Street roots
Feb. 18, 2011
9
M
Arab women lead the charge on foot and online
BY EMAD MEKAY
STREE T N E W S SE R V IC E
smaa Mahfouz, a 26-year-old Egyptian
woman who two weeks ago had only
one name, now boasts at least three.
These include “A woman worth 100 men,”
“The girl who crushed Mubarak” and “The
leader of the Egyptian revolution” Mahfouz,
who began online political activism in 2008,
is now credited for launching a video call
that sparked the revolution against the
autocratic military rule of President Hosni
Mubarak.
Mahfouz is a member of a new lot of Arab
women activists who are shedding their
typical conservative^ image to lead or inspire
a wave of prordemocracy protests that are
reshaping the political future of several
countries in the Arab world.
Mahfouz created a YouTube.com video in
mid-January in which she urged “all young
men and women” to leave their computer
screens and converge on the streets of
Egypt to protest the brutal and corrupt rule
of the 82-year old Mubarak.
“I am a woman and I am going out on Jan.
25 and am not afraid of the police,” she said
a few days before the unrest broke; out: “For
the men who brag of their toughness, why
exactly are you not joining us to go out and
demonstrate?”
Her message reverberated she says,
“beyond the wildest of dreams”.
The 4 minute 30 second video was shared
Women in the forefront o f protests in Tahrir Square in Cairo, Egypt.
widely by Internet activists and was posted
on many blogs and websites. Young people
officers in Alexandria last year, joined the
"My fam ily was so worried
forwarded it on mobile phones — used by
protesters in Tahrir and repeatedly urged
about
me
and
they
told
me
some 65 million Egyptians. Soon after, the
them not to go home before Mubarak left
women are not harsh enough
government blocked all mobile phone
office.
networks.
Women were visibly in the forefront in
for that hind of
“I had hoped Jan. 25 would gather 10,000
demonstrations
at Tahrir Square and other
confrontation. They now tell
places — in a society where women
people at best, but I later realized after the
me they are so proud of m e."
traditionally have taken a back seat. Many
police force withdrew and collapsed, that
I — MAHFOUZ
volunteered to do body searches of other
our day of protests turned into a popular
E G Y P T IA N P R O T E S T E R
women taking part in the protests - it had
revolution,” she said on a Facebook.com
become clear that the regime could sneak in
page created for her by her supporters.
weapons to be used against the protesters.
“My family was so wowied about me and
Across the Arab world, women have
they told me women are not harsh enough
women taking the lead during protests in
stepped
into the forefront of dangerous anti
for that kind of confrontation,” Mahfouz
Egypt and elsewhere in Arab countries.
regime protests.
said. “They now tell me they are so proud of
In Cairo, women with sticks and iron bars
In Tunisia, human rights leader and
me. I knew that if I get scared and
in hand were patrolling some of the streets
blogger Lina Ben Mehenni was among the
everybody gets scared, then this country
with their male relatives during the days of
first to get word out about the Tunisian
looting and vandalism that swept the city
will be lost for good.”
protests early in December through her
Mahfouz’s words resonated not only in
after the collapse of the Egyptian police
tweets and blogs, despite police threats.
Egypt, but across the region.
force.
The mother of Mohammed Bouazizi, the
“Asmaa’s words were sincere and came
Mothers of several people who died in
young street hawker who set himself ablaze
out of the heart,” wrote Reem Khalifa, a
the initial days of the protests refused to
starting the Tunisian revolution in mid-
columnist for the Bahrain newspaper
receive condolences or hold funeral
December, was also doing her share, calling
Alwasat “Her words turned into a tsunami
ceremonies until the revolution achieved its
for change. Her sincere tears and wishes for
wrecking havoc with despotism, tyranny and
main goal of ousting the regime of Mubarak. justice galvanized hundreds of thousands of
The mother of Khaled Said, an Internet
injustice.”
impatient Tunisians to eventually remove
Asmaa Mahfouz is among millions of
activist who was beaten to death by police
B
insanity, or insane because of their
vagrancy. The mode of life of the true tramp
or vagrant, with its excitements, excesses,
beginning have possessed is soon
and irregularities, is such that it might
diminished or destroyed.”
reasonably be expected to cause insanity in
She tells of one man whose self-esteem
a certain percentage of this type of cases.
was d am ag e d through having to use public
She noted that “23 of the 52 insane were
aid for his livelihood. “He had always been
men of refinement, from good homes; eight
fully self-supporting previous to the accident were college men and 10 were high school
in which he lost one leg just below the hip.
graduates.” Many of those deemed
After the accident he became a street
“mentally unfit” had been sent to Chicago
beggar, but never overcame an intolerable
after countless other cities had said that
sense of shame and degradation. The man
they were either unwanted or there weren’t
who sits on a public street with his hat
enough resources to provide aid, so they
before him and begs would seem, to most
were given a train ticket to Chicago.
people, to be more shameless and hardened
In her chapter on the homeless elderly,
in his profession than the man who asks for
she lamented her client’s situations. “No
a night’s lodging at the door; but this
class of applicants from among the homeless
particular street beggar said that he himself
seemed to be more uniformly hopeless and
had chosen the former method because it
unhappy than the men who had passed 60,
saved him from the shame of asking for
and who realized that the doors of industrial
help. “When I sit there, anyone can see that
opportunity were being closed against them
I am helpless, I do not have to speak.”
and that it was only a question of a short
During her chapter on mental health, she
time before they must become wholly
postulated the effect of long-term
,
dependent upon charity.”
homelessness and dependence on one s
She also noted that “it is almost equally
mental state.
difficult for men in their 50s to find well-paid
“One of the first questions of interest /
employment, while in certain lines of work
about insane homeless men is whether they
men who drop dut.in their 40s or even in
are homeless and vagrant because of their
1 ,000 MEN, fro m page 8
their latter 30s are not eligible for
re-employment.” She noted that this
population were not idle, but “respectable
Irish, German, or American workmen, or in
some cases, business or professional men,
many of whom have spent all their fives in
Chicago and have contributed their fair
quota to its prosperity and:wealth.” What
she observed was a common urban problem
before the advent of safety net programs like
Social Security and Medicare.
Concerning this population she also noted
that elderly women largely avoided this fate
as they were offered board and care in a
family’s home in return for cooking, sewing,
and nannying children. The male population
did not have this skill set, and were hot
offered this opportunity.
In her chapter concerning chronic
beggars she differentiates four categories:
the anti-social men who consider society
their prey, those who have drifted into the
habit, those with personal and social
handicaps, and the “accidental” beggar. She
concludes that “the task of re-building or of
building up for the first time, self-respect
and habits of industry in men who have
become chronic beggars, is at best, a
difficult one.”
the country’s long time dictator Zine el
Abidine Ben Ali. The video of her tears went
viral in the Arab world.
In Yemen, another country that has seen
major anti-government protests, young
woman activist Tawakul Abdel-Salam
Karman was leading the charge.
I t w a s 30-year-dld K a rm a n ’s a r r e s t by
President Ali Abdullah Saleh’s regime that
set off days of major street demonstrations
that threatened his hold on power. Karman,
who is now free, remains one of the
country’s most outspoken critics of the
regime.
“The Arab world is in revolt against
dictatorships,” sai Magda Adly, of the.El
Nadim Center for the Rehabilitation of
Victims of Violence in Cairo. “That’s why we
see women, Islamist or not Islamist, veiled
or not veiled, coming together and leading
what’s happening on thè ground. This is real
equality and we’ll never go back to square
one.”
Originally published by In ter Press Service.
© www.streetnewsservice.org
Her chapter on runaway boys is
particularly fascinating. In an antiquated •
way she confirms that many of the boys |
suffer from “spring fever” or “wanderlust”-
diagnoses that have no basis in modern
medicine. It is still stunning that 117 boys
were designated, homeless, many of whom
came from good homes but wanted to see
the world and ran away.
While some of the conditions that existed
in 1911 have radically improved-namely care
of the elderly and less frequent industrial
accidents-reading the individual stories in
One Thousand Homeless Men serves as a
haunting reminder oihow quickly one’s fife
can take a turn for the worst when accidents
and bad circumstances are compounded by .
poor access to medical care, education, or
decent housing. Solenberger’s appeal for
public understanding and access to
opportunity as essential for giving those
who are down-and-out a chancé for
rehabilitation is a message just as important
for Chicago today as it was a century ago.
Originally published by Streetwise
Newspaper, Chicago, Ill.© w w w .
streetnewsservice. org