Educational Media Reviews Online

Politics makes strange bedfellows. One cannot help but invoke this old platitude hearing one after another in this group of Arab women's rights activists from many nations, including Algeria, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine, Sudan, and Tunisia, make her case blaming the agenda of the West (mainly the United States and the United Nations, perceived as an American tool) for creating more repression of women in Islamic Arab countries. The immediate causes vary, including Western desires to maintain existing patriarchal governments (such as Saudi Arabia), thwart left-leaning governments (such as Afghanistan), support friendly democracies (such as Israel), or fight dictators (such as Iraq). Whether Western support of regimes unfriendly to women is based on strategic, economic, or political goals is beside the point. These women believe such actions on the world stage have swept aside their painstaking efforts at achieving meaningful change.

Gathered for an American tour that includes meetings at the United Nations, on college campuses, and elsewhere, viewers hear the women speak about the problems they encounter-required subservience to men, abuse by husbands and relatives, restriction in education and careers, lack of legal equality, female circumcision, veiling in public, censorship, jail, and massacre-and their efforts to redress these wrongs. Their stories are powerful and the women are courageous. Egyptian author Nawal al Saadawi describes how her books were suppressed and she was reviled for daring to seek women's equality. While the tour is in progress, the Sudanese activist learns her daughter has been arrested and she is likely to meet the same fate if she returns home. Yet she goes.

A disquieting thread runs through the piece. Viewers never learn the sponsorship of the tour, which should give them pause. They hear that "things were improving, until [choose one: the U.S./Western powers/U.N.] [choose one: started the Persian Gulf War/supported Israel/armed the Taliban/aided the fight against Islamic fundamentalism]." The litany is long. From the Arab women's perspective, America is culpable, no matter what Americans believe about the justice of its positions. Gazan activist Rabab Abdulhadi is bitter about America's support of Israel. She blames the West for helping terrorism thrive in reaction to Israeli occupation. True or false, right or wrong, it is clear this is what she and the other Arab women believe, with all their hearts.

The production is professional, which one expects from the National Film Board of Canada. The camerawork is excellent and well paced. Archival footage is used to good advantage. The Arab women are shown speaking to colleagues and fellow feminists here; they also are interviewed and portrayed defending women's rights in their home countries. Cutting back and forth sometimes is confusing, because some segments are used solely to document offending Western political strategies, such as a shot during the Gulf War of President Bush (the father) rallying his troops, and another of Israeli soldiers beating up Gazan demonstrators, and yet another of Anwar Sadat rallying Egyptians against Islamic fundamentalists. Viewers must shift gears quickly to keep the different segments straight.

Students of Women's Studies can see and hear about issues affecting women in Islamic Arab countries directly from the women themselves. One need not agree with their jaundiced view of the West to appreciate their plight. Yet, that jaundiced view makes it difficult to empathize deeply or to imagine a helpful response in their support. Recommended.