Bahraini.TV

A rebel with a cause

by mahmood on 20/04/06 at 11:34 am

Not afraid to speak her mind, she is back in Bahrain after a period of self-imposed exile to promote democracy and women’s rights.

Associate Professor at University of Bahrain, and member of the Supreme Council for Women, Dr Munira Fakhro, has gone from rebel to member of the Supreme Council for Women, testament to the fact that sometimes, you have to shake up the system to be heard and accepted. She is now working within the system to achieve the change she so desires in the area of women’s rights in the Gulf.

She was one of the first girls to get a high school education in Bahrain. The then British controlled government of Bahrain (under Sir Charles Belgrave), decided to upgrade education in the Gulf, so five lucky students were chosen and sent to study in Beirut.

Dr Fakhro says, “We were lucky to come from families that appreciate education – all my brothers and sisters got their education, my father sent them abroad.”

Women’s E News notes that being the first Gulf Country to discover oil, meant that Bahrain’s education policy and system was ahead of other Gulf states.

Dr Fakhro said in the same article, “The first public school for girls was opened in 1928 and the first women’s activist group was started in 1955. Women started participating in political movements early on, including a general uprising in 1965 calling for freedom of speech, the right to form trade unions and other demands of social justice. Because of the early discovery of oil and the prominence of trade, there was a kind of openness in society.”

Her undergraduate degree was in Arabic literature; then she travelled to the US to study for her masters in social development and social planning (majoring in community organisation and planning); and then her PhD at Columbia University specializing in social policy planning and administration.

On her return, she joined the Ministry of Labour and was put in charge of the welfare department, but left to teach at the University of Bahrain.

“When the political turmoil happened in the 1990s, I signed a petition for the return of democracy and for a parliament, as one of the fourteen leaders – and the only woman, I added a paragraph on women’s equality. I realised there was great injustice during the 1990s which was happening to a large number of Bahraini people – those who were against the government.”

Then, along with 350 other women, she wrote another, sharper petition, which was sent to the late Amir Shaikh Isa bin Salman Al Khalifa in 1995. She and many others were suspended or fired from their jobs. She went to America for several years as a visiting scholar to Columbia, her alma mater, and then to Harvard where she presented the Bahraini case for democracy. She returned in 2001 to Bahrain and to the university.

As a member of the political association, The National Democratic Action Society, she believes, “You cannot separate democracy from other women’s causes … I believe that men and women should work together – for women or men or the whole society. We have so many men who believe in such issues (women’s rights), who work with us either at the university as scholars or at the political association.”

But what of the women of this new generation where the majority of students are now female? She says, “They are the most diligent. The top 20% of students are women. They are serious because they don’t have any other way to reach their ambitions until they get higher education … they are not appointed, as men are … because they are men – nothing else.

“Many of the women come from limited backgrounds, from the villages and they are hard-working, intelligent.. they are conservative. It’s ingrained and part of their whole family life. They are the first generation of women from a lower socio-economic background going on to higher education.”

Speaking on the tide of conservatism, which is sweeping Bahrain she says, “Religious leaders are against the family law. I am against two separate laws for the Sunni and Shia – we will be separated more.” She indicated that she does not want deeper divisions to be created in Bahraini society.

Social norms and culture move slower than any mental acceptance for new ideas – they accept the ideas but at the same time they have the old culture and there is a conflict. Some people are afraid of going into this new, ambiguous future.

She comments that the few have become rich and the majority remain poor. “It will take twenty or thirty years to be reversed. People can get jobs now if they are veiled. There is an agenda and they are fighting back. In her piece “Gulf Women and Islamic Law”, she argues for a blending of the political and personal. She calls on all Muslim countries to seek to combine modernity with the essence of Islamic teachings.

“If you want to fight extremism, you have to have a strong government. Democracy will bring extremists in, but in a controlled way – like Hamas in Palestine and the Muslim Brothers in Egypt. There are so many grey areas in democracy, but you must accommodate every group. This is a positive policy. They have to deal with things legally. I think things are moving towards such partial openness.”

She has become a strong, influential and respected woman, and she believes that her failures have made her stronger. “When we came back from Beirut; I tried to remove my veil. My father was at first angry, and then he said okay. Many others followed suit. I wanted to drive a car, and I insisted they give me a driving licence I threatened to start driving without a licence. Then, they gave me and my cousins a licence. I always wanted to do something that I felt we (women) had the right to do. I never thought I was doing something extraordinary.”

She was appointed by Her Highness Shaikh Sabeeka bint Ibrahim Al Khalifa, wife of His Majesty King Hamad, to the Supreme Council for Women. Some women’s associations argue that the council is taking over their roles or activities. However, the council looks at strategy whereas women’s associations tend to look at more grass roots issues. “I think we are at the beginning of this movement in civil society. In the council, we have a good strategy. To apply it will take a long time by I think it should involve all women’s associations.”

Speaking at a NATO conference in 2005, Dr Fakhro said that civil society organizations were thriving in the Gulf, but were confined to non-political activities, which seriously curtailed their role in advancing change.

Thankfully their cause is championed by Shaikh Sabeeka who is keen to pursue reforms for women – for example the property ownership law allows a woman to keep the rights to the property if her husband dies or tries to throw her out. These are important stepping-stones towards more fundamental reforms.

Dr Fakhro firmly believes that women are ready to make the transition from their traditional roles to modernity. “They are veiled, they are conservative, but I term modernity as being educated and getting work. These women are educated, they are working, and so they are ready in their own way. Having a hijab does not forbid them from doing any modern profession or job … the hijab is a trend, and identity for the Arab world. Most of my students are veiled and I discuss everything, really everything with them.”
Woman this month interview, Issue 39, April 2006, by Fiona Clark