Tuesday, March 8, 2011

Women day march : between overwhelmed and brutal

I came to the internet café, tired from carrying the banner, I was thinking I will get rest then go back to the "celebration". It was planned to have bands playing. But rather something else happened.


In my rest and happiness while writing the last post, the misogynist demonstrations which were a combination of thugs or regulars people started to be very provocative, they shouted male protesters that they should wear veil as sign of their femininity and that they are gays because they are supporting women cause. On the other side the long provocative pathetic dialogues between the protesters and the regular people on the street started to get violent verbally, they started calling them whores, agents of Suzanne Mubarak and the west. Then the harassments, I mean the physical ones started, when I was listening to the stories of the "survivors" I just recalled the organized sexual harassment crime in the referendum of 2005, I remembered when sexual harassment is the weapon against women.

So the fear made everyone leave the square and we were scattered in Cairo streets. What a day, it was weird I felt very optimistic in the beginning in the march from the press syndicate to Tahrir, It was liberation, then I had mixed feeling, I was irritated by the feminist divas and I was annoyed that the regular women are not there it was very elitist, I hated the mania of western media to cover the event, and then I started to be frustrated and angry when Egyptians played the wicked game of using religion to suppress women and the ending sentence for this dramatic day was brutalizing women.

Since the beginning of revolution my favorite words were "overwhelmed" and " brutal", I was half skeptical, half optimistic, now I feel there that Tahrir ethics was temporary and we are back to earth , Tahrir and all Egypt streets is not heaven we have to fight as hard as it get to achieve equality

VIVA WOMEN RIGHTS

IT IS OUR STRUGGLE AND WE WILL CONTINUE

5 comments:

Cecily Hilleary said...

I report for the Voice of America radio - @VOAHilleary on Twitter. Not even Al Jazeera has covered violence and harassment against women in Tahrir today--would you be available for phone interview tomorrow at about 1 pm your time? I'd like to do a story about this for tomorrow's show. Email me at chilleary@voanews.com. I hope to hear from you!!! And shame on the men!!

El_Amster said...

Fatma, try not to lose hope. Remember, this is a process and you may not realise the impact you are having on those people and how pathetic & misguided they must be to do that. For every person like that, there are more behind you, even if the march was not busy.

Anonymous said...

Fatma,

FYI: In case you did not already know, VOA is owned and operated by the US Federal Government. Don't let them misquote you.

And great response, btw.

Re: today
"Without struggle, there can be no progress" Fredrick Douglas

Today those who stand against women's rights reveled how ugly they are, it will backfire in the long-run and help strengthen and mobilize the cause.

Fatma Emam said...

amester my dear, still optimistic, i am just out of my upotia
anonymous , media can misquoute you at anytime , i am just hoping my voice will be heard , thanks for the tip

Piratenweib said...

Dear Fatma, keep strong. Women all over the world are fighting with you. Best wishes from Germany!