not take regimes to move and grant women some of their rights when the mood is right there.  It evolved because of some educated individuals rising from the upper-middle and middle classes in Egypt who were capable of shaking the social traditions, these traditions that led to crippling women from attaining their roles. 

One of the leading Egyptian figures in this regard is Qasim Amin, who belonged to the upper-middle class in Egypt.  He went to France to study law.  He then came back to Egypt as a judge.  One reason why his writings are so respected, he wrote one of the most popular books in the entire Middle East women’s history, about women’s rights called Liberation of Women or Tahrir al-Mara.  He addressed the problem of women’s education, and particularly, also women’s seclusion which was a social tradition problem rather than a religious one. 

In the 19th century, unlike today’s world, religion was not the main obstacle towards liberating Egyptian women.  Religion was not established as an institution with officials guarding it.  It was rather a culture subject to social evolution.  Egyptian Muslim, Copt, and Jewish women used to wear veils in the 19th century, and it was not an indication for religion, but rather a social trend that kept women secluded.  But once the daughters of those families were sent to schools for education abroad, or schools in Egypt, they took off their veil as a sign of modernity.  The veil was not discussed as a matter of religion, but rather a social and educational status.  It is easy to trace Egypt’s rise in modernity in the 19th and beginning of the 20th century. 

Egypt became the Hollywood of the East, not only for Egyptians but for artists from the entire Middle East, because Egypt had the right and the proper environment at that time.  Egyptian actresses showed modernity not less than any of their European or American counterparts at that time.  Egyptian women became pilots, scientists, dancers, and models.  The equation was easy for women at that time – to get on the modernity bandwagon. 

Education led women to take off their veils and ask for full participation in society.  It was part of the middle class values, to get their children educated, be it men or women.  The upper middle and middle classes in Egypt normally were the nerve of the Egyptian society along the modern history of Egypt.  They produced liberal concepts.  They defined a powerful civil society without really saying it.  Today Egyptians are struggling to build this under very restrictive rules.  Egypt is a class society since it was ever known.  Egypt’s charisma was not really created after 1952 with the evolution of the military revolution, but rather at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century due to the civil and social achievements that were happening gradually but surely. 

I would like here to refer to a leading feminist figure.  Her name is Huda Sharawi.  She belonged to the upper middle class in Egypt.  Sharawi worked at the domestic front leading women’s political participation campaigns.  Her success led her to neighboring countries to promote women’s rights and influence many as she became a role model for women’s liberation in the Middle East.  Those individuals like Huda Sharawi and Qasim Amin were a reason why the liberal experience and values in Egypt were charismatic. 

Among Huda Sharawi’s achievements was her participation in the first Arab delegation in 1923 in Rome, International Feminist Conference, that led her to many European capitals at that time.  She was instrumental to the formation of the first Arab feminist movement.  Qasim Amen’s book, Liberation of Women was published everywhere in the Middle East.  His book was a revolution, shocking in some instances.  But shocks are not always bad.  It brought needed values that led to the liberation of women.  The political and economic climate at that time in Egypt was favorable, despite the fact that Egypt was under British occupation.  Egyptian [indiscernible] around finding a way to gain Egypt’s independence. 

In 1936, an Anglo-Egyptian treaty was signed, paving the way for partial independence.  The international atmosphere indicating that eventually occupied countries will gain independence, especially after US president Woodrow Wilson stated his 14 Points in 1918, stressing the nation’s right worldwide for self-determination, political independence, and territorial integrity.  Women participated in political life.  Women were at the forefront and the streets when the 1919 revolution took place in support of the nation’s leader, Saad Zaghlul, who maybe is counterparting to the founding fathers of the United States, calling for Egypt’s independence. 

The first women’s political party was established in 1942 calling for women’s full participation in political life, including membership in local councils that were influential at that time and nominating here for parliament.  The second Women’s Party was formed in 1949.  The movement for women’s liberation emerged strong after the ratification of the 1923 Constitution that denied women some rights.  But it did not deny them the right to fight and struggle for their rights.  The struggle for women’s rights in Egypt was civil and constitutional.  There was not much time spent over interpreting religious texts. 

Reviewing some of the achievements in Egypt’s modern history that enhanced women’s rights in the 19th and 20th century were like first public schools for girls in Egypt was established in 1873.  The first class included 286 girls before those schools were private or home-based.  The school was established after another leading Egyptian figure named [indiscernible] who published a very important book to advocate women’s or girl’s education at an early age, empowering them for future to work and succeed.  The girls’ school was established with the help of the wife of [indiscernible] Ysmail, and by 1945, public schools for girls’ education reached 230 schools with almost 45,000 girls enrolled. 

In 1928, the daughter of [indiscernible] Ysmail, Princess Fatima, donated a huge land in Giza and her jewelry to establish the first national university known in the past as King Farouk [phonetic] University and today as Cairo University.  And as schools for women’s work also grew up and many people were advocating women’s work, in 1832 the first school for nurses for women was established, encouraging women to join the labor force. 

The call for women’s work did not happen overnight, but figures like Rifa Tatawi [phonetic] and other people belonging to the middle classes in Egypt played a major role.  For the rise of freedom of press and expression for women in 1892, in Alexandra, the first magazine on women’s affairs calling for breaking crippling social traditions and liberating women was published by Hand Nofel and was called Alfatah or “The Young Girl.”  The first women’s association was established in 1925 to defend women’s rights.  The association produced a paper in Arabic and English called The Egyptian Woman. 

So, in the 19th century, women’s issues were summarized into priorities, catching up with the developed western world and gaining Egypt political independence.  The prescription for the first was easy – education, which was part of the values of the middle class in Egypt.  Life was not perfect despite all these achievements but the results were true reflections of the native texture of Egyptian society.  After the military coup d’etat in 1952, life in Egypt changed forever.  The ruling became for the military.  Revolution took over in many places in the world, but, regrettably, in most of the Middle East countries, it was about throwing power into the laps of few individuals. 

Egypt was like a blooming flower by the 20th century, with all the achievements at the social level and, particularly at the women’s front.  However, the country’s political agenda, direction shifted from state continuing to set the house in order to reach a complete, liberal, democratic experience to focusing on external agendas created by individuals meant to stay for power as long as they lived.  These agendas eventually set the state into chaos.

 Adopting Arab nationalism and socialism and the Palestinian cause as a primary Egyptian national agenda shifted the efforts from working domestically on creating the atmosphere favorable for liberties and freedom to thrive to discharging the energy on foreign Arab agendas.  Egypt did not become the priority to work on for a better future for Egyptians, be it man or woman.  The ambitious political leadership in Egypt under President Gamal Abdel Nasser worked with other military groups in other countries to attain power on allegation of liberating their countries.  Egypt was not ready yet for drastic social changes.  These overnight social changes led to the isolation and remoteness of the middle class society until today.  That was one day the pillar of the advancement of civil society and particularly, of course, women.  Egyptians shunned away from the political life forever until today because the changes led to chaotic social structure that has stripped many of their roles on top of which, of course, women.

 The will of the Egyptian middle class was denied under Arab socialism, which led to the decay of social values that were once the reason behind Egypt’s modern liberal experience and modernity that was about to compete with the West.  As soon as President Nasser detained and killed many members of the Muslim brotherhood, but it was an elimination to a competing or rising political power.  Some articles I read by renowned Arab intellectuals hinted to the affiliation of President Nasser to the Muslim brotherhood through some secret meetings before the revolution took place. 

During the 19th century, all Egyptian liberal figures who took charge of liberating the society, be it man or woman, had religious education at their childhood.  It was the only available means for education to learn the language of Arabic, which was supported by one or other two languages.  The reason why religion was never a threat was because it was never institutionalized in the modern history of Egypt before 1952.  President Nasser, in 1961, issued a law number 103, to restructure Al-Azhar Religious School to become a religious institution.  Sheiks of Al-Azhar School were transformed simply from men of religion to officials responsible for Islam.  Nasser established the city of Al-Azhar scholarships.  It invited Islamic scholars for free from the Arab, Asian, and African countries to study Islam.  Then later he helped establish Al-Azhar University in Gaza, Palestinian territories, and worked with Algeria on fundamental Arabization of the country through sheiks from Al-Azhar University who maybe had roots in the Muslim brotherhood. 

Then, Egypt witnessed a tradition of confiscating pieces of art based on reports by Al-Azhar sheiks, a tradition that is kept until today.  No one can easily issue or write a novel or a piece of art or even a statue without having really the religious authorities in Egypt signing that it can pass. 

And I would like to mention here also, as an example, that the late Egyptian writer, Naguib Mafouz’s famous novel, Children of the Alley, the novel was prevented from being sold or read because of a report from two sheiks at Al-Azhar who had relation with the Muslim brotherhood.  Later, Mafouz escaped a terrorist assassination attempt by Islamic extremists who wanted to punish him for his writings and lead him to the correct path.  The revolution succeeded in creating two prisons for the Egyptian people. 

One is a religion institution, which restricted the freedom of speech and implanted the Islamic conservative traditions where most of the women’s rights are questioned until today.  The second is a military ruling that inhibited political participation forever.  The new political and economic climate was reflected on the entire society, including women.  The new political agenda for Egypt killed the causes of freedom, development, and progress.  Melting the problems of the Egyptian women, who enjoyed a very special status under the umbrella of the issues of Arab women in general, brought the issue of the women’s development to a complete halt. 

And, I cannot compare myself to the Saudi or Yemeni women, with all due respect to all of them, of course, and to their fights and struggle for their rights.  But each country in the Middle East has its own traditions and history.  The process and the story of the evolution of women should be tied to the social roots of each country in order to disentangle them within the general political context of each country.  Turning the agenda of liberating Egyptian women into an Arab issue was the best and fastest means to create barricades in front of the march of the development in Egypt. 

Moving into the one-party state together with the strong rights of an Islamic religious institution that is given all the rights to give its say on what is good or bad for Egyptians, including women, killed the values of the middle class society, which built modern Egypt.  Instead of focusing on building Egypt and continuing on catching up with the values of the modern civilizations, we created enemies like infidels, Christians, Jews, Zionists, and with a conspiring quest against the Arab nation and Islam, all these big slogans that we are entrapped in now.  Conspiracy theories isolated the mentalities of men and women in the Middle East.  Egypt, which embraced most of the Mediterranean peoples, one day became xenophobic. 

Now, anyone who travels abroad is a spy, collaborating with the foreign entities.  They are going against the national security of the country and this is one of the legacies of the Arab military Islamic revolutions.  Cliches like, “Keeping our identity” became the first response to any change at any level.  So, it became like we are so immune to any change, whether it is bad or good.  It is a normal result that women’s liberation movements in the Middle East witnessed either a complete halt or sluggishness.  Having half of the society represented by women paralyzed, playing no role whatsoever, is a big service to dictatorships in the Middle East. 

There is no true development, process without women.  There are no political or economic gains without women’s representation.  The United States declaration of sentiments that led the basis for women’s rights was not ratified before the Declaration of Independence.  Creating a favorable political climate is the only way towards women’s liberation.  We cannot save Egyptian girls between 4 and 12 from having their genitals mutilated when only 26 percent of the Egyptian people go to the polls, who were mostly civil servants or Muslim brotherhood, to elect their candidates, of course.  If Egypt was given the chance to grow naturally, politically, and socially at the beginning of the 20th century, without the interruption of the last half century, I would not be surprised if Egypt today had a woman prime minister or president. 

However, crying over spilled milk, feeling sorry or playing the victim will not help generations of young innocent girls.  These new generations need to grow in dignity and be in full control of their lives.  This will never happen except with a straightforward legislation to stop at using young girls, as in the case of female genital mutilation, for example.  We might not return the past but we have the present and the future to plan.  The only reason why I am here today is because I love my country and I love my people. 

There are so many Egyptians who share with me the same feelings and are willing to do what it costs [sounds like] them to save what can be saved.  Survival evolution and development of human rights, be it for men or women, do not happen because of individual decisions or swinging moods.  They do happen because it is the will of a nation under favorable conditions.  These conditions would not be created by mere chance.  They will happen because we worked on them. 

Thank you very much for listening and for your patience.

 Michael Ledeen:  Okay, our last panelist, after which we will go to your questions and comments for the panel, is Mireille.

 Mireille Chidiac-El Hajj:  Good morning, Excellencies.  Good morning, ladies and gentlemen.  Special dates are worth remembering.  Some of these dates help us remember how blessed we are.  Other dates are just too painful to forget.  For the whole world, for example, and especially for the United States of America, September 11, 2001, is a date to remember.  On this date, people threw themselves from the windows and others were burned alive.  On this date, the USA started its war against terrorism.  For us, the small family of May Chidiac, the 25th of September is a date we cannot forget.  This date marked the beginning of a whole new period.  On this date, many people chose to fight for freedom, inspired by the courage of May Chidiac. 

In these two cases, the world witnessed an act of terrorism and hatred.  Therefore, the fight against terrorism is not only American.  Lebanese people also fight terrorism every day with their words and good deeds.  On the 25th of September, some cold-blooded criminals decided to eliminate my sister.  On this particular date, May Chidiac lost her arm and her leg and was condemned to live with artificial limbs.  Today, May Chidiac is no longer the same person.  However, my sister survived her car bombing and each time I see her, I thank God for giving me the blessing to hold her again in my arms, to kiss her, and to smell her perfume.  Her survival was a miracle.  On that very special day, she had visited St. [indiscernible] monastery and when she came back to her car, she turned back to put the holy water in the rear seat. 

This movement saved her face and her right side and kept her alive.  Her faith has saved her.  When she woke up from her coma, her first question she asked was, “Why me?”  Before answering this question, I would like to quote a passage from the Bible, from “Wisdom is Supreme.”  Proverbs 4:19.  “These people - I mean by here the terrorists - cannot sleep until they do evil.  They drink the wine of violence.  But the path of the righteous is like the first glimpse of dawn, but the way of the weak is like deep darkness.” 

One year after the aggression, the answer seems to get clearer and clearer each day.  These terrorists knew exactly what they were doing.  They wanted to eliminate a woman who spoke her mind, a woman who believed in a free democratic Lebanon, a woman who fought against oppression.  They wanted to kill a person who loves her country above everything.  Actually, patriotism is contagious.  It is especially transmitted to the youth and it cannot be cured easily.  Therefore, some people thought that killing the vectors that transmit the disease would be the best way to eradicate the infection. 

May Chidiac was one of the few persons who spoke in the name of those who could not express themselves in public.  May is still the voice of those who are detained and sort of imprisoned in their own country.  May is the voice of those who are imprisoned in their own bodies, too scared to speak out their minds. 

May is the voice of those mothers who lost sons in the civil war.  She is the voice of those mothers who lost their sons in the Syrian prisons.  May shared the dream of all those who were killed during the last two years in Lebanon.  She survived to be their voice.  She is the soldier who survived to witness the victory.  May chose her battle and she conducted it bravely.  She believes that indifference and silence do not build free countries.  Strong with her beliefs, no one could intimidate her, despite the fact that she is a woman in an Arab world. 

What about the women’s struggle in the Arab world?  We, as women, are trying to dig a path in the current system.  Lebanese women suffer from domestic violence, from sexual abuse and from all the other forms of discrimination.  This is due essentially to the Arabic culture and beliefs.  The Lebanese law, for example, does not prohibit violence.  The government has a known separate program to provide medical assistance to battered women.  The legal system is discriminatory in its handling of honor [sounds like] crimes.  Men exercise considerable control over females, restricting their daily activities and restraining their liberties.  They even deny her equal rights regarding issues related to marriage, child custody, inheritance, and family decisions. 

But these restrictions are not found in every house in Lebanon.  Lebanese women do not all suffer from the same conditions.  They are deeply different.  In fact, from the swimming suits on the beach of [indiscernible] or Balbec, we can notice that women in Lebanon are as different as the environment they live in.  We have more than 18 different religious seats in Lebanon and each one of them implements different laws to follow and family matters are governed essentially by religion-based personal status codes.  Gender discrimination is an issue relative to the society we live in and it depends primarily on the efforts women make in their own society in order to change the mentality of the community. 

Change is a long term process that requires a huge amount of work and a lot of sacrifices.  Therefore, we cannot say that Lebanese women are just lucky to have this amount of freedom.  Instead we should say Lebanese women truly deserved and earned their liberty.  However, more work should be done in order to bring more improvement to the Lebanese society.  What are the next steps in the battle for women’s rights?  In order to improve the society we live in we have to begin with improving our educational system. 

First of all, education must be guaranteed to all because it helps freedom thrive.  Education helps us choose for ourselves and make up our minds.  The good news is that education is guaranteed to all in big cities, but the bad news is that it is not enough in the suburbs.  We should therefore push schooling to overwhelm all genders in all regions.  However, I am proud to inform you that today, Lebanese women are becoming a majority in the universities.  For example, more than half of the medical students at the St. Joseph’s University Of Beirut are women.  My two daughters are among these students. 

Also, some men think that a woman’s job consists on making and raising children, on preparing breakfast, lunch, dinner for her family.  What they do not understand is that a woman can really make a difference in the marketplace and that she deserves autonomy and self-esteem.  A woman is able to support herself and her family and to assume her responsibilities as a citizen.  Lebanese women have been largely successful on the path of equality and we have already entered the fields of administration, business, and commerce.  Lebanese women have even reserved their place in the parliament since 1992.  At this time, three deputies were women.  In 2005, women won six places in the parliament, four of which were for the Christians, two for the Sunnites, but none for the Shiites.  However, most of them were the wives of murdered or imprisoned men. 

Today and after a long struggle, women have the right to 30 percent of all seats in the parliament in the coming elections.  Even more, Lebanese women are also playing a key role in the field of media.  Unfortunately, this is not the case in most parts of the Arab world.  Lebanese women just struggled more for their freedom.  In fact, some women are not meant to be followers.  Some women are real leaders and May Chidiac is one of these leaders who chose to fight for freedom.  She thinks that women cannot be excluded from the business field as they can sometimes perform even better than men.  This is why she always insisted on the fact that women should be respected in all Arab societies.  In fact, and as the Secretary of State, Mrs. Condoleeza Rice said in her speech in Cairo on June 20, 2005, and I quote, “Half-democracy is not democracy. 

Society is like a bird.  It has two wings, and a bird cannot fly if one wing is broken.”  Improvements should also concern the media.  Indeed, media is not assuming its role properly and is not paying attention to women’s rights in the Middle East.  Physical and moral abuses need to be more enlightened by journalists and dictatorship criticized deeply.  Finally, people should know that dialogue between a woman and her husband is a must.  It helps create a good environment in the house and a proper pattern for the children’s education.  Dialogue is also important between different cultures and civilizations as it helps conciliation when people discuss their fears and apprehensions. 

I read once that freedom means never having to say sorry.  Sometimes, and depending on who says what in which context, a statement is considered unacceptable.  But problems should be resolved by speaking, by communicating because violence guides to violence.  So, if we cannot, if we do not talk and communicate we cannot expect others to listen and we have to make them do so.  We cannot claim peace and nonviolence while actions say otherwise.  May Chidiac has a true passion for dialogue manifested in her talk shows.  In fact, she has always thought that refusing to meet and talk with others with whom one disagrees, has proven to be both naïve and counterproductive.  By trying to kill her, terrorists tried to create a climate of fear, a cloud of regrets.  But they did not succeed. 

How do the Middle East’s repressive regimes treat Lebanese women?  Over the years, high prices were paid in order to achieve freedom in Lebanon and the work is not over yet.  May pledged for equality between women and men in a society that looks really down on women. 

But finally, she succeeded.  She has even reserved herself a very distinguished place among men.  Years ago, repressive regimes chose very prominent men to kill.  Great men like Kamal Jumblatt, Bashir Ismail, Rene Moawad, Dani Shamoon were murdered.  Two years ago, the same repressive regime chose other victims, some of whom died and some of whom survived.  These men are Marwan Hamadi, Rafik Hariri, [indiscernible].  Ironically, this repressive regime chose to be the first regime in the Middle East to ban gender discrimination. 

And to prove its good intentions, a woman was chosen to be the next victim.  This woman was May Chidiac, the sweet butterfly, as had described her, the late [indiscernible].  What a contradiction between the values Arab cultures promote and the sheer cowardly act.  When a woman can be attacked with all this brutality, why cannot she be given the same rights as men?  In the West, great leaders are women.  Iron women are doing some great jobs all over the world.  Margaret Thatcher was the iron woman of the United Kingdom.  Condoleeza Rice is the iron woman of the USA and [indiscernible] the Iron Woman of the Netherlands.  Also look at May Chidiac, the iron woman overloaded by titanium prosthesis. 

So, let us encourage Arab women to produce a change in the sclerotic system that strangles us.  These systems gave Lebanese women the right to be killed, but they still refuse to give them the right to participate actively in political life.  What happened to May Chidiac is a disaster, it is true.  It is true that she is still alive, but she is not the same anymore.  The blast has taken away some parts of her body, but also some parts of her soul.  It is true her mind is even sharper than before, but this accident took her independence away from her.  Despite all the difficulties, she has shown courage and bravery in the weeks and months that followed her accident.  She hid her tears and sufferings.  After all, she is a true patriot, but most of all she is a committed Christian and her faith helps her move mountains. 

Mr. Richard Stengel, the managing editor of the Time Magazine once said, “In journalism, courage takes many forms.  There is the courage of speaking truth to power, of taking the road less traveled, of taking exception to the conventional wisdom.  But sometimes, for certain kinds of reporters, the courage demanded is the old-fashioned kind, to risk your life by venturing into harm’s way, to be scared, but not deterred, to put other people’s safety ahead of your own.”  May did it all.  May is not a soldier in a battlefield, but her words are also as lethal as weapons. 

Mr. Pierre El-Daher, the manager of LBC, the Lebanese Broadcasting Company, where she works, called her once “Joan of Arc.  Indeed, she had sacrificed herself for her country.  Lebanese people deserve peace.  Lebanese want to live in peace, but today we are facing significant challenges on both political and economical levels.  Our youth is deserting the country.  We are losing our children.  Help us in our fight against terrorism. 

Help us find peace and security in our country.  [Indiscernible] report is crucial.  Help us find the killers and bring them to justice because justice must be done.  Lebanese people deserve peace.  Moreover and according to Condoleezza Rice, Syria should stop treating Lebanon as a client.  It should treat it as a neighbor, like an independent and sovereign country.  And then we can move on to a more peaceful and prosperous future for the Lebanese people.  At the end, I would like to thank each and every person fighting for democracy and freedom.  I would also like to thank my mother who suffers in silence. 

But most of all, I would like to thank May who is now more alive than most Lebanese people.  I would like to thank her for giving the opportunity to my children to live in a free country, a country that is no longer governed by repressive regimes.  I would like to thank her for the hope she brings to a whole new generation of Lebanese people. 

Finally, my special thanks go to all the members of this institute, especially for Mr. Michael Ledeen for trying to make a difference in our lives.  Thank you all for inviting my husband and I here today and God bless you all.

 Michael Ledeen:  Anybody who wants to say anything?  Yes, sir?  Wait just a second, the microphone will arrive.  Could you identify yourself at some point?

 John Bradley:  Hi, my name is John Bradley.  I am from the School of Oriental and African Studies in London and National Strategies here in Washington.  And, first of all, I want to express my thanks to all of you for coming here.  Some of you risked your own personal safety.  I am sure we all agree with that.  It has been a real privilege to listen to what you have had to say and to get an insight into your thoughts.  I have been fortunate enough to visit Libya, Tunisia, Egypt, and Lebanon, and talk to people in all these countries about the problems that they face there. 

So, I hope you will forgive me for asking a slightly complicated question.  In England and the United States, two environments I am reasonably familiar with, I am ashamed to say that very many people have preconceived ideas about the Middle East and about your countries.  A lot of these ideas are very prejudicial.  They think that…

 Michael Ledeen:  Could you please just ask your question?

 John Bradley:  Yes.

 Michael Ledeen:  Do not comment on us, just ask your question.

 John Bradley:  Sorry.  Okay.  Excuse me.  How do we avoid expressing, quite rightly, the views that you brought here to share with us without encouraging some of the prejudices which people in the West have about your countries?  How are we able to give the right message without encouraging people, not including the people here, who might think the wrong things about your countries?  Excuse me for my length.

 Mireille Chidiac-El Hajj:  Why do you have this bad idea about our countries?  It is because of the media.  So, you have to change it all.  You have to change everything.  You are working in the media field.  So you have to speak about us in a different way.  Because we have problems and we are suffering because of these problems, and you have to help us.

 Male Voice:  I have a question for Dr. Sultan.  Is she coming back here or…?  It is good to see you again.  I am already inspired by what you have to say.  The question is, before Mr. Ledeen gets in my case, the question is, is there a difference between the institutions and people who rule the Arab world today, especially Saudi Arabia? 

You mentioned that specifically.  Is there a difference between the rulers and the terrorists, that, for example, prevented those [indiscernible] from leaving school so they could die?  Is there a difference between the system, religious extremists, and the terrorists that terrorize people all over the place?  That is part of the question.

 The other part of the question, is there a hope for women, Christians, Jews under Sharia and Islamic law, if they are implemented?

 Wafa Sultan:  If they are implanted?  No, there is not any hope.  Under the Sharia rule, there is no any hope.  That is how I see it.

Male voice:  (Speaks away from microphone).

Wafa Sultan:  For me personally, I do not see any difference.  Each one helped the other to scare us.  There is no difference between the two sides.  The terrorists are supported by the Saudi government, and the government is supported by the terrorists.  Islam has kept intact by establishing a very strong relationship between the rulers and the clergy.  Once we cut this relationship in half, both of them will collapse.

 Michael A. Ledeen:  We should notice that an Iranian ayatollah who proposed keeping traditional Shiite separation between clerics and politics has been rounded [sounds like] up and carted off to prison.  His house has been destroyed.  His property has been seized, and so forth.  So, it is an ongoing problem.  And I have noted…

Male voice:  [Inaudible].

Michael A. Ledeen:  Yes, thank you so much.  And I have a broader question for all of you.  Because all of you spoke on behalf of education, that education is important, that education is the key to liberation and to participation in society and so forth.  But obviously, it is not always true.  There are times and circumstances in which education is dangerous, is bad, when education slides into indoctrination, right? 

So, one of the questions that has to be addressed in this process of change is how do you get a grip … how do you ensure that that education is going to be education for free people, and not education for people who are willfully enslaving themselves and others?  Yes, sir?

 Female Voice:  This is [indiscernible].  I am with Turkey’s TRT Radio, and also, a regular freelance writer for the Washington Times.  My question goes to Professor Grami.  You have spoken about the need to deconstruct the masculine hegemony over the interpretation of Koranic text.  And I assume that it also goes to deconstruct Sharia from being equated to religion.  In that sense, I guess, such deconstruction, in fact, is occurring in the U.S. and the European academic world.  Yet, these accomplishments do not find much audience in the Middle East.  Why?

 Amel Grami:  I suppose that it is difficult [audio glitch] the one complete response or answer to this question, because it is very complex.  But, as you mentioned before, it is easy to change education to process, to reform of religious idea spread by books, et cetera.  But, what about mentality?  What about the state of mind of a teacher who speak about values?  Some of them are not satisfied with change.  They do not want to change.  So they are leading our youth to a new radicalization. 

So it is very hard now to explain the situation because it is very complex, as I have said.  We can do many projects in order to deconstruct masculinity, power of religion leaders, et cetera.  But, what about the reality?

 Dr. Lateria [phonetic]:  Thank you very much.  My name is Dr. Lateria.  I am a WHO officer.  Thank you very much for the American Enterprise Institute for organizing this conference.  Among many other conferences, I have been very useful.  The members of the distinguished panel were excellent in their remarks.  We appreciate each one of them.  I am very honored to see a Tunisian lady, my compatriot, as a member of this distinguished panel.  It is nice to see someone from the country in Washington D.C. 

Dr. Michael A. Ledeen:  Right.  And the questions is…?  We love flattery, but we must have the questions.

Dr. Lateria:  The question goes to Sawsan from Libya.  She indicated that there are many laws that protect the women in Libya.  How about the implementation of those laws?  Do you think they can be implemented easily or there are some difficulties?  Thank you very much.

 Sawsan Hanish:  Thanks very much, anyway.  And I would like to say that the law in Libya really helped women to be better since 1969.  But women still, a little bit, is not ready yet to take her right.  So, almost, we try to encourage each other and that is the main point, that we do it together, active women, to encourage each other to raise our voice and to see what really we need, not just to stay these laws, this good really laws in the paper.  We really need to work and that is the point.

 Jeedan Nooree [phonetic]:  Good morning.  I am Jeedan Nooree from Afghanistan Service, Voice of America.  I have a question for Amel.  I heard your ideal speech on interpretation of Koran regarding women.  I have a question like, how practical is the idea of interpreting Koranic verses regarding woman issues? 

For example, for conservative societies like in Afghanistan, it is not really practical because people go for the traditions, go for those thoughts.  They are used to it for a hundred years.  So, what do you think?  How practical is the idea of interpreting Koran by modern scholars in a modern society?  Thank you.

 Amel Grami:  Many people living in Pakistan or in India or other countries, they believe that all the discourse told about the situation of women is in Koran.  We have many verses talking about the situation of women.  So, they do not have this opportunity to access to the Koran, to read it correctly.  So, here we face also the problem of illiteracy.  So, by educating women, they do not have this opportunity to access directly without passing by men who tell them what it is, the real interpretation of the Koran.  So for women, activist women or feminist women, they are trying to stress that we have human interpretation done by men. 

So if we have this possibility to read our text, we will have this great opportunity to clarify many things and to change our mentality, to change our life and even to discuss with men to show them that this is your point of view or your own reading of text.  But in reality, we can have also our right to express ourselves.  And here, we should stress that there is a link between education and interpretation of the Koran and we have also a great relationship between the work done by activist women and the freedom of expression.  If we have this occasion to speak, to express yourselves and to tell other what you are really convinced by those values, et cetera, you can change.  Thank you.

Male voice:  Are you optimistic about Islamic feminism?  [Inaudible].

 Mireille Chadiac-El Hajj:  No absolutely.  [Speaks away from the microphone].  If you want my point of view [cross-talking].  I see there is [inaudible] between the Koran and the women in general because they want the women to be all the time wear the hijab [sounds like].  They do not want them to be educated.  There are [background noise] several things, several rules on women so that they can interpret everything as they want them to do.  So it is a war, a continuing war between Koran and women,  and it will not stop.

Amel Grami:  I wonder why you are very interested by the case of feminist works, Islamic feminist work.  But in my paper I talked about individual work done by secular women.  And in my opinion, I suppose that if we support those women, secular women, we can reach our aims.  Because once we speak about feminism of [indiscernible], they have the means.  They have their own funding, the institution, et cetera.  They have their own possibility to spread their idea.  But what about individual women like my case for example?  Once I do not have the possibility to speak about my opinion, to speak about my experience, et cetera, this is the question.  Thank you.

 Michael A. Ledeen:  The reason why I am so interested in it is first because I love the very idea of it.  I love what we call here “man bites dog” stories.  Because it does not occur to anybody that there could be such a thing as Islamic feminism.  That seems a contradiction in terms.  So, I like it because I am sure it exists and because I hate the people’s … I mean, there is a whole small wave of people nowadays that insist that a religion, once defined, never changes and cannot change.  When the history of religion, there is a history of change among other things.  I mean, advance and regression and good news and bad news.  But the notion that a religion cannot change has always struck me as bizarre and it is a violation of what I understand of religious history to be all about, and for every religion.

 Rasha Shokr:  Is it written in the Koran that a woman cannot drive a car?  No.  Why a woman cannot drive a car in Saudi Arabia?  [Inaudible]  So that is why women have to be educated, so that they can give their own opinion.

 Michael Ledeen:  Yes, so long as they are not educated in the Sharia, where they are educated to behave even worse than they do today because that is also impossible.  Education does not always… it is not always in advance.  Sometimes education serves as a way of indoctrinating and making things worse and you are better off with uneducated people than educated under those circumstances.  There are no absolute laws in these cases.  It all depends.

 Wafa Sultan:  Mr. Ledeen, can I make a comment?

 Michael Ledeen:  Of course you may, yes.

 Wafa Sultan:  How can I be ruled by the Sharia, by the Islamic Sharia and then practice my rights as a woman when the Sharia considers me as a woman, considers me second class citizen?  And when a Sharia considers my intellectual abilities is less than a man’s, how can I do that?  Islamic teachings have to be confined to homes and worship places, have to be taken out of our school’s books.  This is the first step.

 Sawsan Hanish:  I would like just to note that there is a difference between a Sharia law and the behavior of the male because, like in Saudi Arabia, the women do not drive a car, not because of the Sharia, no.  It is because of this mentality of the male society there.  It has nothing to do with Sharia about this.  Usually men and even women, they found it easier for her to stay home and somebody to drive with her and they like, sometimes in some societies, they like to be lazy, just talking and watching TV and things like that.  But not like in my country, not in Tunisia.  Not in Egypt, even though not in Lebanon.  They drive a car and they work and they work harder than men.  They work both duty all the day at the work and at home. 

So absolutely, this is not because of Sharia, no.  And I would like to say another thing that, sometimes they read Koran.  They read half of the ayah and that is not right.  If you read to need to understand the Koran, you got to read it all.  You got to read the whole subject and not just read half and close you eyes of the other half.  That is why we always suffer, because of the half understanding or the completely misunderstanding of our Koran.  Thank you.

 Rasha Shokr:  I think sometimes it does not have anything to do with the Koran.  It is about the regime.  When there are dictatorship regimes and man has to follow everything written from the dictatorship regimes, they want to prove themselves in their homes, in their houses.  So they rule over women.  It is not only the Koran.  It is the regime.  It is the system.

 Hillough Atkin:  Hillough Atkin [phonetic] of the Hudson Institute.  I wanted to ask a factual question of Professor Grami to the best of your knowledge and then a question about strategy to Rasha Shokr.  Professor Grami, do you know whether any women have ever undertaken in a really complete way the pursuit of a traditional course of Fiqh where they would learn Fiqh, and so forth?  The reason for asking that question is that would be in some circumstances considered to be the condition for the kind of competitive interpretation that you were talking about. 

And my question for Rasha Shokr is you observed that a great mistake was made within various Arab countries, but in particular Egypt, in sort of departing from the particular circumstances in history of that country and getting absorbed in a kind of larger regional agenda.  And you suggest that the way to go forward again is to kind of return to a kind of local agenda.  I wonder what you think that would mean at the present time and also that would seem to mean that each of society’s women would undertake their own struggle in their own way without necessarily very much in common, except for the ultimate…

 Amel Grami:  Excuse me, I did not hear very well your question.

 Male Voice:  It is just whether, to the best of your knowledge whether any women have gone through a traditional education in Islamic jurisprudence or attempted to, in such a way that they would be able to, say, argue with Kantawi [phonetic] or Kardawi [phonetic] or someone like that?

 Amel Grami:   Yes.  We can mention the work done by Egyptian [indiscernible] and [indiscernible].  They are very famous and they succeed to influence common people.  So they mentioned for example that we find manipulation of religion done by men in order to gain some specific…

[cross-talking].   

Michael A. Ledeen:  Right, plus that woman in New York who leads prayers in the mosque in New York City.  So, I mean there are several examples.

 Amel Grami.:  We have also the example of  Sister of Islam in Malaysia or in Indonesia.  We have many women.

 Rasha Shokr:  Well, yes.  I talked about diverting the attention from domestic affairs in Egypt to other external agendas that re-dissipated the energy of working on and making a better present for the Egyptians.  Well, as for your question how we can bring this back, the answer is easy, actually.  As I stressed in my paper is that women’s liberation comes as an integral part of the general political climate.  We cannot say that we are going to work on reforming branches of the state while the entire state needs a comprehensive reform. 

So, political changes are needed, political reform is needed towards democracy and freedom.  That is how you bring back people to have confidence in their countries, in themselves, to make an effort, to earn what they live for.

Michael Ledeen:  Ruthie, you have to wait for the microphone.

Ruthie Bloom:  I am Ruthie Bloom from the Jerusalem Post.  I actually have a question for Wafa, which is also for Amel.  Given the spread of Islam right now to Europe, which is a more realistic scenario?  Yours, that people should reject Islam?  Or yours, that there is a chance for reforming it or feminizing it, whatever you wish?  Which is the more realistic of these two?

Wafa Sultan:  Even though I do not believe Islam can be reformed but I do not call for people to reject it.  What I am asking for is to be given the same right to believe in Islam as to reject Islam.  Once people get their rights to believe in it, to reject it as much as they believe in it, everything will be solved.  That is all what I am looking for.

Amel Grami:  I agree with Wafa.  My first thesis was about apostasy in Islam.  So I defend religious liberty.  I suppose that we should respect human choice.  Every choice, for example, you make your choice to reject Islam and to consider that human rights is better than being linked to our traditional heritage [sounds like], et cetera, you are free.  If we consider that, the best way, the first step is to start by changing our reading of our Islam.  That is good for you. 

But regarding the situation nowadays, the spread of Islamic fundamentalism, the radicalization of youth, I suppose that the best way is to make the second choice.  Let us start by educating youth, especially youth and women, how they are responsible of our reading of Islam.  Islam has many faces, in fact.  We can read the text and we can manipulate [indiscernible] as we hope.  So it is very easy to say that this is Islam. 

But what is the real meaning of Islam?  Is it political Islam?  Is it Islam the comprehension of text done by men?  Is it feminist Islam?  Is it, for example, Asian Islam or the Maghreb?  We live, we practice another Islam which is very different from Saudi Arabia or from Pakistan or from Malaysia, et cetera.  So we should define what is the real meaning of Islam.

 Ruthie Blum:  Thank you.

 Sawsan Hanish:  Again, I would like to stress and say abuse or violence has nothing absolutely to do with Islam.  It is about the system, it is the mentality.  I always say it is our problem simply how to raise own children.  In my family, I have three boys and a girl and if I raise the boys that just sit and the girls can bring them water or bring them their clothes, or clean their clothes or whatever, absolutely I put in their mind that they are first class and the girl is in the second.  So when they grow up there is … the generation will be the same.

 So it has nothing to do with Islam.  It is the problem, a social problem.  It is social violence.  It is not religious.  It is violence.  I would like to say something.  Can you point me any country over all the world that does not have sexual abuse, that does not have any violence towards a woman?  America?  England?  China?  Let us say anywhere.  It is anywhere.  It has absolutely nothing to do with Islam.  It is social.  It is how to raise.  It is what to put in our children’s mind.  What to do and what to put in the media, so whatever in the media we can drink it and they drink our children and raise with it.

 Wafa Sultan:  Every country on earth has sexual abuse cases.  But the case in the Islamic countries is totally different.  The sexual abuse cases are legalized by the Islamic Sharia because the man can sleep with as many as women he can buy.  This is the Islamic Sharia.  So every country has sexual abuse cases, but in our country, it is legalized by the Islamic Sharia and that is what we reject and we have to reject.

 Michael Ledeen:  We are virtually out of time.  We will only take one or two more quick questions.  Questions?

 Andrea Baron:  Andrea Baron from George Mason University.  I have two questions.  First, I know in Tunisia, the reason they were able to prohibit polygamy was because of the Koranic verse that said, yes, you can marry up to four women but you need to treat them all equally.  And that is nearly i