Egyptian-American writer uses words and body to steer social and sexual revolution
By Mohua Das
Times of India
The first thing that strikes you about Mona Eltahawy, the Egyptian-American feminist writer is her hair. And then her hands. When she lifts her tattooed arms and runs her fingers through a halo of flaming red hair that sits on her head like a lion’s mane – they transfix you at once. Her body is her canvas and it tells a story.
“Back in 2011 when my arms were still broken, I decided to give myself a gift once my bones heal. So, I dyed my hair red and got tattoos on both my arms, for surviving and healing,” smiles Eltahawy who had both her wrists broken and was sexually assaulted by the riot police on a street off Tahrir Square in November 2011 during Egypt’s uprising.
Minutes before taking the stage for an adda on sex, feminism and female desires at the Godrej India Culture Lab on Tuesday, the 49-year-old pointed at a scar on her left wrist that hides a titanium plate with five screws underneath.
“I’m proud of this scar,” she smiled. But her body, she maintains is now an open symbol of rising. If Eltahawy’s hair sends out little warning flares which in her words mean, “F*** you, I survived”, a closer look at her forearms reveal the figure of Sekhmet, an Egyptian warrior goddess inked on her right hand. Her left arm carries the name of the Egyptian street where she was assaulted and the word ‘hurriya’ meaning freedom in Arabic.
It’s been six years since the revolution toppled Egypt’s president Hosni Mubarak but the struggle is far from over, she says. Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, since becoming President has not only failed to enact real change but also been exposed for corruption. “No one is safe in Egypt. There are at least 60,000 political prisoners right now, a reminder that the Sisi regime continues to fight its opponents on many levels. I’m among those opponents,” says Eltahawy who was recently targeted in a sweeping cyberespionage campaign allegedly led by the government. “Yes, they continue to attack me, follow me and tap my phone but I’m luckier than many others who are in jail, banned from travelling, had their assets frozen and university students abducted from home and imprisoned. Being an opponent of the Sisi regime is a dangerous thing.”
Since Donald Trump turned president, Eltahawy who holds dual citizenship of Egypt the US has been camping in New York. Drawing parallels, she says: “I look at the presidents of my country of birth and my country of naturalisation and they’re both fascists. I’ll be spending six months in each place to expose and fight what each regime is doing,” says Eltahawy, currently building a group of women writers of different ethnic backgrounds to mentor young women of colour in the US to develop their voice and fight racism. “It’s about offering them sisterhood at a difficult time in the US,” she says.
Eltahawy, who has been an important voice for feminism and a harsh critic of women’s rights in the Arab world, has also been an active voice in the fight against FGM. She praises women in the Bohra Muslim community for breaking the silence on a well-kept secret but the fight, she insists will need to be pursued at multiple levels. “The more women step forward, the more they’ll actively lobby the government to make this a crime. But you need more than laws. Religious and community leaders need to be educated and families need to be informed of its physical ramifications,” says Eltahawy, pointing at Egypt that criminalised FGM in 2008 but seen just two cases in court. “In Egypt, 90 percent of women between 15 and 45 years have been cut.”
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Unabashed in condemning repressive forces in “the state to the street corner to the bedroom” that continue to suppress women, her sentences are smattered with the F-word and with good reason. “I’m a big fan of anger and social injustice must be met with anger.”
And for those who aren’t easy on the F-word, Eltahawy has a cure. “Three ‘Ds’ — defiance, disobedience and disruption – to chip away at this massive thing called patriarchy,” she signs off, her fiery locks glowing under a shaft of light.
