Following the creation of the Vice and Virtue Committee in July 15th and in response to the fatwa issued by this authority against a system that would allocate 15 percent of the electoral bodies’ seats to women (women’s quota), several female political activists, members of non-governmental organizations, journalists and researchers have reacted and made public their opinion regarding these events.
This is the third of a series of interviews published by The Yemen Observer that aim to reflect the debate generated among some of these women, who are analysing the meanings of the VVC, the situation of women’s political participation in Yemen, and their responses to the obstacles they find. In this issue the Yemen Observer interviewed Tawkkol A. Karman, member of the Majlis al-Shura (Consultative Assembly) at the Islamist party Islah and chairwoman of Women Journalists Without Chains (WJWC), a non-governmental organization that works towards the promotion of freedom of speech and press.
Mother of three children, she studied Business Administration and has been a journalist for the past 11 years. Her father, one of the founders of the Muslim Brotherhood in Yemen, was Minister of Legal Affairs. A year ago she was among the several people that weekly, held sit-ins in front of the Yemeni Cabinet protesting against the banning of certain newspapers, the monopole of TV and radio stations by the government, the attack directed against journalists critical with the government, and in general, defending the right of expression. After 25 sit-ins they got 19 newspapers’ licences back.
Yemen Observer (YO): - When was the first time you heard about the Virtue Authority?
Tawkkol A. Karman (TAK): - This authority is a new authority, it just came to existence after a conference the ‘ulama held in July, but before that they did not exist. They came to existence after they met with the president, who allowed them to hold their conferences, so this authority is something coming from the presidential office.
In my opinion is not necessary, not even relevant, to talk about this authority anymore because is already dead. They held a conference or two, they announced their program, journalists refused it and opposed it, some of the ‘ulama did too, and that is as far as they got. They said they would gather once a year (the Vice Authority had previously proposed the establishment of permanent committees which would monitor vice-related activities of individuals and institutions, which the government rejected. In July they announced that they would hold annual meetings) so I consider them as another non-governmental organization (NGO).
YO: - What do you think about the fatwa they issued against women’s political participation and the quota system?
TAK: -I think this issue has become disproportionate in size. First of all, the booklet containing the fatwa does not make any sense, is as if it was written thousands of years ago. The second is that there are so many, too many fatwas that contradict that one fatwa and I do not understand why journalists and women’s organizations have focused that much on this one fatwa issued by the Virtue Authority.
I do not understand why no one speaks about the other fatwas, they only listened to what al-Zindani had to say but they should read other fatwas and speak about what other members of the ‘ulama think and not only of al-Zindani. Many ‘ulama support women’s right to become president if they want to, but now al-Zindani speaks and everyone gets upset, but he is just one person, one opinion. He has the right to express whatever he wants, is his own right of expression, but in the end we are the ones making out of his words and acts something bigger.
I think women’s organizations that denounced so much the fatwa and the Virtue Authority were wrong when they shouted about it. This authority became bigger because these denunciations made it bigger, but their fatwa does not make sense, is one among many others, and they are just another NGO.
YO: - But the Virtue Authority attacked women’s political participation and given that we are so close to the next parliamentary elections…
TAK: - Women’s political participation is a right we have by the Constitution, by law (Women –and man- can vote and be elected members of political institutions since 1960, when the Yemen Arab Republic (YAR) was established in the North. In the South, women obtained these and many other rights after the independence from the British colony and the formation of a Marxist-Leninist Republic, the People’s Democratic Republic Of Yemen (PDRY) in 1967.
The PDRY promoted women’s education, declared equality between genders, and offered an appropriate legal environment to assure these rights. For instance, the 1974 Family Code was considered one of the most advanced pieces of legislation in the entire region in relation to the rights it provided to women in terms of marriage, divorce and children’s custody. This code was made null after the unification of North and South in 1990, provoking a deep impact on the life of southerner women).
A fatwa, any fatwa, cannot affect or change these rights. The problem is instead related to a political decision regarding women’s participation: the problem is not the fatwa, is the political decision of the people in power that do not give a real possibility for women to participate. The Constitution, in its article number 2, says that Islam is the religion of this country and that women and men are to be treated equally. The right to participate, we already have it. Now the problem is how to practice what is written in the Constitution, which is another thing. A social explanation would make clear this obstacle, but this social problem has nothing to do with the fatwa.
If the fatwa would be a real problem, a real obstacle, then the State would have to go and make women like Amata al-Razak, (Minister of Social Affairs and Works) leave the Parliament if this was against our religion, which is not the case. I know this fatwa can be dangerous, but is just one fatwa. I know that what al-Zindani says can threaten women’s efforts, but again, this is just one person. We should also speak about other ‘ulama, like Muhammad Saif al-’Udaini, who also speaks about women’s participation explaining women’s rights in Islam. And this is just one example, there are many other opinions to be heard that support women. Al-Zindani is just one voice.
YO: -Why do you think this phenomenon is happening now?
TAK: -For two reasons: one is that the ruling party allowed them to exist as a way to attack the Islah party, which is the main opposition party, but the Virtue Authority is not part of Islah and Islah rejected this authority with a press release from the very beginning, and so did the Joint Meeting Parties (JMP), the opposition coalition Islah is part of. The second reason is that Saudi Arabia supports this authority and also the Shi’a in Yemen. When the president knew about this, he stopped the Virtue Authority (By the end of August the president declared his rejection and refusal of religious people becoming moral police in Yemen following the model of Saudi Arabia, al-Shar’a newspaper, 30 August, 2008). Now, have you heard anything else about the authority? Nothing, right? It just lasted for one month, just one.
YO:- What is your opinion about a quota system for women?
TAK: - I refuse the quota but not for the reasons the Virtue Authority said. I have other reasons. First, I consider that women have the capacity to access power on their own, the quota is not giving any right to women because women already have this right to participate. Second, the quota is like a gift from men to women, is not something obtained through merit. It is even worse than a gift, because is given as the last thing you can give. A third reason is that the quota system puts women in a lower position in relation to men, it stresses that they are not equal and that they are weak and not capable of being candidates on their own.
The quota defines women’s participation through women’s gender, and not because of their work (That the quota system hinders women’s participation is an idea widely extended and which departs from the fact that the quota, in this view, is against the principle of equal opportunity, is based on gender and not on ideas, merit or party platforms, is undemocratic and makes election processes be based on gender).I think there are other solutions in order to improve women’s participation in electoral bodies besides the quota system. Changing the party’s law and the election law, stating that no party can run for elections without voting women among their candidates are better solutions. If women are in the parties’ lists, in all the parties and not just in some, women would have the chance to be candidates and would prove themselves towards that.
YO: - Is Islah going to nominate women candidates for the 2009 parliamentary elections?
TAK: - Yes, but the Islah party cannot do this without the law being changed. The election law and the party’s law need to establish the same basis for all parties. In any case, women’s participation when it comes to Islah, is the largest in Yemen (a recent report published by the Women National Committee showed that about 6 women versus 10 men participate in the higher positions of the Islah party, the largest Islamist opposition party in Yemen. The Islah party was placed as the first in terms of women’s participation in Yemen). For instance, in the Majlis al-Shura, which I am a member of, we are 13 women out of 130 men, about 20% are women. This is the reality, and not an authority that is definitely dead.
- Yemen Observer
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