In a world where breadth is valued over depth, a global citizen is one who recognizes the importance of commitment to a cause, who understands the implications of his, her, or their actions, and who is willing to speak loudly for this cause at the expense of being misunderstood. There are few who fit into this definition more so than Nawal el Saadawi, a radical Egyptian Muslim feminist, sociologist, and medical doctor, who has been subject to a multitude of consequences as a result of her adamant advocacy for women’s rights in Egypt.
Born to a conservative Muslim family in 1931 in rural Egypt, El Saadawi was subject to female genital mutilation at the age of six. She writes in “The Hidden Face of Eve: Women in the Arab World:”
"I just wept, and called out to my mother for help. But the worst shock of all was when I looked around and found her standing by my side. Yes. It was her, I could not be mistaken, in flesh and blood, right in the midst of these strangers, talking to them and smiling at them as though they had not participated in slaughtering her daughter just a few minutes ago."
Despite this traumatic experience, her parents still encouraged her to pursue her education and so she graduated from the University of Cairo in 1955 as a certified medical doctor. Working as such, she had many female patients, and as she observed their conditions, she began to connect their physical problems with their living conditions as a result of the oppressive treatment of women during the time. She began working specifically in her hometown of Kafr Tahla to help women living in rural environments where there was a lack of literacy, and as a result, a lack of equal treatment. She then went on to be the Minister of Public Health to Egypt where she continued her fight for women’s rights in regards to medical issues.
It is around this time that El Saadawi began publishing what is now an extensive body of feminist literature including more than forty books. She started by writing fiction that largely centered around the female experience in Egypt. Her first book of nonfiction was in 1972. Called Women and Sex, it discussed female sexuality in detail. The book was banned for several years after its publication and it resulted in the loss of her position as Minister of Public Health. El Saadawi continued to write with similarly jarring intimacy in all of her works, a prime example of this being a magazine she helped publish in 1981 called Confrontation which addressed multiple women’s issues that El Saadawi advocated for, such as freedom from genital mutilation and what she believed to be the necessary liberation of Palestinian women in relation to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. As a result of this magazine, she was put on the blacklist of then President, Anwar el Sadat, who imprisoned her; she was released only because el Sadat was assassinated a mere month later. Her experience in prison served as the basis of her memoir entitled "Memoirs of the Women's Prison,"published in 1983. This initial imprisonment is the first of many as El Saadawi has been confined for a total of 13 years throughout her now 83 years of life.
Despite the extreme consequences of her political activities, El Saadawi has not let this stop her activism. In 1982, she founded the Arab Women’s Solidarity Association “in order to promote Arab women's active participation in social, economic, cultural, and political life” because she believed that “struggle for the liberation of Arab people and freedom from economic, cultural and media domination cannot be separated from the liberation of Arab women." In 1988 she co-founded the Arab Association for Human Rights, which “works to promote and protect the political, civil, economic, and cultural rights of the Palestinian Arab minority in Israel from an international human rights perspective."
But even her staunch commitment to her causes is not equipped for the militant Islamists in the late eighties: El Saadawi became a prime target and was forced into exile. She came to the United States and lived here from 1988 to 1996, teaching at universities such as Duke, Columbia, Harvard, and Georgetown. She has since been forced to leave Egypt several times—sometimes to Europe, sometimes to the States—in an attempt to evade attacks from radical Islamists. Of her experiences as a result of her outspoken attitude, El Saadawi has stated, “Danger has been a part of my life ever since I picked up a pen and wrote. Nothing is more perilous than truth in a world that lies.” El Saadawi’s pursuit of this truth has always caused her to return to Egypt despite the adversities she may face.
In addition, during the Arab Spring, she protested alongside many of her younger counterparts, stating:
"I cannot separate the liberation of women, as half of the society, and the liberation of the country. I cannot separate between revolution in relation to women's rights and revolution in relation to country rights: women and men and peasants and the working class. You cannot liberate women in a country that is colonized and not liberated."
It is with this fervor that El Saadawi has consistently fought for women’s rights in the Middle East. Her work revolves around demystifying experiences that many claim are exclusively Islamic by exploring how power is arbitrarily allocated to those who contextualize aspects of the holy texts in Islam for their benefit. In doing so, El Saadawi has established herself as a revolutionary, not because she is rebelling against the status quo, but because she is returning to the very roots of her faith in order to empower the women she represents. She does this with a fire, a passion, and a constant dedication, thus truly meriting her the title of a global citizen.
You can always watch Nawal el Saadawi in conversation here: