The Politics of Female Circumcision in Egypt

Gender, Sexuality and the Construction of Identity

Maria Frederika Malmström

• Editorial: I.B. Tauris
• Año: 2016
• ISBN:
  9780857739445
• Edición: 1
• Categoría: Social Sciences
• Categoría: Gender Studies

The percentage of women aged 15-49 in Egypt who have undergone the procedure of female circumcision, or genital mutilation/cutting (FGM/C) stands at 91%, according to the latest research carried out by UNICEF. Female circumcision has become a global political minefield with 'Western' interventions affecting Egyptian politics and social development, not least in the area of democracy and human rights. Maria Frederika Malmstrom employs an ethnographic approach to this controversial issue, with the aim of understanding how female gender identity is continually created and re-created in Egypt through a number of daily practices, and the central role which female circumcision plays in this process. Viewing the concept of 'agency' as critical to the examination of social and cultural trends in the region, Malmstrom explores the lived experiences and social meanings of circumcision and femininity as narrated by women from Cairo. It is through the examination of the voices of these women that she offers an analysis of gender identity in Egypt and its impact on women's sexuality.

CHAPTER 1

THE POLITICS OF ‘FEMALE GENITAL MUTILATION’ IN EGYPT

They showed the entire world. How can they show a girl like that? Here in Egypt, when you do circumcision for your girl, you should keep this as a secret. When the women come with nu'ta [small money gift] and congratulate the girl, the mother and family should be shy. This film is the opposite (Um Salim 2003).

During the UN International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) in Cairo in 1994, CNN¹ broadcast live the circumcision of a 10-year-old girl in central Cairo. It was possible to see how the girl's legs were forced apart and how her genitalia were cut off amidst piercing screams. Until this time the state² had denied the existence of female genital mutilation (FGM/C) in Egypt except as a rare practice in remote, impoverished areas of the country.³ Before screening the film, the CNN correspondent interviewed President Hosni Mubarak, who was resolute that the practice did not exist in Egypt (Tadros 2000) and, the day before, the minister of health had stated that it was seldom practised.

The CNN's screening of the circumcision affected the women among the lower income strata and may be interpreted as the beginning of a crisis in the universe of what Bourdieu refers to as doxa, ‘the pre-verbal taking-for-granted of the world that flows from practical sense’ (Bourdieu 1990: 68). This monitoring was experienced as a shameful and disrespectful violation of national identity and self, where Egyptian moral and religious discourses clearly contrasted the Western ones. CNN not only humiliated the population, they did something unthinkable in an Egyptian context: the media exposed the secrets of a girl's body and pain. The perceived inability of the Egyptian state to rebuff unwanted interventions into private family affairs by Western countries further increased the feeling of subordination in relation to the West. For the women, it was clear that the CNN film was a violation of autonomy on different levels.

The CNN film sparked off a heated public debate in Egypt, and female circumcision was transformed into a highly politicized issue. A political power game ensued, which included not only actors in Egypt but also Egypt's relations with the United States and the majority of Western European countries, female genital mutilation became top-level politics. The Egyptian state had to parry Islamist ideals, popular opinions and political pressure from the Western world.⁴

The politics of FGM/C in Egypt are linked to a powerful and predominantly Western discourse that has been opposing the practice in Africa for the last two decades (cf. Kassamali 1998). This puts pressure on the states where the practice is widespread to exhibit their devotion to international ideals (Boyle 2002).⁵ Western feminist human rights activists have brought FGM/C onto the international human rights agenda (Malmström 2013). The global human rights discourse differs from earlier Western policies, which focused on health in relation to FGM/C. It modifies earlier Western feminist arguments that read female genital mutilation as patriarchal control over women's bodies and sexuality, and as a symbol of women's subordination (cf. Hernlund and Shell-Duncan 2007). Importantly for the Western agenda for modernization and change today, the ban on female genital mutilation is justified through reference to its violation of human rights principles (Beijing Declaration 1995). Although human rights are regarded as universally applicable, the values on which they are based can be traced to a specifically European history and tradition of thought. In countries where the practice is performed, states have adopted policies that prohibit the practice even when the laws do not reflect what the majority of the population want (Boyle 2002). The post-colonialist critique stresses the need for contextualized understandings of indigenous meanings (Obiora 1997; Dellenborg and Malmström 2013),⁶ arguing against both the human rights approach and Western interventions in general.⁷

The international community did not interfere with these states until 1958, when the United Nations requested that the World Health Organization (WHO) examined the practice. The WHO refused, with the argument that it was outside their area of competence; it was deemed a cultural and social phenomenon rather than a medical one, and the WHO policy was to avoid interfering in the domestic politics of sovereign states. However, today the international community and non-governmental organizations are deeply involved in globally eradicating female genital mutilation and seem to have no qualms about shaping the domestic politics of concerned states.⁸ These interventions tend to see female circumcision as disembedded from its complex social and cultural context and they are often perceived locally as an attack on the cultural integrity of the group. Some later international campaigns have a more holistic approach (cf. Malmström et al. 2011).

In Egypt, the different viewpoints on circumcision after 1994 emerge in a particular discursive framework. These positions will be elaborated later in this chapter but they are briefly as follows. One position emphasizes human rights, gender equality and modernization and among the proponents are those who have adopted the Western human rights discourse, notably the Egyptian state (in public) and many NGOs (cf. The Egyptian Gazette 1996; Abusharaf 2000).⁹ A second viewpoint is that of Egyptian professionals, for example journalists and physicians, who stress that the human rights approach is not applicable for people among the lower classes.¹⁰ A third stance is taken by some religious, legal and medical professionals, who advocate female circumcision in the name of God and defend the practice as both praiseworthy and unproblematic (cf. Abd el Salam 1995; UNICEF 2003). Together with Egyptian feminists and nationalists, they criticize Western interventions for their cultural imperialism and the perpetuation of colonialism (cf. Boddy 1989; Newsweek 1993).¹¹ Yet, the Islamist movement seems to have a different political agenda than both Egyptian feminists and several of the other nationalists in its vision of forming a religious Islamic state. UNICEF (2003) highlights the sensitive links between local, national and international levels in relation to the politicization of female circumcision in Egypt:

A substantial proportion of the Egyptian public as well as intellectuals have become suspicious of the ulterior motives of health or social interventions that are sponsored by international organizations (UNICEF 2003: 20).

This feeling of degradation and disrespect is part of a wider anti-Western discourse in the Arab world¹² (cf. for instance, Gren 2009). In this climate of mistrust and political turbulence the female genital mutilation controversy transmutes into a powerful tool in the struggle between political Islamists and the Egyptian state for power and political leadership. The politicized debate in Egypt can be summed up as partly a conflict between those who would protect human rights and those who wish to protect against cultural imperialism. On the one hand, this conflict is played out between the international community and the Egyptian public. On the other hand, it is between the political Islamists and the Egyptian state.

In order to fully understand this debate and the different positions taken we need to briefly consider some major changes in Egyptian society over the last decades, the regional instabilities, and the people's reactions to these transformations. Regional migration, economic reform and the changes in Islamist influence, as the Muslim Brotherhood continue to be outside the official state (again), have all had an immense impact on Egyptian society (Singerman and Hoodfar 1996; Guenena and Wassef 1999; El-Kholy 2002; see Schielke (2012) about the centrality of a religious reformist stance in the claiming of a middle-class belonging). They frame the political controversy around FGM/C sparked off by CNN film and the ICPD conference in 1994.¹³

Socio-economic changes since the 1970s

An extensive migration movement within the region began in the 1970s to the oil-producing countries around the Gulf: Jordan, Iraq and Libya. The factors behind this movement were the effects of liberal economic policies, new generous migration politics, unrestrained population growth, deteriorating living conditions in the rural areas, the 1973 war with Israel, the effects of the petrodollar economy and the war between Iraq and Iran (1980–8), which meant new labour opportunities, especially in Iraq (Ghannam 2002). The subsequent involuntary return of male migrants as a result of the Kuwait invasion is one of the reasons for the high rates of unemployment in Egypt (El-Kholy 2002). This migration movement had several significant consequences: an increasingly vocal movement of radical Islam, consumption and gender and family changes. Through migration, these workers improved their life conditions and consumption patterns (cf. Amin 2000, but many of them also became religiously radicalized (Hoodfar 1997). However, as Kreil (personal communication, 19 November 2014) and other scholars such as Gruntz and Pagès-El Karoui (2013) point out, the influence of migrants is mainly stressed by secular Egyptian intellectuals to depict Islamism as not genuinely belonging to the country. Lacroix (2011) narrates the co-construction of Islamism between the two shores of the Red Sea and the influence of the Muslim Brothers in the shaping of the Saudi sahwa. The migrants' remodelling of Islam has had a great influence on gender norms and relations in Egypt and may also given rise to increasing sympathy with the ideology of Egyptian political Islamists. As will be shown, this political movement was a powerful and influential actor in the politicization of female circumcision in Egypt. Migration also affected gender roles in other ways, in marriage and division of labour within households (El-Kholy 2002). Women left behind replaced male labour power and took on responsibility as heads of households (Hoodfar 1996; Seif El Dawla et al. 1998). Egyptian peasant women's lives have changed radically as a consequence of labour migration, in the spheres of consumption, investment, children's education and family planning (Duval de Dampierre 1996).

The second important process of this period concerns the effects of Western-oriented and neo-liberal economic policy. Under pressure from the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Egypt began privatizing public sector services and implementing structural adjustment policies during the 1990s.¹⁴ These developments gave rise to increased poverty and unemployment and to deeper income and gender inequalities among the lower income strata. Economic pressures have also pushed older women among the lower income strata to work outside the household in informal sectors so as to contribute economically to the family, which is traditionally a male duty (El-Kholy 2002). However, the effects of structural adjustment programmes, such as the unemployment of women, nourished the Islamic discourse in Egyptian society and its call for women to return to the home. The Islamic discourse moulds women as primarily mothers and wives and it includes ideological limitations on their movements, rights and roles within Egyptian society (cf. Hoodfar 1996; El-Kholy 2002). According to Hatem, this discourse ‘makes invisible the economic and social costs of privatization for women – worsening work conditions; dramatic unemployment rates; and high levels of emotional and social stress, especially for young women’ (Hatem 1994: 57).

Thirdly, the emergence of the Islamist movement is part of the larger Islamic revival of the Muslim world since 1970s. El-Banna, the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood in 1928, ‘called for a return to Islam as a unifying force that would enable Egyptians, Arabs, and Muslims all over the world to fight colonialism’ (Mahmood 2005: 6). The Muslim Brotherhood is one of the most prominent resurgences of Islamist movements in Egypt. Another radical movement is Gama‘at al-Muslimîn (Society of Muslims), popularly known as Takfîr wa hijra, formed by Shukri Mustafa in 1977, who was inspired by Sayyid Qutb (cf. Kepel 1986). The latter is considered to be one of the most radical Islamist thinkers in the Arab world and he is perceived to be a martyr since he was sentenced to death in 1966 by an Egyptian military tribunal for conspiracy against Nasser (Abu Rabi 1996). As in other parts of the Islamic world (cf. Frisk 2004), part of the sahwat el-islâm (Islamic Awakening) in Egypt is also due to the force of the women's mosque movement. According to Mahmood (2005), this movement emerged largely in response to the state-forced taġrîb (Westernization) processes in Egypt. The attractiveness and power of the Islamist movement among Egypt's population should be interpreted in relation to the unpopularity and failure of the state to satisfy people's needs (cf. El-Kholy 2002). The political Islamists have been for a long time Egypt's only mass movement and constituted a major political threat (Cairo Times archive of political Islam 2004). The majority of Islamists have argued that the Egyptian state must be overthrown long time before the Arab revolts, since the state does not rule the country in accordance with Islamic law (Moustafa 2000). Their emergence and strength must be understood against the conflict-filled background of post-colonial politics and modernization.

Three political epochs and Islamization on the rise

Gamal Abdel Nasser and Arab socialism

The Islamization process in Egypt was often linked to the Mubarak regime's politics but also to the two former political periods, as will be shown here. After the 1952 revolution, the constitutional monarchy was overthrown along with British colonial influence, and the Nasserist era began. Gamal Abdel Nasser as president introduced an Arab socialist policy in Egypt. This meant nationalization measures, a radical land reform, employing members of the poorer social strata, free public education, free public health care, subsidies for basic needs, a rent control system, old-age pensions and liberal labour law. The politics introduced by Nasser were important in forming Egyptian nationhood among the lower-income groups. The Nasser government gained strong support from the poorer strata of society (Singerman and Hoodfar 1996; Hoodfar 1997; Amin 2000). For the first time, it was possible for people from the lower income strata and rural regions to gain upward social mobility through education, as well as for women to assume more publicly active roles in society.

Anwar el-Sadat and the open door policy

His successor Anwar el-Sadat reversed Nasser's socialist policies, including cutting off most relations with the Soviet Union. Sadat introduced infitâḥ (the open door policy) in 1974, an economic openness to the outside and a shift from welfare to free market (Wikan 1996; Hoodfar 1997; Amin 2000). Sadat's polices aimed to open Egypt's doors (bâb) to the outside world. As part of his ambition to modernize family policy, he promoted nuclear families instead of the previously extended family units. He also used Islam to support his rule. Sadat presented himself as the faithful president and used political Islamic groups to weaken radical oppositionists (cf. Karam 1998). However, according to Amin (2000), the effects of infitâḥ are inadequate to explain the huge transformations in people's desires in Egypt. He points out that the changes in economy and society had already begun in the 1950s due to the July Revolution of 1952. The revolution made social mobility and new lifestyles possible.

The Mubarak state's policy, defined as openness to the outside, stood in sharp contrast to women's perceptions of Egypt as a closed and secret society on many levels. In contrast to Wikan's experiences during the late 1990s (1996), Sadat's politics for the most part have not earnt much support among urban dwellers. It is possible to see that a de-legitimation of the state's politics has its roots in Sadat's regime. The state's market-oriented economy at that time was perceived by the population as the beginning of cooperation with and dependence on the United States and the Western world. This process has created a space for political Islamists who gained ground during the regime of President Mubarak.

Hosni Mubarak and the structural adjustment programmes

President Mubarak continued with Sadat's approach to modernization and religion, supporting a market economy and trying to control the growth of Islamic movements.¹⁵ The market orientation, inspired by the structural adjustment programmes of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, entailed a decline in state protection of the poor. Additionally, the development of private alternatives for education and health are expensive and out of reach for urban dwellers. The state's inability to manage social and economic problems and to satisfy the population's needs affected people's life situations in a number of ways. My experience, as other scholars also note, is that to many Egyptians the political system became ‘synonymous with defeat, humiliation and impoverishment’ (El-Kholy 2002: 43). The only alternative left for the majority of Egypt's population was the low-cost health facilities and low-standard public schools. Together with the growing income disparities, such unequal access to welfare creates political discontent and frustration (cf. Hatem 1994: 56).

Islamic charity organizations played an important role in the poorer parts of Cairo and were a political alternative to unpopular nat...