Nèdeem Elmahjoub's blog

Why, at a time when,  according  to Oxfam, "more women and children are killed in Gaza by Israeli military than any other recent conflict in a single year", should Israel suddenly care about the fate of Iranian women ? At a time when the entire world is aghast and nauseated at the Israeli  savagery in Gaza  and the rest of  Palestine , and as the Israeli army – fully funded and equipped by the US, UK  and  Germany  – is acting like a mad beast attacking  Lebanon ,  Syria , and  Yemen , with repeated provocations against Iran, why would Israel turn to Nafisi and how she assembled, as she claims, a few young Iranian women to read Vladimir Nabokov's  pornographic novel  with them? 

“The pretense of “saving” Iraqi women was a dimension of the neocolonial narrative of democracy building leveraged by the US administration to invade and occupy Iraq. “Saving” implies that US imperial domination is superior and even necessary and inherently good for women. Iraqi women are perceived as an ahistorical homogenous object, portrayed as essentially voiceless victims. Even 20 years after the destructive and devastating invasion and occupation, the gendering of the democracy narrative on the Middle East remains. The focus on women’s political participation and visibility is a central dimension of the democracy narrative that has dominated the US discourse on Iraq: the idea that Iraq now runs free elections, has women in its parliament and therefore the country is a democracy. In reality, Iraqis have turned away from the polls—the 2021 elections had the  lowest voter turnout  in Iraq post-2003—and many have decided to take to the streets to voice their political vision...

 

People’s own struggle achieves in months what NGOs cannot achieve (or hinders to achieve) for decades. Activists react as Sudan ditches “Islamist laws” A background