The dissident
doctor is in

Egyptian-born author, activist and M.D.
Nawal El Saadawi diagnoses the rising global
tide of fundamentalism

RELIGION STILL RULES: El Saadawi

by CHRISTOPHER HAZOU

Over a remarkable career spanning more than a half-century, Egyptian author, feminist and political activist Nawal El Saadawi has seen many things change, while others have remained constant. “Our world, although we call it post-modern, is still based on military power, not justice,” she says over the phone from Atlanta, Georgia, where she is concluding a two-year position at Spelman College, where she taught a course in “creative dissidence.” “Religion still dominates, and the power of the church, the mosque, the temple, is increasing.”

El Saadawi, in Montreal this week to deliver a public talk entitled, “The Paradox of our Post Modern World: Politics, Religion, Sexuality & Creative Dissidence,” is a fierce critic of both religious fundamentalism and the secular regimes that have dominated much of the Arab world post-independence. Her books have won numerous awards and been translated into dozens of languages, the best known among them The Hidden Face of Eve, which examined the position of women in Arab society. She was subjected to female circumcision as a child, leading her to wage a long battle to have the practice banned in her home country, finally succeeding in 2007. This past May, she presented the Arthur Miller Freedom to Write Lecture at the PEN International Literary Festival in New York.

As a young doctor in Gamal Nasser’s revolutionary Egypt in the late 1950s, El Saadawi began her literary career writing short stories. After rising to become Egypt’s Director of Public Health, she published her first work of non-fiction in 1969, Women and Sex, raising the ire of the government and religious conservatives. It eventually cost her her job. In 1981, she was imprisoned for criticizing Egyptian president Anwar Sadat. During her three months behind bars, she wrote Memoirs From the Women’s Prison, an experience she recalls with a measure of fondness today. “I wrote it on toilet paper using a prostitute’s eyebrow pencil,” she says with a laugh.

Although frequently described as a leading voice for Arab women, El Saadawi eschews geographic and ethnic designations, preferring to see her work in a global context. “I connect what’s happening in Egypt with what’s happening in the world,” she says. “The phenomenon of fundamentalism is universal. Here in the U.S., women are still fighting for their rights. I’m a medical doctor and a psychiatrist and my students and colleagues come to me to talk. There are a lot of problems when women have so-called sexual freedom without political and economic and religious freedom.”

After receiving death threats from religious extremists in the early 1990s, she moved to the U.S. where she lived and taught until returning to Egypt in 1996. In recent years, she’s divided her time between Cairo and the U.S., but says she’s returning to Egypt for good this summer.

Living in the U.S. during the last presidential election campaign, El Saadawi followed Barack Obama closely in his run for office. While praising his skills as a writer and orator, she cautions against being swept up in a cult of personality. “The most dangerous political leaders are the charismatic ones,” she says. “They can kill you softly.”

Despite Obama’s much hyped address to Arabs and Muslims delivered from Cairo last month, El Saadawi is skeptical about the prospects for a change in American foreign policy under Obama. “There will be some superficial changes, but there’s no real difference,” she says.

As for El Saadawi herself, she’s currently working on a new book, My Life Across the Ocean, about her experiences living and working in the United States.

NAWAL EL SAADAWI SPEAKS ON
MONDAY, JULY 6, AT THE ATWATER
LIBRARY (1200 ATWATER), 7 P.M.,
FREE. INFO: (514) 846-0644 /
NADIA.ALEXAN@SYMPATICO.CA