Split wide open

“On the surface, we live in harmony,” says Jordan’s foremost feminist scholar Rula Quawas. “You feel there’s a space for you. But with the advent of ISIS, I started feeling what was going on with the women in Iraq, Syria and Yemen. Now I no longer feel so free to resist oppression. It’s become a problem we need to deal with.”

Quawas, an activist and professor at the University of Jordan in Amman, shared these thoughts at a Middle East Studies Association conference in Boston last November. Our first meeting was several years earlier, when she was teaching in Burlington, Vermont, as a Fulbright Scholar and our friendship had led to an invitation for me to guest lecture at the University in 2015. There I was able to explore feminist issues with many women, including both undergraduate and graduate students, who participated in the mind-bending classes by their teacher.

So I was troubled by what Quawas shared with me, especially in light of growing violence in the country she loves. For example, Nahed Hattar, a Christian writer, was killed on his way to court because he had shared on Facebook a cartoon of an ISIS man in bed with two women. The caption read, “He’s in Heaven”, and featured god asking, “What can I do for you?”. Hattar had not created the cartoon; he had just shared it. “He was not mocking god,” Quawas says. “He was mocking ISIS. After three weeks in jail and then being released on bail, he was killed in front of his family on his way to court, simply for sharing a cartoon. How can we (conservatives and liberals) coexist?”

In the past, Quawas points out by way of another example, educational books were not based on religion. “They did not rely on quotes from the Koran or show pictures of women in hijab staying at home with aprons but no computers.” However, there have been angry reactions to the Ministry of Education’s attempts to further liberalise the content of their textbooks. In 2016, some of the books were changed to include women not wearing hijab as well as those who did. “It endorsed the fact that the hijab is a choice. The pictures gave girls the freedom to challenge social norms, and to demonstrate their right to express preferences,” Quawas says. Mothers in these books were seen encouraging their daughters, in or out of hijab, to dream of a fulfilling future. “You can be an astronaut or a teacher!” said one such mother.

Some sections of the public — including parents of students — protested the inclusion of such ideas. Some even went as far as to claim that the books were against the spirit of Islam. In some parts of the country, these new books were burned in protest. There is now a growing sense of oppression through indoctrination posing as education, Quawas says. “There is a growing culture of death, not life,” she adds, with young people, especially men, wanting to be martyrs. The ministry is revisiting the content of the new books.

Adding to the general discontent is the deepening chasm between Jordan’s Muslims and Christians, following the killing Hattar. “People began to say that they couldn’t go on like this. I feel that too as a Christian. We are only two per cent of this country’s population. It makes people like me fear for our lives,” says Quawas. “It’s a situation reminiscent of the Charlie Hebdo incident in France.”

The growing divide in Jordan is clearly troubling in a region of the world struggling to redefine itself along religious and ethnic lines. It reflects what is happening elsewhere, as refugees are shunned as the Other. It’s a situation that needs immediate attention in order to avoid policies driven by religion and political agenda. As Quawas puts it, “We need a different interpretation of Christianity because the clashes of religions and civilisations are spilling over into our daily lives.”

That’s why attempts are being made to foster dialogue, to build healthy, effective coalitions, and to collaborate with NGOs in developing educational materials that avoid religious and cultural dichotomies. “I could feel the excitement when a group of women met to discuss this,” Quawas says. “We shared information, we spoke up, we disagreed, we held a candlelight vigil when the Christian writer was killed. We recognised that we need to support each other and to be supported.” But despite the solidarity, there is growing fear, especially among women like Quawas, who is both a Christian and an outspoken feminist.

Fortunately, Jordan’s Queen Rania, along with King Abdullah bin-al Hussein, recognise the importance of educational reforms. The royal support will, in Quawas’s view, keep Jordan from falling to conservatism. “I want the royal family to be there forever because they believe in empathy and tolerance and they will protect us. If they were to go away, where would we go?” she adds.

That’s a disturbing question coming from someone like Quawas, whose fortitude keeps many Jordanian women hoping for more computers and fewer aprons.

Elayne Clift writes about women, politics and social issues from Saxtons River, Vermont; Women’s Feature Service

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