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head of state to visit the region since Hamas took power years ago. | :00:06. | :00:12. | |
Now on BBC News, it's time for HARDtalk. | :00:12. | :00:19. | |
Arabs have risen up against their repressive authoritarian rulers. | :00:19. | :00:22. | |
What will their post revolution societies look like? In Egypt and | :00:22. | :00:29. | |
twos here, power has shifted towards political Islam. -- to | :00:29. | :00:39. | |
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easier. My guest is a Mona Eltahawy. The controversial writer and | :00:39. | :00:44. | |
feminist says genuine liberation is impossible if Arab men continue to | :00:44. | :00:50. | |
hate Arab women. Is her message a wake-up call or a dangerous | :00:50. | :01:00. | |
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Mona Eltahawy, Welcome to HARDtalk. In your review, has they actually | :01:22. | :01:29. | |
been an Egyptian Revolution? Absolutely. It began many years ago. | :01:29. | :01:33. | |
We do not just wake up on January 25th and say, we should be used now. | :01:33. | :01:41. | |
It is far from over. It is not finished. The spring has not turned | :01:41. | :01:47. | |
into winter. The revolution continues. In your writing, | :01:47. | :01:51. | |
practically of that piece he wrote for the Foreign Policy magazine, | :01:51. | :01:57. | |
you make it sound like a man only political operating that we saw in | :01:57. | :02:06. | |
Egypt. Is that how you feel about it then and now? No. For the civil | :02:06. | :02:13. | |
months after 25th January, you saw many men and women five -- side-by- | :02:13. | :02:20. | |
side. There were virginity tests that female revolutionaries were | :02:20. | :02:25. | |
subjected to. And constant violence against women. In the constitution, | :02:25. | :02:31. | |
only five women out of 100 are working. It is outrageous. How far | :02:31. | :02:40. | |
can you take this idea? One thing you wrote, we have no freedom | :02:40. | :02:48. | |
because they hate us. The title, why do they hate us?, is a play on | :02:48. | :02:55. | |
another piece of writing. What he also said at the time, they hate us | :02:55. | :03:01. | |
because of our freedom. I took that and turned has-it upside-down. We | :03:01. | :03:06. | |
have no freedom because the men hate us. Are you saying we should | :03:06. | :03:12. | |
not take it too seriously? I was being provocative. Did you mean it? | :03:12. | :03:17. | |
I meant it to provoke and heard. Women have been heard by these | :03:17. | :03:23. | |
virginity tests. Women continue to be heard by high levels of genital | :03:23. | :03:29. | |
mutilation in Egypt. A few days ago, a journalist was sexually assaulted | :03:29. | :03:35. | |
in Tahrir Square. Women have been heard by a denial of misogyny that | :03:35. | :03:40. | |
cuts across the Middle East and North Africa. It is not limited to | :03:40. | :03:45. | |
that part of the world. Criticism has been directed towards me | :03:45. | :03:49. | |
because I make it seem like it is limited to that part of the world. | :03:50. | :03:55. | |
We will get to that charge. You betrayed the global sisterhood by | :03:55. | :04:01. | |
focusing on one region. Before we get there, we will persist with | :04:01. | :04:06. | |
your efforts with the revolution and your conclusions. I am puzzled. | :04:06. | :04:13. | |
There are still many very active women in today's Egyptian politics. | :04:13. | :04:20. | |
Many of them dissociate with the message. They say, we are not | :04:20. | :04:24. | |
helpless or victims. Mona Eltahawy has no right to speak for us. | :04:24. | :04:30. | |
cannot speak for them. I read it in my name. But they have been | :04:30. | :04:36. | |
generalisations. I have 3,000 words. I will move back to Egypt to write | :04:36. | :04:41. | |
a book based on those 3,000 words. I will lay out the arguments in | :04:41. | :04:46. | |
greater links. I had to go across the whole region, from Morocco, | :04:46. | :04:53. | |
Tunisia. I had to deliver a message that was quick. A revolution began | :04:53. | :05:03. | |
by a man who set himself on fire. Women's rights need to be seen. | :05:03. | :05:11. | |
is not a homogenous region. When you talk of Egypt 2012, in the same | :05:11. | :05:21. | |
:05:21. | :05:21. | ||
breath of Saudi Arabia, women cannot evade or a drive, when you | :05:21. | :05:24. | |
took them to a tour of mutilation, which is much higher in Arab | :05:24. | :05:29. | |
countries and others, you are lumping together a region and a set | :05:29. | :05:32. | |
of peoples who actually have different approaches TV is gender | :05:32. | :05:37. | |
issues. Here is where I can lob them in. When you look at gender | :05:37. | :05:43. | |
indices compiled every year, that part of the world, mostly described | :05:43. | :05:49. | |
as Arab, but let us say Middle East and North Africa, it factors into | :05:49. | :05:56. | |
the bottom part of gender in the seas. Of 135 countries, those | :05:56. | :06:04. | |
countries were in the bottom 100. Even worse. Yemen was in the bottom | :06:04. | :06:08. | |
10. I can generalise. The Arab world scores horrendously badly | :06:08. | :06:15. | |
when it comes to gender in the seas. Each country is different. In the | :06:15. | :06:21. | |
essay, I was asking, what drives women's in abilities to drive in | :06:21. | :06:27. | |
Saudi Arabia and why are they treated like five-year-olds? Men | :06:27. | :06:36. | |
can walk away if he agrees to merit -- Mary his victim of rape. Five | :06:36. | :06:41. | |
responding with the writings he, with. Do you mean Muslim quarter | :06:41. | :06:49. | |
rather than Arab culture? No. I was focusing on the Arab -- Arabic- | :06:49. | :06:54. | |
speaking countries. I don't even say Arab Spring. I wanted to focus | :06:54. | :07:00. | |
on that part of the world and look at how Islam and culture are | :07:00. | :07:05. | |
married in this toxic relationship. Is there a difference? He message | :07:05. | :07:09. | |
from the Arab world is different to that of Afghanistan or Pakistan? | :07:10. | :07:17. | |
is. These countries are different. I acknowledge the different | :07:17. | :07:24. | |
violations women are subjected to. I cannot compare Syria to | :07:24. | :07:28. | |
Afghanistan. It would be a different essay. There are some | :07:28. | :07:33. | |
similarities. You have Conservative interpretations of Islam where it | :07:33. | :07:37. | |
will have intersections with Conservative into pet -- | :07:37. | :07:47. | |
:07:47. | :07:48. | ||
People watching this will want to know personal details, whether you | :07:48. | :07:55. | |
are an observant Muslim. That is nobody's business. All that matters | :07:55. | :08:05. | |
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is by identify as a Muslim. That is It has created a door to more | :08:10. | :08:17. | |
progressive Muslim groups. We had a mission statement. Number one in | :08:17. | :08:22. | |
that was anyone who utter defies as a Muslim is a Muslim. That's all | :08:22. | :08:32. | |
:08:32. | :08:34. | ||
that counts. When it comes to development of Arab politics, some | :08:34. | :08:39. | |
have taken against you in a big way. But as start with a woman. She | :08:40. | :08:48. | |
works for caged prisoners, a group in the US. She says, she sees | :08:48. | :08:54. | |
misogyny as a global phenomenon. It is not unique to Arab women. She | :08:54. | :08:59. | |
says, you leave millions of non Arab women, who have also victims | :08:59. | :09:04. | |
of systemic misogyny defend for themselves. This is a global | :09:04. | :09:10. | |
sisterhood who were mentioned earlier. When I'm on American TV, I | :09:10. | :09:16. | |
make connections. I talk about feminism in the US and war on women | :09:16. | :09:21. | |
in the US. I talk about the Congress and how it is the least | :09:21. | :09:26. | |
women friendly in a long time. In my essay, I wanted to devote the | :09:26. | :09:36. | |
3,000 words on where I come from. Can I not do that? Do I have to say, | :09:36. | :09:42. | |
women in Pakistan, Argentina, England? What do you say to people | :09:42. | :09:49. | |
who work in the human rights campaign committee in Egypt? Brakes | :09:49. | :09:55. | |
are poor, a woman who works in health issues. Saying Arab man who | :09:55. | :10:00. | |
hates Arab women present us as being needing saving. I'm not a | :10:00. | :10:10. | |
:10:10. | :10:10. | ||
victim. I never once in the ASA said that Arab women needed to be | :10:10. | :10:16. | |
saved. Many activists who led the driving campaign to break the ban | :10:16. | :10:24. | |
against women driving ended up in jail. Does it worry you that some | :10:24. | :10:28. | |
people you characterise as a female heroes proposed to your way of | :10:28. | :10:34. | |
thinking? But it is their right. I have differences with ways of their | :10:34. | :10:39. | |
thinking as well. But why are you not taking this people with you? | :10:40. | :10:44. | |
Why do they see you as an extremist? I think it is useful to | :10:44. | :10:51. | |
be an extremist. I hate the word moderate. It helps to be extremist. | :10:51. | :10:57. | |
I'm pushing and provoking, and going towards the left, hoping to | :10:57. | :11:02. | |
create a bigger space for those who want to be in the middle. Women do | :11:02. | :11:08. | |
not have to agree with what I say. What comes to me is when I'm in | :11:08. | :11:13. | |
Egypt, young people come up to me, not involved in communities for | :11:13. | :11:19. | |
activism, and they say, we love your essay, can we start up | :11:19. | :11:26. | |
something? I wonder if you have been driven by personal rage. You | :11:26. | :11:31. | |
have suffered certain experiences which most women watching this | :11:31. | :11:36. | |
programme could only imagine. I am referring specifically to November | :11:36. | :11:41. | |
last year, when you were detained by the security forces in the | :11:41. | :11:47. | |
demonstrations. But after Mubarak. You found yourself detained four | :11:47. | :11:57. | |
:11:57. | :11:57. | ||
hours. You were beaten and sexually assaulted. Yes. He was so enraged. | :11:57. | :12:04. | |
-- you were so enraged. I have been a writer for more than 20 years. My | :12:04. | :12:10. | |
rage has been consistent. What happened to me pushed me over the | :12:10. | :12:16. | |
edge. I had been writing columns for the Guardian since the January | :12:16. | :12:21. | |
25 Revolution began. If I go through my columns, I kept asking | :12:21. | :12:27. | |
the question, where is the rage against the mileage -- violations | :12:27. | :12:34. | |
of women's rights? I expected, this is a new Egypt. I thought there | :12:34. | :12:40. | |
would be thousands in the streets, saying, this cannot happen. I began | :12:40. | :12:49. | |
to think, we need to make a huge fuss. I would have to be clear... | :12:49. | :12:54. | |
Was the experience an example of misogyny? Many human beings are | :12:54. | :13:01. | |
brutally assaulted by Egyptian security. Where does the point | :13:01. | :13:11. | |
:13:11. | :13:12. | ||
about misogyny come into all this? The regime did what it did to me. | :13:12. | :13:17. | |
That is the same regime that suppresses everyone in Egypt and | :13:17. | :13:22. | |
violates their rights. There is another level of suppression with | :13:22. | :13:31. | |
Egyptian women. That is at culture at large. I went to the anniversary. | :13:31. | :13:38. | |
I had two broken homes. I was trying to get to the CNN Office. I | :13:38. | :13:44. | |
saw a crowd of men. When my palms were not broken, I fight back. I | :13:44. | :13:50. | |
needed the help of a man to get through the crowd of men. At that | :13:50. | :13:56. | |
moment, it is not about the regime but culture. Eight culture that we | :13:56. | :14:02. | |
have to fight against for the revolution to succeed. When you | :14:03. | :14:12. | |
talk about being groped, having your breasts prodded, magenta -- | :14:12. | :14:17. | |
your genital area or field, you say that males, even revolutionary | :14:17. | :14:24. | |
males, a demanding political reform and want to do that to you. | :14:24. | :14:30. | |
same day that this happened to me, I hit a man in Tahrir Square. He | :14:30. | :14:35. | |
gripped my backside. If you hear about the levels of sexual assault | :14:35. | :14:43. | |
and harassment in Egypt, it is an epidemic. The BBC called it an | :14:43. | :14:49. | |
epidemic during a documentary. In 2006, according to a survey, more | :14:49. | :14:53. | |
than 80% of people face strict sexual harassment on a daily basis | :14:53. | :15:03. | |
:15:03. | :15:07. | ||
in Egypt. Those figures are How do you think the men who have | :15:07. | :15:12. | |
sacrificed their health feel when you hear them damned as males as | :15:12. | :15:19. | |
part of a system and a patriarchy which hates women? I hope they will | :15:19. | :15:23. | |
say I do not hate women and I will make sure women are not forgotten | :15:24. | :15:27. | |
or rejected in the revolution because historically they have been. | :15:27. | :15:35. | |
In Egypt, we have had a feminist movement since 1923 but it ebbs and | :15:35. | :15:40. | |
dips. From these men a would like to hear that we will not allow | :15:40. | :15:44. | |
women's rights to continue to deteriorate. We will fight for | :15:44. | :15:48. | |
their rights to be improved and that is an essential part of the | :15:48. | :15:54. | |
revolution. Egypt has had elections since the toppling of Hosni Mubarak. | :15:54. | :15:58. | |
We know what those elections yielded, power to the Moslem | :15:58. | :16:02. | |
Brotherhood and seats to a party you have a Angell rhetorical fire | :16:02. | :16:08. | |
at a number of times, that is democracy. That is what Egyptians | :16:08. | :16:13. | |
want right now. It is only democracy if you think that is | :16:13. | :16:18. | |
putting a piece of paper in a box. That is the start of a long road | :16:18. | :16:22. | |
towards democracy. Given what Egypt has been through in the last 20 | :16:22. | :16:26. | |
months, it was the first free and fair election and very important. | :16:27. | :16:33. | |
You cannot deny the results of elections. And extreme secularists | :16:33. | :16:40. | |
like yourselves performed badly in the elections. I do not deny any of | :16:40. | :16:46. | |
those results. But our current President only got 25 per cent. He | :16:46. | :16:51. | |
ended up winning the presidency because he and the other candidate | :16:51. | :16:57. | |
went on to the second round. It is a flawed system but it produced our | :16:57. | :17:00. | |
first free election. There were many violations. I'm not contesting | :17:00. | :17:06. | |
the result but the road towards the elections. I am questioning how | :17:06. | :17:11. | |
free the choice was. We had 60 years of military rule, so it makes | :17:11. | :17:16. | |
it impossible to operate in the middle ground between the regime | :17:16. | :17:22. | |
and the Islamists. Is there an arrogance in your approach to these | :17:22. | :17:27. | |
democratically elected politicians. He dismissed the opposition as men | :17:28. | :17:32. | |
stuck in the 7th century. A quarter of parliamentary seats are held by | :17:32. | :17:36. | |
people who believe that mimicking the original ways of the profit is | :17:36. | :17:42. | |
an appropriate prescription for modern life? The fact is, Egypt has | :17:42. | :17:46. | |
to find a place for this powerful body of opinion. It involves men | :17:46. | :17:53. | |
and women. We have to find a place for them. It is now a dissolved | :17:53. | :17:58. | |
parliament. They are not there anymore. This is a fact we cannot | :17:58. | :18:06. | |
ignore. Some of those men. At end of women. Women can internalise | :18:06. | :18:09. | |
their own subjugation and oppression. I will give you | :18:09. | :18:16. | |
examples of how damaging those men are to revolutionary Egypt. Many of | :18:16. | :18:21. | |
them belong on the constitutional committee writing the constitution. | :18:21. | :18:28. | |
Along with many secularists. they worry me because they are | :18:28. | :18:33. | |
extreme Islamists. They believe it is OK for a nine-year-old girl to | :18:33. | :18:39. | |
get married. They believe that female genital manipulation is a | :18:39. | :18:45. | |
form of female beautification. You cannot vote for people who deny | :18:45. | :18:50. | |
other people their rights. Write some men to give a high ceiling to | :18:50. | :18:54. | |
the majority of people get rights and not take us down to the lowest | :18:54. | :19:02. | |
common denominator. In earlier in this interview, you acknowledge | :19:02. | :19:06. | |
that going to the extreme and being provocative you find quite useful | :19:06. | :19:11. | |
because it opens up the ground behind you. But surely at this | :19:11. | :19:16. | |
point, it is morning due to -- my tutor say the Moslem Brotherhood | :19:16. | :19:22. | |
are trying to reach out to mainstream Egyptians and none | :19:22. | :19:26. | |
extreme opinion. They are saying things like they want to find very | :19:26. | :19:33. | |
significant roles for women. They want to find a way of acknowledging | :19:33. | :19:37. | |
Sharia law from the constitution. They are trying to find common | :19:37. | :19:43. | |
ground. Is it useful in that context for you to persist with | :19:43. | :19:49. | |
your extremism? Is a very useful. As long as there is someone saying | :19:49. | :19:52. | |
nine year-old girl should be married. Why hold them up as the | :19:52. | :19:57. | |
key arbiter of where Egypt is going? I'm glad you asked me that. | :19:57. | :20:04. | |
The Moslem Brotherhood has tried to move itself to the centre. The | :20:04. | :20:06. | |
opposition of playing this nasty game of trying to pull towards the | :20:06. | :20:13. | |
right, they understand that they will tell them -- us they have sold | :20:13. | :20:18. | |
up. He will cede the right-wing ground to the opposition and they | :20:18. | :20:22. | |
will be a disaster especially for women's rights in Egypt. Have you | :20:22. | :20:26. | |
considered running for political office in Egypt? The is it because | :20:26. | :20:31. | |
you would not attract the vote. do not know if I chordal wouldn't. | :20:31. | :20:36. | |
I do not want to. To attract those folks, I will have to offer a | :20:37. | :20:41. | |
compromise. I do not want to. If there is someone on the extreme | :20:41. | :20:47. | |
right, I will remain on the extreme left. Many in Egypt would see you | :20:47. | :20:50. | |
as a woman who spends so much time in the West and spending half your | :20:50. | :20:56. | |
time and the United States, but you are no longer genuinely of Egypt in | :20:56. | :21:00. | |
the way they are. G sometimes worry that should take on what is | :21:00. | :21:07. | |
happening in the arable today feeds into an analysis, clash of | :21:07. | :21:11. | |
civilisations approach to the differences between Western values | :21:11. | :21:18. | |
and Arab values that many worry is very dangerous? I reject the Clash | :21:18. | :21:22. | |
of civilisations argument. I do not believe different civilisations | :21:22. | :21:27. | |
have different rights. People have the right to be free and everybody | :21:27. | :21:32. | |
has the same needs and values. do believe in generalising about | :21:32. | :21:38. | |
failings and the culture of the Arab world? If a revolution called | :21:38. | :21:45. | |
me a backwards as finest pitch this is a problem. They are uttered | :21:45. | :21:49. | |
those words. Our religion -- revolution is about freedom and | :21:49. | :21:54. | |
dignity. It is not about values between the east and the West, it | :21:54. | :22:00. | |
is about the values of men taking women seriously. I'm about to move | :22:00. | :22:04. | |
back to Egypt full time and locating to Cairo because this is | :22:04. | :22:09. | |
an exciting moment. A moment when I can contribute. I cannot change | :22:09. | :22:15. | |
things in New York but I can help things in Cairo. He said you could | :22:15. | :22:19. | |
not change things and you're, you're a calmly facing criminal | :22:19. | :22:25. | |
proceedings in New York because you got in a spat with the pro-Israeli | :22:25. | :22:30. | |
group and you felt they were racist. They denied that and you said they | :22:30. | :22:34. | |
were hate mongers. When you got involved in that fight and you | :22:34. | :22:39. | |
ended up painting over some of the posters with a spray paint can did | :22:39. | :22:44. | |
you think, they are simply pursuing a provocative and extreme agenda in | :22:44. | :22:51. | |
the same way I do. What right have I got to try to shut them up? | :22:51. | :22:56. | |
was a moment when I thought I could change something in New York. | :22:56. | :23:00. | |
use see my point? You thrive on free expression but you appeared to | :23:00. | :23:05. | |
be trying to stop other people expressing what they wanted to say. | :23:05. | :23:11. | |
That is not what I was trying to do. I saw a new yorker ripped the | :23:11. | :23:19. | |
poster in half. What I was trying to do was, judge called what I | :23:19. | :23:22. | |
called hate speech protected political speech. I wanted my | :23:22. | :23:28. | |
speech to go on their speech. used a spray-paint to obliterate | :23:28. | :23:33. | |
their poster. It was see-through and it was pink. You can still see | :23:33. | :23:38. | |
the word I was trying to make a point. That hate speech must be | :23:38. | :23:42. | |
made socially unacceptable. We have to commit the dots between hate | :23:42. | :23:47. | |
speech and hate crimes. Five days after that the man said my | :23:47. | :23:53. | |
brother's local mosque on fire. you take this attitude and that | :23:53. | :23:58. | |
activism back to Cairo with you? Have slowly. I will work with a | :23:58. | :24:02. |