Necla Kelek traveled to Egypt, Tunisia and Morocco, to the heart of the Arab revolution, meeting women willing to risk their lives for “hurriya,” or freedom. She learned about their hopes and fears, and discovered their desire – under attack from all sides – to live a free life.
Meet Meryem, a young blogger, defending freedom against Mubarak’s military, despotism and corruption on Tahrir Square, and living in fear because people are being shot and abducted every day. Or Niha, a lawyer, who has been fighting for women’s rights for years and now fears that both the Islamists and the military council will strip women of their last rights; for her, the idea of a just society is unthinkable without free women. Marijam, on the other hand, is demonstrating in Tunis for her right to wear a veil as a student; to her and her friends, hurriya means purging universities of western decadence, it means the freedom to serve Allah, the freedom to let men call the shots for women. For Fatima from Casablanca, hurriya is the opportunity to find work and the right to keep what she earns.
Necla Kelek writes about the Nile, the Christmas Oratorio in Cairo and New Year’s Eve with fundamentalists in Kairouan. She analyzes why the uprising will fail even as it endures. The Arab-Islamic power and religious system has not been defeated. Yet its women offer hope – and we must not let them down.
