I suggest that the nation hands over control of its affairs to its women. My suggestion was inspired by the Pew Foundation's international survey on the status of gender equality, which included 22 countries including Arab and Islamic countries, and other countries that have a large population of Muslims. The survey showed that the highest percentage of opposition to equality between the sexes was found to be in the Arab and Islamic countries (except Lebanon). I suggest that women lead us without guaranteeing that they will do a better job than men; however, I absolutely guarantee that they will not be worse than men. Our alleged glorious history, the history of men, is not 1431 years starting with the Prophet's migration, but it is in my assessment as a student of history the 92 Hijri years between the Prophet's migration and the conquest of Andalusia. Since then, things have been going downhill. This same glorious period saw the assassination of three of the rightly-guided Caliphs, the killing of the Messenger of Allah's grandchildren, and the Umayyad usurpation of power, the most important member of whom had converted to Islam only in the year Mecca was conquered, for fear of the sword. At any rate, I will not take the reader in a journey through 14 centuries, and will suffice myself with the last one hundred years, i.e. the history of what we, our fathers and grandfathers have done. Arab women are oppressed and marginalized, and hence can take no credit in any rare successes or overwhelming failures, so what did men do? The men rebelled against the Ottoman Empire, but failed to establish an independent and just Arab state, and replaced the Muslim state with European colonialism. When they rebelled against the British, French and Italian colonialists and others, and declared their independence respectively, they established governments that are less democratic that those established by the colonialists in the colonized states. Then the quasi-democratic states that were born directly after the end of colonialism were soon replaced by dictatorial regimes. Colonialism was not completely gone, and the foreign soldiers' boots were soon succeeded by international banks that control our economies along with our entire future. Today, all Arab countries are undemocratic and lack the independent rule of law, accountability, transparency and equal rights for women. It was not Israel that did this. It was the men, who then accused Israel and America, Great Satan and the jinn, and even their women, as the first job of the Arab woman is to be blamed for the man's failure. They lost every war. They lost Palestine (do not forget the Zanzibar). This is plain and clear. What is not entirely clear, however, is whether they have irrevocably lost the battle of progress. I write while everything in my hand and around me was made by non-Arabs, from the Gutenberg printing press in 1440 to laptops today, and everything in between: the ballpoint pen, the automobile, the airplane, the train, the airport, paper, electricity and spinning and weaving machines. In the past one hundred years, our years and the years of our fathers and grandfathers, Arab men did not contribute anything to global civilization…except perhaps the fact that foreigners look at we do and decide that this is exactly what they need to avoid doing. Israel has not prevented them from practicing democracy, or from building modern educational system. Israel did not convince them not to give women, a half of the nation, their rights. They did this. (Over a hundred bleak years, we had political and intellectual leaders who were dedicated and who were visionaries, as is the case today. They all attempted to catch up with modernity, and some are still trying. However, I do not know why we lagged behind in the first place and why we spend our lifetimes pursuing the achievements of others). Arab men from my generation, including myself, have failed. They have lost both this life and the afterlife. God rest Khaled bin Al Waleed who was ordered by the Caliph Abu Bakr to wait for the arrival of Ayyad bin Ghanam after the Battle of Ullais and the conquest of Al-Hira, Al-Numan's country, by the Muslims. He remained idle for one year which he called a ‘women's year'. But come and see O Abu Suleiman [Khaled bin Al Waleed], see what a ‘men's year' is in this rotten time. Every Arab that denies his role in the overall failure is a failure himself who only adds hypocrisy and ignorance to failure, compounded by stubbornness. This is the one and only truth. Returning to what I said in the beginning, I suggest that we hand over our reins to our women (I know a man who did this. After the birth of their daughter Yasmina, he told his wife, “you work and feed us, and I will rock Yasmina.”) Why does the Arab man then not sit in his house, in a rocking chair or the chair of old people, and hands over his reins to women? [email protected]
