Women who made their mark on Egyptian and Lebanese lore
When it comes to atypical integration, Rose al-Youssef (1888-1958) is a case in point. She arrived in Egypt, as an orphaned teen-ager at a time when women were marginalised. She left behind her Christian education to resume her birth name, Fatima, and her Muslim faith. She was married three times to Muslim Egyptian figures. She had a first career as an actress, which, as Egyptian author Ibrahim Abduh reminds us, would normally be perceived as a disgrace. However, a degree of tolerance prevailed among the educated classes and after starring as The Lady of the Camellias, Fatima was dubbed « Sarah Bernhardt[1] ». After the Great War, she quit the stage for journalism and became the first woman to create a magazine which she named after herself : Rose al-Youssef. This earned her much criticism as this modern medium was associated with the dissemination of lies and rumours by many ulama[2]. Sidestepping their objections, Rose al-Youssef employed women and invited them to operate in all sectors of activity. She joined the ranks of the nationalists while sometimes campaigning against King Fouad[3], she treated all subjects, including such thorny issues as sex and religion.
In her unfinished Memoirs, Rose al-Youssef leaves out her early life prior to her emigration from a country where she no longer had any family connection in order to focus on her strictly Egyptian activities. She writes about her role as an actress within the thespian world, the foundation of her newspaper, its original artistic brief becoming more and more political, and the fights she had to put up in order to remain at the helm. She recalls her involvement with Saad Zaghloul[4] 's Wafd[5] and the divergences they had, arguing, notably about fraud. She also mentions her relationship with Hoda Shaarawi[6], another guiding light of the women's emancipation movement in Egypt. Commenting on the creation of the Banque Misr (Bank of Egypt) that offered jobs exclusively to Egyptians, she avers that if there had been only « five people like Talaat Harb[7], Egypt would have achieved political and economic independence »
, an aim she indicates she fought for all her life long. Nearly a century later, Egyptians refer to her as a major national figure and still publish her magazine. In 2002, film director Mohamed Kamel El-Kalioubi retraced in a film the life achievements of a woman now perceived as Egyptian born and bred.
May Ziadeh[8]'s experience is just as exceptional. A fixture in Egyptian intellectual circles, hailed in her day as adîbat al-‘asr (writer of the century) al-adibat al-nabighat (writer of genius) and sayyidat al-kalam al arabi (First Lady of Arab letters), her assimilation was neither smooth nor total. As an author of short stories and novels, she never denied her origins or a lasting nostalgia for her native land. On journalist Daoud Barakat[9]'s advice, she changed her name : in Egypt, Mary, her Christian name, would have sounded foreign, May was much more acceptable : it carries no religious connotation and on the contrary resonates, in Arabic, with the name of Umayyad poet Zu r-Rumma's beloved. May opened in her home a literary salon where she received every Tuesday men of letters such as Lutfi el-Sayed[10], Antoun Gemayel, Ahmed Shawqi[11], Khalil Mutran, Yaqub Sarruf, Abbas Mahmud al-Aqqad, Chebli Chmayel, Daoud Barakat, Hafez Ibrahim[12], Ismaïl Sabri. Taha Hussein[13], who also attended, described it as a « democratic salon »
. The Europeans drew parallels with Madame de Staël and Madame Récamier. As against that Mohamed El-Tabii[14] and Ibrahim al-Mazini, two journalists working for Rose al-Youssef mocked her, which goes to show the diversity in perceptions.
May Ziadeh embraced the national cause alongside Saad Zaghlul, taking part in numerous events and celebrations in favour of Egypt's independence. In a poem entitled Al Yakazat (the Awakening), she honours the March 1919 uprising against the British. Yet, though she endorsed the « Egypt to the Egyptians »
slogan, she deplored the divisions that allowed a certain press to refer to the Shawam as nazil thaqil (taxing guests), nay as dakhil (intruders). In another poem entitled Ayna Watani (Where is my country?), she wonders about her identity and how she is perceived. She would not cease from remonstrating against the vaguest drift towards social, ‘racial' or religious segregation and relentlessly quelled any suspicion of perfidy cast against those who could not lay full claims to the title of Egyptian. She called for a particular understanding of national identity, and also for changes to the condition of women in a male dominated world, joining forces in this with Warda al-Yaziji (1838-1924) or Zaynab Fawwaz (1860-1914) whose efforts have been mostly forgotten by Arab speaking intelligentsias during the second half of the 20th century.
