Top Egyptian feminist says 'nothing has really changed' since revolution

[JCMach1]

This is a really, really good article on the current situation is Egypt...

...So often the revolution in Egypt is painted as a step, a part of a political story, a move towards something greater. El Saadawi shows that, at that moment - and maybe only at that moment - it was a real revolution, a revolution of ideas, of heart and soul. Her audience feels the pull and the possibility of that moment. When she tells them about how she slept in Tahrir Square, they applaud. "I was changed by the revolution," she says.

A few days later, El Saadawi spoke to The Review from Cairo. We are meant to talk about women in the Arab world after the Arab Spring, but it is soon clear that El Saadawi does not like neat political boxes.

"I cannot separate the liberation of women, as half of the society, and the liberation of the country," she says. "I cannot separate between revolution in relation to women's rights and revolution in relation to country rights: women and men and peasants and the working class. You cannot liberate women in a country that is colonised and not liberated."

Yet for all her early optimism, the movement in Egyptian politics has been anything but revolutionary. The military remain in control and the power of the Islamists is growing. Asked in Dubai who she would vote for, she was unequivocal: "Nobody! Not one of the them. Because none of them comes from the revolution. I am waiting for someone who was in Tahrir Square, who suffered with us. If they come forward, I will vote for them."...

http://www.thenational.ae/lifestyle/top-egyptian-feminist-says-nothing-has-really-changed-since-revolution

[xchrom]

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