Nawal El Saadawi (Egypt)

The Women's Global Charter for Humanity: Towards a New Identity

The struggle of women all over the world inspired many people and made a significant contribution to the progress of humanity and human knowledge and action.

Feminism (in my opinion) is humanism because it is a struggle for a better human world based on equality, justice, freedom and love. Feminism is not a western invention. lt is embedded in the history of every country in the West, East, North, South.

We call ourselves(in our Arab Women' s Solidarity Association)Historical Socialist Feminists to show that we are inspired by our history, by the struggle of our mothers and great-grandmothers, that we are fighting against class capitalist and patriarchal systems in our countries and other places in the world. Feminism is a movement of resistance to global and local(glocal)injustices. Feminism in its quest to build gender relations on the basis of true equality, which however respects differences is against all types of discrimination starting from the basic family unit to the global multinational peak

Women's rights are human rights, they are universal based on justice and freedom for all regardless of religion, gender, class, race, nationality language color ethnicity creed profession or other factors. The local struggle of women in each country may differ according local specific conditions but the aim of the struggle is the same that is to build gender relations on the basis of true equality.

The word diversity can be positive, when it means understanding different local struggles or different ways to fight against different types of local oppression and how to work together globally and support each other in spite of those differences.

Diversity can be negative if it leads to divisions between us. Divide and rule is a weapon used against women and the poor by the class patriarchal system. New words like diversity, multiculturism, multi religionism, authentic identity, specificity.

Cultural relativism etc.... can be positive or negative according to how and why they are used. The word democracy can be also very misleading. Even the word feminism (or women's rights can be used against women.

If we remember that GW Bush invaded Iraq under the slogan "To liberate Iragi women" then we can understand how there words can be deceiving. Iraqi women today are struggling against foreign occupation, neo colonialism, male domination in the family and religions fundamentalism.

Under the so called cultural relativism some feminists in the North (or the West ) may be misled and fail to understand, our struggle in the so-called Middle East or in our Arab countries. I remember a very prominent British feminist who praised the veil and female circumcision in saying that they are part of our culture or part of our authentic identity.

Some feminists in the North think that there are many different feminisms in different countries. So we need to understand what they mean by feminism.

When we started our feminist association (the Arab Women's Solidarity Association - AWSA) in Cairo in 1982 we explained how we understand feminism. We made the link between all types of oppression at all levels, and we had two major goals: to unveil the mind and to acquire political power through unity and solidarity.

We had 35 % men members of AWSA fighting with us against patriarchy and class oppression. Many women and men joined us regardless of their identity (religious, national, racial, class, gender, profession, age, language, color etc.).

To unveil the mind we have to discuss what we mean by feminism or feminisms, what we mean by identity. We need to demystify the word identity and other similar words.

We need to struggle for a human identity which celebrates our human similarities and not our local religions, national, racial or ethnic differences to celebrate our common human feminism and not be divided by cultural or religious relativism.

We need to understand that there is no pure identity that we are all
mixed blood, mixed identifies, mixed cultures, mixed civilizations etc.

Pure identity is the oasis of racism, patriarchy and class and
national oppression.

We cannot understand feminism without critical thinking or creative thinking. We have to undo what the education system did to us, and fight against the fragmentation of knowledge in schools and universities to abolish dichotomies, contradictions and double standards in our social and personal life. "The personal is political" is a very important feminist idea which integrated different domains that were separated.

We live in one world (not three). We live in the neo colonial era not the postcolonial era. We need to change our language in the academia that propagates wrong ideas and veils our mind.

The veil of the mind is more dangerous than any visible veil (the traditional religions veil or the post modern veil (the make-up or fashion)

Now women in our countries (and all over the world) are victims of new contradictions, for example in Egypt today you can see a young woman waiking in the street covering her hair (religious veil) and wearing a make up, red lips, tight jeans, and even exposing the upper part of her abdomen, showing her navel (according to the new fashion) and she may consider herself a feminist

Women are victims of the patriarchal class values in all religions in the West and in the East Women are inferior to men in all religions and not only in Islam.

For political and neocolonial reasons islam became the only oppressive religion to women. Feminism should be critical of all religions and all sacred family values which we inherited from the slave system.

That's why the Women's Global Charter for Humanity is important for us. It brings a new humanism and a new identity to women.

Nawal El Saadawi, Cairo, Egypt.