Editorial


03/2005		  

Women’s liberation

The Iraqis have voted – some 60 percent of them. The turnout is quite impressive and more than what some rich countries achieve even though, in their case, paying a visit to the voting booth is not linked to risking one’s life. Most likely, the image of purple ink marking the fingers of those who have voted will remain a lasting symbol of the desire for democratic self-determination.

This is a cause for celebration. Unfortunately, though, the road to sustained success is long. Votes were very closely cast along the lines of politically relevant identities and this is a cause for concern. Shiites voted for Shiites; Kurds, for Kurds. Even more unsettling, many Sunnites did not vote at all – be it out of fear, resentment, or a mixture of both. In the constitutional assembly, Sunnites will thus be systematically underrepresented.

Iraq’s politicians will have to demonstrate their ability to form coalitions across party lines if the election results are not to become early signals of civil war. Elected politicians will also have to allow those underrepresented in the assembly a say. While politicians in Berlin, Washington, and Paris repeatedly call for bi- and multi-partisan policy-making instead of politics, they generally are not too fond of adhering to this principle in practice. In London, coalition government is even feared outright because it is felt to blur responsibilities. In general, casting votes along party lines serves to make parliamentary decisions transparent and fair. But that procedure will not help in Baghdad. In an ironic twist, Iraq’s first free elections resulted in a constitutional assembly that does not proportionally represent the people.

As any new social contract requires broad support, the pressure to form a broad consensus may yet prove useful. What rules of the game will prevail in drafting the constitution, will be decisive. It will also be important to see what role women will play. Ibrahim Jaafari, a top candidate for the office of Prime Minister of Iraq at the end of February, has reportedly said that he can imagine a woman as head of state or as leader of the cabinet. US Foreign Secretary Condoleezza Rice would certainly be pleased to see women in high-ranking positions – and the same is true of many women living in the countries that border on Iraq.

Perhaps some people in the Occident will find the notion absurd that women might wield official power in a predominantly Muslim country. They are wrong. There are female Arab ministers. In Algeria, for instance, the number of women in high political offices has been increasing recently. However, this example also shows that public office is not the only basis on which to judge equality of the sexes. After all, Algeria is also home to a discriminatory family law that puts men in a much better position (see interview with Nadia Ait Zai, p. 112).
Algeria’s neighbour Morocco shows how great the variety can be in the Muslim world. The Moroccan family code has recently been reformed – to the benefit of women. In that country, civil society organisations play a more constructive role as a political lobby, despite the monarchy, than they do in republican Algeria, where legal discrimination against women makes it difficult to overcome the trauma of the violence in the 1990s (Martina Sabra, p. 114).

Migration is an important aspect of globalisation and contributes to changing role patterns. Though the general public in Germany has hardly taken notice, a growing number of daughters of Turkish immigrants show an interest in university degrees – and are successful in obtaining them (Canan Topçu, p. 104). In contrast, the labour migration of women from Bangladesh to Malaysia has completely different consequences. While these women take advantage of economic opportunities, their freedom of movement abroad remains limited. Ironically, their reputation back home is poor and they are accused of loose morals. Fundamentalists use such clichés to assert their repressive ideology. Such agitation, however, is less an expression of Muslim traditions in Bengal than a reaction to a modernising pressure that many find frightening (Petra Dannecker, p. 100).

One should not underestimate the change underway in the Muslim world. Quiet progress is possible, without any fireworks. For instance, it is perfectly normal today for Muslim women to go to university in the Northern Nigerian town of Kano. What’s more, these women base their aspirations on the example set by the daughter of the very man who rigorously promoted Islam among speakers of Hausa in the 19th century. This, too, underscores the great variety of Muslim traditions (Katja Werthmann, p. 108).

The religion of Islam grants women more freedoms than are lived up to in typically rural and conservative societies. Iraq’s constitutional assembly should stress and expand such liberties. For democracy to take root, it is important that women become equal partners in politics and business – as well as in family life and society in general.



Dr. Hans Dembowski
Editor in Chief of D+C Development and Cooperation/E+Z Entwicklung und Zusammenarbeit
euz.editor@fsd.de