WUNRN
EGYPT 1919 - FEMINIST LED HISTORIC
ALL-WOMEN LIBERATION MARCH
By Sania Sharawi
Lanfranchi - WeNews Guest Author - July 15, 2012
Huda Shaarawi, one of Egypt's
first feminists, was part of the movement to end
(WOMENSENEWS)--By now, a general strike
was paralyzing the country. The strikers were supported by the whole
population, including wealthy women who waited for striking employees outside
their offices and places of work to donate their jewels to the strikers, thus
compensating them for their financial losses and encouraging them to maintain
the strike.
Riots sometimes degenerated into
bloody battles, and both men and women were shot in the streets by British
soldiers. In one unpleasant incident, a woman who held a national flag from her
carriage window was badly beaten by British soldiers, who unsuccessfully tried
to wrench the flag from her while some observing foreigners made fun of them.
At that point, Huda Shaarawi
decided to throw her own weight into the balance. Her plan was to mount a
protest march, to be organized by her circle of upper-class women. If women
marched alone, she thought, nobody would dare to shoot them. Were any to be
killed, she reasoned, international public opinion would not overlook such a
massacre. This could offer an opportunity to bring pressure to bear on the
British, because of the impact that the women's demonstration would have on
world opinion. Her husband Ali could only approve of his wife's spirited
response.
On March 16, 1919, Shaarawi's
planned demonstration took place: some 300 or more upper-class Egyptian women
marching through
Marching Side By Side
Within the women's movement, rich
women and poor marched side by side, in what later came to be seen as a
significant event in modern Egyptian history. These were the same wealthy women
as those who had offered their support to
The Wafdist women initially
consisted of the wives, sisters or daughters of men in the Wafd party,
Naturally, the British sought to
halt the women's march, as they had suppressed other demonstrations. Russell Pasha,
the chief of police, feared it might lead to student riots and to disturbances
of a more serious nature. The British adamantly opposed the principle of any
demonstration in which the students might join with the women, thus being able
to use them, in Pasha's words, "as a shield against the police and
troops."
The women were therefore refused permission to hold their peaceful demonstration, and their plan to march was frustrated by the presence of police cordons and British troops. Nevertheless, by arriving separately in their carriages and then descending to form up into a phalanx, the women succeeded in staging their march.
Stalling the 'Poor Dears'
Pasha took great pleasure in
setting the stage for a situation that he thought would ridicule the demonstrators.
In his memoirs, he recalled the day:
"At a given signal, I closed
the cordon and the ladies found their way opposed by a formidable line of
Egyptian conscript police, who had been previously warned that they were to use
no violence but to stand still and, if necessary, let their faces be scratched
by irate finger-nails. The idea of being attacked by what they considered to be
extremely immodest females amused my men enormously and considerable license
was given them by their officers to practice their ready peasant wit on the
smart ladies who confronted them."
The idea was to keep what Pasha
referred to as "the poor dears" standing under the midday sun
"without fulfilling their requests."
An Egyptian contemporary observer
saw the events quite differently, however:
"The spouses from the finest
families marched through the various quarters of Cairo, shouting 'Long live
freedom and liberty,' as the crowds thronged the pavements to applaud and cheer
them on and women leaned out from windows and balconies, ululating in jubilant
support. It was a fantastic scene that stirred every heart!"
Crowds had been waiting for the
women near the embassies and many foreigners were present. Onlookers had
brought flowers to strew on the ground as the women marched past. A few
pictures remain to testify that the march took place. Veiled women carrying a
flag on which the crescent and the cross symbolized religious harmony had
marched unarmed, and they had been stopped by armed soldiers.
The news spread around the world
and the feminists of the International Woman Suffrage Alliance heard of it,
leading them to take an interest in this daring act of participation by
Egyptian women in the political struggle of their country.
Excerpted from "Casting Off the Veil: The Life of
Huda Shaarawi,
Sania Sharawi Lanfranchi is a
freelance translator, working with organizations such as the World Health
Organisation, the Library of Alexandria, the U.N. Development Programme and the
Egyptian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. She holds postgraduate degrees in both
English literature and Arabic literature from the
"Casting Off the Veil: The
Life of Huda Shaarawi,
http://www.powells.com/partner/34289/biblio/9781848857193?p_ti