Mona Eltahawy - Writer and Activist HARDtalk

head of state to visit the region since Hamas took power years ago.

Now on BBC News, it's time for HARDtalk.

Arabs have risen up against their repressive authoritarian rulers.

What will their post revolution societies look like? In Egypt and

twos here, power has shifted towards political Islam. -- to

easier. My guest is a Mona Eltahawy. The controversial writer and

feminist says genuine liberation is impossible if Arab men continue to

hate Arab women. Is her message a wake-up call or a dangerous

Mona Eltahawy, Welcome to HARDtalk. In your review, has they actually

been an Egyptian Revolution? Absolutely. It began many years ago.

We do not just wake up on January 25th and say, we should be used now.

It is far from over. It is not finished. The spring has not turned

into winter. The revolution continues. In your writing,

practically of that piece he wrote for the Foreign Policy magazine,

you make it sound like a man only political operating that we saw in

Egypt. Is that how you feel about it then and now? No. For the civil

months after 25th January, you saw many men and women five -- side-by-

side. There were virginity tests that female revolutionaries were

subjected to. And constant violence against women. In the constitution,

only five women out of 100 are working. It is outrageous. How far

can you take this idea? One thing you wrote, we have no freedom

because they hate us. The title, why do they hate us?, is a play on

another piece of writing. What he also said at the time, they hate us

because of our freedom. I took that and turned has-it upside-down. We

have no freedom because the men hate us. Are you saying we should

not take it too seriously? I was being provocative. Did you mean it?

I meant it to provoke and heard. Women have been heard by these

virginity tests. Women continue to be heard by high levels of genital

mutilation in Egypt. A few days ago, a journalist was sexually assaulted

in Tahrir Square. Women have been heard by a denial of misogyny that

cuts across the Middle East and North Africa. It is not limited to

that part of the world. Criticism has been directed towards me

because I make it seem like it is limited to that part of the world.

We will get to that charge. You betrayed the global sisterhood by

focusing on one region. Before we get there, we will persist with

your efforts with the revolution and your conclusions. I am puzzled.

There are still many very active women in today's Egyptian politics.

Many of them dissociate with the message. They say, we are not

helpless or victims. Mona Eltahawy has no right to speak for us.

cannot speak for them. I read it in my name. But they have been

generalisations. I have 3,000 words. I will move back to Egypt to write

a book based on those 3,000 words. I will lay out the arguments in

greater links. I had to go across the whole region, from Morocco,

Tunisia. I had to deliver a message that was quick. A revolution began

by a man who set himself on fire. Women's rights need to be seen.

is not a homogenous region. When you talk of Egypt 2012, in the same

breath of Saudi Arabia, women cannot evade or a drive, when you

took them to a tour of mutilation, which is much higher in Arab

countries and others, you are lumping together a region and a set

of peoples who actually have different approaches TV is gender

issues. Here is where I can lob them in. When you look at gender

indices compiled every year, that part of the world, mostly described

as Arab, but let us say Middle East and North Africa, it factors into

the bottom part of gender in the seas. Of 135 countries, those

countries were in the bottom 100. Even worse. Yemen was in the bottom

10. I can generalise. The Arab world scores horrendously badly

when it comes to gender in the seas. Each country is different. In the

essay, I was asking, what drives women's in abilities to drive in

Saudi Arabia and why are they treated like five-year-olds? Men

can walk away if he agrees to merit -- Mary his victim of rape. Five

responding with the writings he, with. Do you mean Muslim quarter

rather than Arab culture? No. I was focusing on the Arab -- Arabic-

speaking countries. I don't even say Arab Spring. I wanted to focus

on that part of the world and look at how Islam and culture are

married in this toxic relationship. Is there a difference? He message

from the Arab world is different to that of Afghanistan or Pakistan?

is. These countries are different. I acknowledge the different

violations women are subjected to. I cannot compare Syria to

Afghanistan. It would be a different essay. There are some

similarities. You have Conservative interpretations of Islam where it

will have intersections with Conservative into pet --

People watching this will want to know personal details, whether you

are an observant Muslim. That is nobody's business. All that matters

is by identify as a Muslim. That is It has created a door to more

progressive Muslim groups. We had a mission statement. Number one in

that was anyone who utter defies as a Muslim is a Muslim. That's all

that counts. When it comes to development of Arab politics, some

have taken against you in a big way. But as start with a woman. She

works for caged prisoners, a group in the US. She says, she sees

misogyny as a global phenomenon. It is not unique to Arab women. She

says, you leave millions of non Arab women, who have also victims

of systemic misogyny defend for themselves. This is a global

sisterhood who were mentioned earlier. When I'm on American TV, I

make connections. I talk about feminism in the US and war on women

in the US. I talk about the Congress and how it is the least

women friendly in a long time. In my essay, I wanted to devote the

3,000 words on where I come from. Can I not do that? Do I have to say,

women in Pakistan, Argentina, England? What do you say to people

who work in the human rights campaign committee in Egypt? Brakes

are poor, a woman who works in health issues. Saying Arab man who

hates Arab women present us as being needing saving. I'm not a

victim. I never once in the ASA said that Arab women needed to be

saved. Many activists who led the driving campaign to break the ban

against women driving ended up in jail. Does it worry you that some

people you characterise as a female heroes proposed to your way of

thinking? But it is their right. I have differences with ways of their

thinking as well. But why are you not taking this people with you?

Why do they see you as an extremist? I think it is useful to

be an extremist. I hate the word moderate. It helps to be extremist.

I'm pushing and provoking, and going towards the left, hoping to

create a bigger space for those who want to be in the middle. Women do

not have to agree with what I say. What comes to me is when I'm in

Egypt, young people come up to me, not involved in communities for

activism, and they say, we love your essay, can we start up

something? I wonder if you have been driven by personal rage. You

have suffered certain experiences which most women watching this

programme could only imagine. I am referring specifically to November

last year, when you were detained by the security forces in the

demonstrations. But after Mubarak. You found yourself detained four

hours. You were beaten and sexually assaulted. Yes. He was so enraged.

-- you were so enraged. I have been a writer for more than 20 years. My

rage has been consistent. What happened to me pushed me over the

edge. I had been writing columns for the Guardian since the January

25 Revolution began. If I go through my columns, I kept asking

the question, where is the rage against the mileage -- violations

of women's rights? I expected, this is a new Egypt. I thought there

would be thousands in the streets, saying, this cannot happen. I began

to think, we need to make a huge fuss. I would have to be clear...

Was the experience an example of misogyny? Many human beings are

brutally assaulted by Egyptian security. Where does the point

about misogyny come into all this? The regime did what it did to me.

That is the same regime that suppresses everyone in Egypt and

violates their rights. There is another level of suppression with

Egyptian women. That is at culture at large. I went to the anniversary.

I had two broken homes. I was trying to get to the CNN Office. I

saw a crowd of men. When my palms were not broken, I fight back. I

needed the help of a man to get through the crowd of men. At that

moment, it is not about the regime but culture. Eight culture that we

have to fight against for the revolution to succeed. When you

talk about being groped, having your breasts prodded, magenta --

your genital area or field, you say that males, even revolutionary

males, a demanding political reform and want to do that to you.

same day that this happened to me, I hit a man in Tahrir Square. He

gripped my backside. If you hear about the levels of sexual assault

and harassment in Egypt, it is an epidemic. The BBC called it an

epidemic during a documentary. In 2006, according to a survey, more

than 80% of people face strict sexual harassment on a daily basis

in Egypt. Those figures are How do you think the men who have

sacrificed their health feel when you hear them damned as males as

part of a system and a patriarchy which hates women? I hope they will

say I do not hate women and I will make sure women are not forgotten

or rejected in the revolution because historically they have been.

In Egypt, we have had a feminist movement since 1923 but it ebbs and

dips. From these men a would like to hear that we will not allow

women's rights to continue to deteriorate. We will fight for

their rights to be improved and that is an essential part of the

revolution. Egypt has had elections since the toppling of Hosni Mubarak.

We know what those elections yielded, power to the Moslem

Brotherhood and seats to a party you have a Angell rhetorical fire

at a number of times, that is democracy. That is what Egyptians

want right now. It is only democracy if you think that is

putting a piece of paper in a box. That is the start of a long road

towards democracy. Given what Egypt has been through in the last 20

months, it was the first free and fair election and very important.

You cannot deny the results of elections. And extreme secularists

like yourselves performed badly in the elections. I do not deny any of

those results. But our current President only got 25 per cent. He

ended up winning the presidency because he and the other candidate

went on to the second round. It is a flawed system but it produced our

first free election. There were many violations. I'm not contesting

the result but the road towards the elections. I am questioning how

free the choice was. We had 60 years of military rule, so it makes

it impossible to operate in the middle ground between the regime

and the Islamists. Is there an arrogance in your approach to these

democratically elected politicians. He dismissed the opposition as men

stuck in the 7th century. A quarter of parliamentary seats are held by

people who believe that mimicking the original ways of the profit is

an appropriate prescription for modern life? The fact is, Egypt has

to find a place for this powerful body of opinion. It involves men

and women. We have to find a place for them. It is now a dissolved

parliament. They are not there anymore. This is a fact we cannot

ignore. Some of those men. At end of women. Women can internalise

their own subjugation and oppression. I will give you

examples of how damaging those men are to revolutionary Egypt. Many of

them belong on the constitutional committee writing the constitution.

Along with many secularists. they worry me because they are

extreme Islamists. They believe it is OK for a nine-year-old girl to

get married. They believe that female genital manipulation is a

form of female beautification. You cannot vote for people who deny

other people their rights. Write some men to give a high ceiling to

the majority of people get rights and not take us down to the lowest

common denominator. In earlier in this interview, you acknowledge

that going to the extreme and being provocative you find quite useful

because it opens up the ground behind you. But surely at this

point, it is morning due to -- my tutor say the Moslem Brotherhood

are trying to reach out to mainstream Egyptians and none

extreme opinion. They are saying things like they want to find very

significant roles for women. They want to find a way of acknowledging

Sharia law from the constitution. They are trying to find common

ground. Is it useful in that context for you to persist with

your extremism? Is a very useful. As long as there is someone saying

nine year-old girl should be married. Why hold them up as the

key arbiter of where Egypt is going? I'm glad you asked me that.

The Moslem Brotherhood has tried to move itself to the centre. The

opposition of playing this nasty game of trying to pull towards the

right, they understand that they will tell them -- us they have sold

up. He will cede the right-wing ground to the opposition and they

will be a disaster especially for women's rights in Egypt. Have you

considered running for political office in Egypt? The is it because

you would not attract the vote. do not know if I chordal wouldn't.

I do not want to. To attract those folks, I will have to offer a

compromise. I do not want to. If there is someone on the extreme

right, I will remain on the extreme left. Many in Egypt would see you

as a woman who spends so much time in the West and spending half your

time and the United States, but you are no longer genuinely of Egypt in

the way they are. G sometimes worry that should take on what is

happening in the arable today feeds into an analysis, clash of

civilisations approach to the differences between Western values

and Arab values that many worry is very dangerous? I reject the Clash

of civilisations argument. I do not believe different civilisations

have different rights. People have the right to be free and everybody

has the same needs and values. do believe in generalising about

failings and the culture of the Arab world? If a revolution called

me a backwards as finest pitch this is a problem. They are uttered

those words. Our religion -- revolution is about freedom and

dignity. It is not about values between the east and the West, it

is about the values of men taking women seriously. I'm about to move

back to Egypt full time and locating to Cairo because this is

an exciting moment. A moment when I can contribute. I cannot change

things in New York but I can help things in Cairo. He said you could

not change things and you're, you're a calmly facing criminal

proceedings in New York because you got in a spat with the pro-Israeli

group and you felt they were racist. They denied that and you said they

were hate mongers. When you got involved in that fight and you

ended up painting over some of the posters with a spray paint can did

you think, they are simply pursuing a provocative and extreme agenda in

the same way I do. What right have I got to try to shut them up?

was a moment when I thought I could change something in New York.

use see my point? You thrive on free expression but you appeared to

be trying to stop other people expressing what they wanted to say.

That is not what I was trying to do. I saw a new yorker ripped the

poster in half. What I was trying to do was, judge called what I

called hate speech protected political speech. I wanted my

speech to go on their speech. used a spray-paint to obliterate

their poster. It was see-through and it was pink. You can still see

the word I was trying to make a point. That hate speech must be

made socially unacceptable. We have to commit the dots between hate

speech and hate crimes. Five days after that the man said my

brother's local mosque on fire. you take this attitude and that

activism back to Cairo with you? Have slowly. I will work with a