Last weekend, I went on one of CIEE's scheduled trips, this one call the Abraham Path Voluntary Trail (or something like that). It is a trail system set up in the al-Alyoum or al-Ayoum (I'm not sure which) district of Jordan, which consists of 4 villages in norther Jordan. It was my first trip north, and the first time I saw forests of any kind in Jordan. The north is apparently much more fertile than the south, which is where Petra and Wadi Feid are. The trees in these forests were shorter than, say, New England forests, but not too far off some Alaskan forests. Our first stop on the Path was at the Soap House, where locals make soap out of olive oil and local herbs. Olive trees are everywhere. We even saw some trees that are 2000 years old, planted by the Romans. I have pictures, but my camera isn't with me, so I'll post them later. The actual trail we hiked on was not very long, it was only about a 2 hour hike, but there are more extensive trail systems that the locals are working on, with help from the Abraham Path organization, which gets outside funding from the EU, among others. We met an older couple from England who were helping to set up the trails. Apparently, this couple were the first climbers to visit Jordan with the intention of rock climbing, and they have been helping to promote trails and climbs in the country ever since. They knew Hakeem, our guide in Wadi Feid.
After our hike, we got a tour of some of the notable sites in the villages, including an old Christian church and the buildings that will be a hostel and restaurant, which will hopefully bring more business to the region. We ate lunch in the home of one of our guides, a traditional Jordanian meal with rice, chicken, hummus, flat bread and various fruits and vegetables. Our final stop was the ruins of a church, apparently famous for it's floor mosaics. However, it had rained the day before, so the mosaics were covered to protect them. The views from the church were amazing though. These villages are built on a very small mountain range, and the church was on the top of one of the hills. From that vantage point, our guide pointed out Palestine, and revealed that he was Palestinian. It seems that almost anywhere you go in this part of the country, you can see Palestine. This fact has given me new insight into the reason that the refugees are so set on their right of return. Besides the way they were abruptly kicked out and have very right to be angry about it, they can literally see their land, they just can't get to it. It much be extremely frustrating, and keeps the issue always relevant. I knew this part of the world was very small, geographically, but it's one thing to know it and another to see it.
Saturday, March 27, 2010
Egypt, Abraham Path, and Wadi Feid
Well, it's not exactly tomorrow. So far, my record for how long I've been able to regularly post/write a journal/blog is 2 months, so I guess I subconcsiously decided to take a break before writing about the second 2 months. Our spring break just started, and I am currently in Egypt. However, the Wadi Feid trip (the day after Petra) and the trip I took last weekend with CIEE to al-Alyoum were too cool to not describe, so I'll talk about Egypt next time.
So, Wadi Feid (wadi means valley in Arabic) was not at all what we were expecting. Our guide, Hakeem, and his driver picked us up from our hotel in Petra at 5 am in a pickup truck that seated 5 technically, but we fit 4 in the backseat, and my roommate Lauren and I and Hakeem sat in the back of the truck. It was actually quite nice because we could watch the sun rise, until we got to the dirt roads. Then it was a bit bumpy. Being able to look over the side down a very steep mountian was a little disconcerting too. I'm not afraid of heights at all, except in a car, it seems. The trip took about 2 1/2 hours. After that, we walked. Hanna, who found this company through CIEE, didn't get much information about the hike, and the website was pretty vague too, so we didn't really know what kind of terrain we were dealing with. We thought it would be mostly hiking, with probably some walking through rivers, and a little bit of rappelling. We also knew there were 12 waterfalls, but that was all. So it was a little worrisome when on the ride down, Hakeem mentioned that this was the most technically difficult hike he offered. He didn't really specify what he meant by technically difficult, but that part became clear when we all put on climbing harnesses as soon as we got out of the truck. That was when we found out that not only were there 12 waterfalls, but we were going to rappell down them.
So instead of a hike with some rappelling, this trip turned out to be rappelling with a little hiking in between. At least 2 of the girls were afraid of heights, and even though I'm not, it's still unnerving to rappell, because you have to go backwards, and to begin, you pretty much have to just lean back and trust the rope. By the end, I had the hang of it, but it was definitely hard to begin with. Also, because we were rappelling down waterfalls, it was slippery. You have to keep your feet in front of you so you can control where you're going, and if your feet slip, you usually end up smacking into the wall. We were all doing alright until the 3rd or 4th fall. It was the first really long one, and it went straight down, which is actually easier to rappell, but unnerving to look at. Half of us got down, including me, when we had our first (and only major) accident. Liz, one of Hanna's roommates, was starting to go down, but she wasn't centered on the rope, she was off to the side. If you keep your legs apart, that's usually fine, it's just harder. In her case, I think she slipped (I didn't really see), swuwng on the end of the rope, and hit her head on the wall. We were all wearing helmets, but hers didn't fit properly apparently, and it slipped up just enough so that she hit her head and not the helmet. I was at the bottom for all of this, but apparently the first aid kit the guides (we had 2 at this point, one to be at the top of the rappell, the other at the bottom) had consisted of iodine. That was pretty much it. Liz is fine now, there wasn't any infection or anything, but the fact that that was the entire first aid kit wasn't terribly reassuring.
Liz ended up climbing down that fall with the guide, and we all kept going. She actually couldn't turn back, even if she had wanted to, because we only had 2 guides with us, and we needed them both. As bad as all of this sounds, it was a very rewarding experience to know we had done this, with almost no prior experience, and not much more than basic instruction. The tallest fall was about 200 feet, straight down, and that one was second to last, so we were all tired. By the end of that fall, my hands were burning, probably from holding the rope too tightly at the end because I was afraid I was going to let go. We came down the final fall just as it was starting to get dark, ate lunch quickly (we hadn't eaten since 5 am, and it was now about 4;30 pm) and headed off to find the car, in the dark. There wasn't what I would call a trail, although our guide knew where he was going. We had 5 headlamps for 10 people, so that was interesting too. We walked for about 2 hours, I thihk, before we reached the car, and then we had a 3 or 4 hour drive back to Amman. We got back aroun 2 am.
It was an amazing trip, despite Liz's accident and several people's fear of heights. It was truly beautiful country too, although I admit I wasn't always paying attention. The canyon was mostly sandstone, the same as Petra, red and yellow sandstone. The waterfalls were really beautiful too, although again I didn't always appreciate it while I was doing down them. Unfortunatley none of us had cameras because we knew that we were going to be getting wet (I accidentally went swimming at one point- I went down the wrong side of the fall), and no one had waterproof cameras. I especially would have liked a picture of the 200 ft. fall. Maybe I'll try to draw it when I get home.
So, Wadi Feid (wadi means valley in Arabic) was not at all what we were expecting. Our guide, Hakeem, and his driver picked us up from our hotel in Petra at 5 am in a pickup truck that seated 5 technically, but we fit 4 in the backseat, and my roommate Lauren and I and Hakeem sat in the back of the truck. It was actually quite nice because we could watch the sun rise, until we got to the dirt roads. Then it was a bit bumpy. Being able to look over the side down a very steep mountian was a little disconcerting too. I'm not afraid of heights at all, except in a car, it seems. The trip took about 2 1/2 hours. After that, we walked. Hanna, who found this company through CIEE, didn't get much information about the hike, and the website was pretty vague too, so we didn't really know what kind of terrain we were dealing with. We thought it would be mostly hiking, with probably some walking through rivers, and a little bit of rappelling. We also knew there were 12 waterfalls, but that was all. So it was a little worrisome when on the ride down, Hakeem mentioned that this was the most technically difficult hike he offered. He didn't really specify what he meant by technically difficult, but that part became clear when we all put on climbing harnesses as soon as we got out of the truck. That was when we found out that not only were there 12 waterfalls, but we were going to rappell down them.
So instead of a hike with some rappelling, this trip turned out to be rappelling with a little hiking in between. At least 2 of the girls were afraid of heights, and even though I'm not, it's still unnerving to rappell, because you have to go backwards, and to begin, you pretty much have to just lean back and trust the rope. By the end, I had the hang of it, but it was definitely hard to begin with. Also, because we were rappelling down waterfalls, it was slippery. You have to keep your feet in front of you so you can control where you're going, and if your feet slip, you usually end up smacking into the wall. We were all doing alright until the 3rd or 4th fall. It was the first really long one, and it went straight down, which is actually easier to rappell, but unnerving to look at. Half of us got down, including me, when we had our first (and only major) accident. Liz, one of Hanna's roommates, was starting to go down, but she wasn't centered on the rope, she was off to the side. If you keep your legs apart, that's usually fine, it's just harder. In her case, I think she slipped (I didn't really see), swuwng on the end of the rope, and hit her head on the wall. We were all wearing helmets, but hers didn't fit properly apparently, and it slipped up just enough so that she hit her head and not the helmet. I was at the bottom for all of this, but apparently the first aid kit the guides (we had 2 at this point, one to be at the top of the rappell, the other at the bottom) had consisted of iodine. That was pretty much it. Liz is fine now, there wasn't any infection or anything, but the fact that that was the entire first aid kit wasn't terribly reassuring.
Liz ended up climbing down that fall with the guide, and we all kept going. She actually couldn't turn back, even if she had wanted to, because we only had 2 guides with us, and we needed them both. As bad as all of this sounds, it was a very rewarding experience to know we had done this, with almost no prior experience, and not much more than basic instruction. The tallest fall was about 200 feet, straight down, and that one was second to last, so we were all tired. By the end of that fall, my hands were burning, probably from holding the rope too tightly at the end because I was afraid I was going to let go. We came down the final fall just as it was starting to get dark, ate lunch quickly (we hadn't eaten since 5 am, and it was now about 4;30 pm) and headed off to find the car, in the dark. There wasn't what I would call a trail, although our guide knew where he was going. We had 5 headlamps for 10 people, so that was interesting too. We walked for about 2 hours, I thihk, before we reached the car, and then we had a 3 or 4 hour drive back to Amman. We got back aroun 2 am.
It was an amazing trip, despite Liz's accident and several people's fear of heights. It was truly beautiful country too, although I admit I wasn't always paying attention. The canyon was mostly sandstone, the same as Petra, red and yellow sandstone. The waterfalls were really beautiful too, although again I didn't always appreciate it while I was doing down them. Unfortunatley none of us had cameras because we knew that we were going to be getting wet (I accidentally went swimming at one point- I went down the wrong side of the fall), and no one had waterproof cameras. I especially would have liked a picture of the 200 ft. fall. Maybe I'll try to draw it when I get home.
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
Petra
So I finally left Amman. A friend of mine from Arabic class, Hanna, planned a weekend trip for her mother, who was visiting, and a bunch of us jumped on the bandwagon. The first day was spent in Petra (I was the only person who did that with them) and the second was spent in Wadi Fein, which I will write about tomorrow because I don't want to overshadow Petra. We set out after class on Thursday, so basically after dark, which was a bit of an adventure all by itself. We thought we might be able to take a bus, which everyone said would be safer and cheaper than a service taxi (basically a taxi that you share with anyone else going in the same direction), but it turns out that there is only one bus a day to Petra, very early in the morning. Fortunately for us, we got a taxi with a driver who spoke English (he spent a year or so in India, apparently) and who not only took us to the right bus station to get a service taxi, but negotiated with the taxi drivers to get us a good deal. On the whole car ride down, which was about 2-3 hours, Hanna and her mother quized me on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and Jordan's part in it. It was nice to know that I haven't forgotten everything I learned last semester, and it's not a subject that I've talked to many people about, which surprised me at first, but it makes sense that that would be a very sensitive subject here.
Our hotel was cheap, but clean, so I was happy. We only had to sleep there, after all. All of Friday, we were at Petra. We went around 8, but there were already pretty big crowds at the ticket office, including a huge group of I think Japanese tourists, all wearing kuffiyehs (the traditional Arab men's headdress, made famous by Yasser Arafat). We got an optional public tour as part of our ticket price and decided to take it, which turned out to be a very good decision because our guide was one of the archeologists who had worked on the site. I'm not sure why he was ferrying tourists around, but he had pictures of his digs, and corrected several of the plaques which were apparently wrong. For example, the most famous part of Petra, the Treasury, the site of third Indiana Jones movie ending, was actually a temple, not a treasury. It more spectacular in real life than in any of the pictures I saw, but I'm getting a little ahead of myself. In order to get from the visitor center to the entrance to the city, which is a narrow canyon called the Siq, we had the option of riding a horse. At a walk, of course, although the guy leading mine did let me take the reins, so at least I was able to direct her myself. Once we reached the Siq, it's a ways down, gradually, to the point where the canyon opens up and the Treasury appears. Oh, most of this rock is sandstone, and the color variations are due to mineral deposits from rain, I think. Actually, except for the carved portions, it looked very similar to southern Utah. Here are some pictures from the Siq:
Once we reached the Siq, the canyon opens up and the farther you walk, the more there is to see. Almost everywhere you look there is evidence of the Nabataean people, the ones who built all of this. They ruled Jordan, and a bit of each of the surrounding countries, a little bit before the Common Era, and a little bit after they were conquered by the Romans. There was some evidence of both Roman and Greek influence in the architecture, including an amphitheater carved out of the surrounding rock, unlike any other in the world. It was lost to the outside world for quite a while (there were Bedouin people living there the whole time) until sometime in the 1800s when it was re-discovered by a European traveler. Of the buildings that remain, they are almost entirely tombs, temples or other public buildings. There are very few surviving houses, and apparently no tools have been found, so we don't know exactly how they did their carving, or much about their everyday lives. The last place we went was the Monastery, which actually looks very similar to the Treasury. It's at the top of what I think was the highest mountain in the area. The hike up wasn't technically difficult, but we went up at the hottest part of the day, so I had to rest a lot. I've learned to not try to predict Jordan weather, because the temperature seems to change drastically overnight, but it was probably the hottest it's been since I came. Here are some pictures of the Treasury, tombs, the amphitheater, the Monastery, and the row of columns which apparently was some sort of public audience chamber:
After viewing all these amazing ruins, one of the highlights for the day involved a flesh-and-blood man. While we were at the top of the Monastery, we saw six helicopters fly by, which some Jordanians that we had been talking to confirmed that only very important people, like the King, use. They also mentioned that Vice President Joe Biden was supposed to show up to Petra that day. Sure enough, we got off the mountain just in time to watch a line of about 20 bright and shiny SUVs drive down a very narrow back road to near where we were resting. So, we went over to see if it really was Joe Biden. The Jordanian army guy that we struck up a conversation with confirmed that Joe was there, with Hamza, one of King Abdullah's brothers, to see the sights. We waited for quite a while, watching some clearly American military personnel (the bullet proof vests and guns strapped to their thighs were the clues) taking pictures of each other, but no sign of Biden. Just as we were leaving, here he comes, down the road from the Siq, with about 50 other people. I wasn't able to spot Hamza, but Biden was wearing a baseball cap and easily identifiable. So, I saw my Vice President, in person, for the first time in Jordan. It was a pretty perfect ending to a good day.
I will tell you about the other half of my weekend tomorrow.
Our hotel was cheap, but clean, so I was happy. We only had to sleep there, after all. All of Friday, we were at Petra. We went around 8, but there were already pretty big crowds at the ticket office, including a huge group of I think Japanese tourists, all wearing kuffiyehs (the traditional Arab men's headdress, made famous by Yasser Arafat). We got an optional public tour as part of our ticket price and decided to take it, which turned out to be a very good decision because our guide was one of the archeologists who had worked on the site. I'm not sure why he was ferrying tourists around, but he had pictures of his digs, and corrected several of the plaques which were apparently wrong. For example, the most famous part of Petra, the Treasury, the site of third Indiana Jones movie ending, was actually a temple, not a treasury. It more spectacular in real life than in any of the pictures I saw, but I'm getting a little ahead of myself. In order to get from the visitor center to the entrance to the city, which is a narrow canyon called the Siq, we had the option of riding a horse. At a walk, of course, although the guy leading mine did let me take the reins, so at least I was able to direct her myself. Once we reached the Siq, it's a ways down, gradually, to the point where the canyon opens up and the Treasury appears. Oh, most of this rock is sandstone, and the color variations are due to mineral deposits from rain, I think. Actually, except for the carved portions, it looked very similar to southern Utah. Here are some pictures from the Siq:
Once we reached the Siq, the canyon opens up and the farther you walk, the more there is to see. Almost everywhere you look there is evidence of the Nabataean people, the ones who built all of this. They ruled Jordan, and a bit of each of the surrounding countries, a little bit before the Common Era, and a little bit after they were conquered by the Romans. There was some evidence of both Roman and Greek influence in the architecture, including an amphitheater carved out of the surrounding rock, unlike any other in the world. It was lost to the outside world for quite a while (there were Bedouin people living there the whole time) until sometime in the 1800s when it was re-discovered by a European traveler. Of the buildings that remain, they are almost entirely tombs, temples or other public buildings. There are very few surviving houses, and apparently no tools have been found, so we don't know exactly how they did their carving, or much about their everyday lives. The last place we went was the Monastery, which actually looks very similar to the Treasury. It's at the top of what I think was the highest mountain in the area. The hike up wasn't technically difficult, but we went up at the hottest part of the day, so I had to rest a lot. I've learned to not try to predict Jordan weather, because the temperature seems to change drastically overnight, but it was probably the hottest it's been since I came. Here are some pictures of the Treasury, tombs, the amphitheater, the Monastery, and the row of columns which apparently was some sort of public audience chamber:
After viewing all these amazing ruins, one of the highlights for the day involved a flesh-and-blood man. While we were at the top of the Monastery, we saw six helicopters fly by, which some Jordanians that we had been talking to confirmed that only very important people, like the King, use. They also mentioned that Vice President Joe Biden was supposed to show up to Petra that day. Sure enough, we got off the mountain just in time to watch a line of about 20 bright and shiny SUVs drive down a very narrow back road to near where we were resting. So, we went over to see if it really was Joe Biden. The Jordanian army guy that we struck up a conversation with confirmed that Joe was there, with Hamza, one of King Abdullah's brothers, to see the sights. We waited for quite a while, watching some clearly American military personnel (the bullet proof vests and guns strapped to their thighs were the clues) taking pictures of each other, but no sign of Biden. Just as we were leaving, here he comes, down the road from the Siq, with about 50 other people. I wasn't able to spot Hamza, but Biden was wearing a baseball cap and easily identifiable. So, I saw my Vice President, in person, for the first time in Jordan. It was a pretty perfect ending to a good day.
I will tell you about the other half of my weekend tomorrow.
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
Monsoons (close enough)
We had enough rain on Sunday to need a few sandbags on one of the streets of the University. Or rather, on what was the street; it had turned into a river. I found out that I have a hole not just in one shoe, but both, while fording this river. It had been raining since Thursday and it finally stopped today. For the most part, I enjoyed the rain, since I didn't have to be out in it much, but it was also nice to see the sun today.
I haven't written in a few days because the internet has been rather unreliable. Apparently, for some reason at the end of the month the internet gets really slow. The other CIEE people I know who have witribe (the wireless internet service I have) experienced the same thing.
Anyway, moving on. My classes are progressing, although I think we could be going a little bit faster in Arabic. The Arab Women Writer's class has been especially interesting. We started by reading several chapters in Leila Ahmed's "Women and Gender in Islam." Had read parts of that book before, but not these chapters which focused on Egypt in the early 20th century and the interactions between the imperialist power (Britain), the first feminists, and various Egyptian nationalist and Islamic groups which were emerging at the time. According to Ahmed, this was the period when the "women's issue" became a matter of national importance, a position that it has maintained since then, largely thanks to the British. The Western powers in the Middle East (mainly Britain and France) used the supposed oppression of women, so defined by the practices of female seclusion, veiling, polygamy, and child marriage, to legitimate their economic and political domination. That isn't to say that there wasn't necessary oppression going on, but that is a very tricky word to define and in this instance, the word was used by some imperialists as merely a tool to explain the necessity of their presence: to civilize the ignorant peoples of the Middle East. One possible reason for why this issue was highlighted above others that they might have chosen is that it coincided with the rise of the feminist movement in Europe and the States. Ironically, one of the greatest spokesmen for the "liberation" of Egyptian women was Lord Cromer, who apparently founded the "Men's League for Opposing Women's Suffrage" in England. The main focus of these "liberation" efforts was to get women to unveil, not to educate them (in fact fewer women were educated under the British than before they took control) or empower them politically. Egyptian nationalists took the symbols attacked by the British, like veiling, and sought to defend them because they opposed on principle anything the British supported, which further reinforced the importance of the "woman issue." This discourse is the root, according to Ahmed, of the ongoing controversy surrounding Muslim women and the veil, both in the West (especially in media) and in the Middle East.
Most of Ahmed's ideas were familiar to me, and her logic makes sense. When I was first starting to research Muslim women and the issues surrounding them, the attention given to the veil didn't really make sense to me. It may be true that some forms of hijab are physically uncomfortable or inconvenient, but it seems that lack of education, political rights, social rights, and lack of voice in general should be more important issues. The veil is a symbol of those things for some people (Westerners), but to think that by simply getting rid of it would therefore get rid of all those other problems seemed overly simplistic to me. There are certainly instances where a woman is forced by a male member of her family (husband, uncle, father, brother, etc.) to wear the hijab, but the majority of the women that I have talked to here and in Egypt about it have declared quite proudly that they chose to wear the veil, either for religious or political reasons. The political reasons go back to the efforts of the British (and in other countries other imperialist powers) to eradicate the veil, which turned it into a symbol of resistance and nationalism. Another of Ahmed's points, however, was that all the attention given to the veil masked the fact that the British seem to have done nearly nothing for women during their control of Egypt, and in fact did harm in some areas. There were even European (and maybe American) feminists who supported the imperialist project against the veil, without realizing the shallowness of that crusade.
Feminism is another issue that we have been discussing a lot in Arab Women Writer's. Over here, it is a dirty word, signifying an adoption of another culture (the West) in place of the native culture. I believe that this is an issue for many former colonized countries, as are other ideas that are viewed as Western imports. (Technology is fine though.) Rula, the professor of my class, is a self-proclaimed feminist, but she has been very frank about the difficulties of using that word, as well as other imported terminology, such as gender. People hear these words and shut down, it seems. I haven't witnessed this myself, but I also haven't asked any questions using the term feminism yet. I did ask my peer tutor about the hijab (she wears one), and she has promised to give me a lecture, complete with sources from the Qur'an and hadiths at our next meeting. It will be interesting to hear her take on it as opposed to Rula.
I haven't written in a few days because the internet has been rather unreliable. Apparently, for some reason at the end of the month the internet gets really slow. The other CIEE people I know who have witribe (the wireless internet service I have) experienced the same thing.
Anyway, moving on. My classes are progressing, although I think we could be going a little bit faster in Arabic. The Arab Women Writer's class has been especially interesting. We started by reading several chapters in Leila Ahmed's "Women and Gender in Islam." Had read parts of that book before, but not these chapters which focused on Egypt in the early 20th century and the interactions between the imperialist power (Britain), the first feminists, and various Egyptian nationalist and Islamic groups which were emerging at the time. According to Ahmed, this was the period when the "women's issue" became a matter of national importance, a position that it has maintained since then, largely thanks to the British. The Western powers in the Middle East (mainly Britain and France) used the supposed oppression of women, so defined by the practices of female seclusion, veiling, polygamy, and child marriage, to legitimate their economic and political domination. That isn't to say that there wasn't necessary oppression going on, but that is a very tricky word to define and in this instance, the word was used by some imperialists as merely a tool to explain the necessity of their presence: to civilize the ignorant peoples of the Middle East. One possible reason for why this issue was highlighted above others that they might have chosen is that it coincided with the rise of the feminist movement in Europe and the States. Ironically, one of the greatest spokesmen for the "liberation" of Egyptian women was Lord Cromer, who apparently founded the "Men's League for Opposing Women's Suffrage" in England. The main focus of these "liberation" efforts was to get women to unveil, not to educate them (in fact fewer women were educated under the British than before they took control) or empower them politically. Egyptian nationalists took the symbols attacked by the British, like veiling, and sought to defend them because they opposed on principle anything the British supported, which further reinforced the importance of the "woman issue." This discourse is the root, according to Ahmed, of the ongoing controversy surrounding Muslim women and the veil, both in the West (especially in media) and in the Middle East.
Most of Ahmed's ideas were familiar to me, and her logic makes sense. When I was first starting to research Muslim women and the issues surrounding them, the attention given to the veil didn't really make sense to me. It may be true that some forms of hijab are physically uncomfortable or inconvenient, but it seems that lack of education, political rights, social rights, and lack of voice in general should be more important issues. The veil is a symbol of those things for some people (Westerners), but to think that by simply getting rid of it would therefore get rid of all those other problems seemed overly simplistic to me. There are certainly instances where a woman is forced by a male member of her family (husband, uncle, father, brother, etc.) to wear the hijab, but the majority of the women that I have talked to here and in Egypt about it have declared quite proudly that they chose to wear the veil, either for religious or political reasons. The political reasons go back to the efforts of the British (and in other countries other imperialist powers) to eradicate the veil, which turned it into a symbol of resistance and nationalism. Another of Ahmed's points, however, was that all the attention given to the veil masked the fact that the British seem to have done nearly nothing for women during their control of Egypt, and in fact did harm in some areas. There were even European (and maybe American) feminists who supported the imperialist project against the veil, without realizing the shallowness of that crusade.
Feminism is another issue that we have been discussing a lot in Arab Women Writer's. Over here, it is a dirty word, signifying an adoption of another culture (the West) in place of the native culture. I believe that this is an issue for many former colonized countries, as are other ideas that are viewed as Western imports. (Technology is fine though.) Rula, the professor of my class, is a self-proclaimed feminist, but she has been very frank about the difficulties of using that word, as well as other imported terminology, such as gender. People hear these words and shut down, it seems. I haven't witnessed this myself, but I also haven't asked any questions using the term feminism yet. I did ask my peer tutor about the hijab (she wears one), and she has promised to give me a lecture, complete with sources from the Qur'an and hadiths at our next meeting. It will be interesting to hear her take on it as opposed to Rula.
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