Monday, March 12, 2012

A day to proudly remember

Some day in the future decades someone will ask about how our women celebrated the international women’s day post the revolution. The first anniversary will be remembered with dismay & great frustration but the second will be remembered with pride & hope despite the bitter taste of military rule. The march organized on the occasion started from the journalists syndicate & headed to the people’s assembly passing through Tahrir in a show of solidarity & staunch determination to champion the struggle of Egyptian women for fairness & liberation. The chants and the crowd vibes were exhilarating and the demands very clear. The focus was on two things 1. Full representation of women in the constitution-drafting committee by at least 50% 2. No tempering with the legal gains of the past decade as regards personal status laws and non-discrimination in state dealings. The Egyptian Women Union was strongly present at the march with its banners reminding the Egyptian nation and its rulers that all the gains secured under the past regime were the result of the pressure and persistence of feminist activists, lawyers, writers, and human rights activists, and pro-women NGOs and social enterprises and were not simply and unduly granted by Susanne Mubarak.

The march was inspirational in many respects. There were many men participating and even leading the chants. There were at least 3 generations present, from those aged 60 and above to those aged 25 and below and the age groups in between. The chants were very enthusiastic and clever and so were the banners. They were one with the true spirit of the revolution and the national dream of a new progressive developed Egypt.

The nicest thing about the preparations of the event is that the women organizations were only too aware of their individual vulnerability and their inability to rally great numbers if they work as separate islands. So they had to get together despite their ideological & practical differences to organize around a common goal and avoid the debacle of the 2011 celebration. A formal statement was delivered to parliament on behalf of all the groups & in other words on behalf of the Egyptian Women National Movement declaring that its voice is not represented in parliament, stipulating its adamant endorsement of women’s legal & social rights & entitlements, and its resolve to continue to build on those rights for the sake of better women empowerment & liberation.   

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