Day: October 31, 2012
Half the population, plus
Salma Berrada, who has recently joined me as a Middle East Institute intern, makes her debut on peacefare with this piece on an event last week at Brookings:
While some in the media hastily surmise that the Arab spring has given way to an Autumn rage, the panelists discussing “Women After the Arab Awakening: Making Change” begged to differ. The four women leading Vital Voices Global Partnership projects–in Morocco, Jordan, Egypt and Lebanon –are committed to gender progress in these tumultuous times of transition in the Arab world. The recent protests and attacks on US consulates in Libya, Yemen, and Egypt were horrific and senseless, but it would be a mistake to assume they represent most Arabs or most Arab women.
The US ranks 22nd in the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap report released last week. Middle East countries lag far behind. Women’s advocacy projects in the Arab world reflect a universal struggle for freedom and social justice. Each activist faces a different set of opportunities and constraints in her home country. The common denominator is the hope of reducing inequality and exclusion.
The tide of the Arab Spring has so far bypassed Morocco. Except for a few peaceful demonstrations led by the February 20th Movement, the monarchy stands strong. Still, there are ripples of change. To me as a native Moroccan, Souad Slaoui from the Isis Center in Fes looked more like my loving grandmother than a grand women’s advocate. Endearingly pushing her big glasses back up the bridge of her nose, she explained how overcoming the gender gap requires the active support of local authorities and high-level government officials alike.
Eight years after the Morrocan family code (Moudawana) was updated and widely praised, barriers remain that prevent the full implementation of reforms in the Moroccan society. Child marriage was officially banned in 2004. But Article 20 allows a judge to sanction underage marriage. Slaoui underlined the importance of collaboration with other associations and politicians to curb this practice. The team began by examining the social and economic pressures that lead girls to be married as early as possible in urban and rural settings. A national media campaign was then successfully launched. While raising awareness about the dangers of child marriage, the strategy also enabled women to recognize and claim their civic rights.
In Jordan, the Sadaqa campaign aimed to require that Article 72 of the state’s labor law be enforced. It stipulates that business firms with more than 20 women are expected to provide daycare for the children of their employees. Not only did Sadaqa lobby the government to ensure that companies comply with the directive but it also set up workshops to highlight the economic benefits to companies for providing childcare to their staff. Randa Naffa, a young Jordanian, emphasized that Sadaqa in Arabic, means friendship. The campaign promotes “a friendly working environment for women.” Its success evinces the positive impact of engaging men to enhance women’s participation in formal labor markets.
Both Randa Naffa and Souad Slaoui emphasized that changing the way people think about gender should be prioritized as an integral component of socioeconomic development in the Middle East and North Africa. But social change is difficult and slow.
Egyptian Marianne Ibrahim, co-founder of the Al Gisr Center for Development, pointed out the importance of the Tahrir square rebellion of 2011 that unseated President Mubarak: “being on the Square, day and night, broke so many red lines for Egyptian women.” The Al Gisr Center sought to capitalize on the Arab spring by partnering with like-minded organizations to elaborate a women’s agenda with input from Egyptian women of all ages and backgrounds. Despite the political dominance of the Muslim Brotherhood and the rise of conservative rhetoric, the Center recently submitted its gender platform to the committee in charge of drafting the new constitution.
Lina Ahmed corroborated that social and economic development go together. This businesswoman and member of the Lebanese League for Women in Business believes women should be proactive and take charge of their destinies. Applying her entrepreneurial skills to further the cause, she identified 15 discriminatory provisions pertaining to labor, social security and inheritance in the civil code. Her team began by networking with local and international NGOs to advocate change. This initiative enabled them to mobilize broader support from the public. Their campaign continues. She is optimistic about the impressive progress already made in civil society engagement. As Tamara Wittes, the moderator of the debate and director of the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at Brookings, asserted, “progress operates at all levels through women’s grassroots projects.”
Networking across borders in workshops organized by Vital Voices Global Partnership in the past few months has been important to each of these activists. Many women in the Arab world are not aware of their rights. Awareness campaigns remain fundamental. Resistance is strong. Antagonism towards equal rights for women brings to light deeply entrenched social custom and prejudice. Marianne Ibrahim, a Coptic Christian, views “long-standing patriarchal attitudes” as the greatest challenge faced by activists on the ground. The problem lies less in the potential for a fundamentalist regime to impose the veil than in the prevalence of this dark veil of ignorance. If this unprecedented time of change truly marks an Arab awakening, the rampant culture of patriarchy can no longer be allowed to deny Arab women their rights.
As fragile and tenuous as the road to democracy may be in the Middle East, women’s initiatives are gradually recasting social, economic and political structures. Beyond legal changes, it is important to change popular perceptions. As Lina Ahmed so aptly said: “We constitute half the population and raise the other half.”
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Tidewater here I come
Most peacefare readers know me as a foreign policy person. I’ve worked for the United Nations, the State Department and United States Institute of Peace. I now teach post-war reconstruction in the conflict management program of Johns Hopkins’ School of Advanced International Studies. I’ve blogged over the last two years from Sarajevo, Pristina, Baghdad, Cairo, Tripoli and Benghazi.
NPR’s “Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me” included a bit last weekend reminding me of just how boring to most people that is. Drew Carey was guest hosting:
CAREY: The last presidential debate was supposed to be a conversation about foreign policy, but President Obama and Mitt Romney kept turning it back to the economy, jobs, and education here in the United States. Thankfully, moderator Bob Schieffer did an excellent job, steering the debate back to issues Americans couldn’t care less about like foreign policy.
(LAUGHTER)
CAREY: Seriously, when was the last time you heard someone say, “Can you turn off the game, I want to watch the foreign policy.”
(LAUGHTER)
CAREY: “Hold all my calls unless it’s about foreign policy.” The worst is when your wife comes home early and you’re watching foreign policy.
It’s funnier if you listen to it.
Later this week I’ll be blogging from Suffolk, Virginia, where I’ll be campaigning for President Obama. A neighbor asked me the other day why I have an Obama/Biden yard sign. She is mostly concerned about abortion and supports women’s reproductive rights. My own response was more multi-facted. I prefer the President not only for that reason but for many others: his intention to rebalance foreign and defense policy, his commitment to preserving the social safety net for the poor and elderly, his support for education and infrastructure, and his willingness to redress inequities that plague American society. My patriotism tells me we all owe a great deal to America and should be prepared to pay back what we can.
But that isn’t necessarily going to help me in Suffolk, a town founded in the 18th century on the edge of the Great Dismal Swamp, where escaped slaves once took refuge. Today Suffolk’s population of about 85,000 is 50% White, 42% African American and the rest Asian, Hispanic, mixed and other. Two mainsprings of the local economy are peanut processing and the U.S. military, especially the Navy and the remnants of what used to be Joint Forces Command, as well as military contractors and suppliers. Median household income is over $65,000 per year. Almost a quarter of firms are Black-owned and 30% woman-owned. Three-quarters of the population owns its own homes, which have a median value of over $250,000. This is an ethnically mixed, relatively prosperous place that depends on both private enterprise and the U.S. government for its livelihoods. Money Magazine named it number 9 on its list of “where the jobs are,” due to a 43% increase (!) in employment from 2000 to 2011.
I’m anxious to hear what the citizens of Suffolk and surrounding communities have to say. What are their main concerns? What do they want from a president? How do they think the Federal government can help or hinder their prosperity and well-being? How has President Obama done in their view? Are they supporting Obama or Romney? What would convince them to support the President? How can I help them make that decision, or if they’ve already made it how can I be sure they can get to the polls and vote?
My initial thinking is that many people will be concerned about the defense budget, especially for naval expenditures, and taxes, especially on the middle class.
Romney and Ryan have advocated major increases in the defense budget over the next decade, with particular emphasis on the navy. But in FY 2013 (which began October 1), their proposal gives defense spending no more than an increase for inflation, while the administration proposes to straight-line the defense budget. There isn’t likely going to be much difference once the Congress gets around to passing a budget. Only in the out-years do Romney and Ryan propose increases for defense. There are also substantial increases for defense in Obama administration plans. All the “cuts” are from projected increases, not from current spending.
The Romney/Ryan budget proposal depends on reducing tax deductions that are likely to be important to people in Suffolk, especially the mortgage and charitable deductions. It is unlikely that there are many salaried employees in Suffolk with household incomes over $250,000 who would see tax increases under the President’s proposals. But there are probably quite a few small businesses in that category that file as sole proprietorships. Their owners will not have been shy about talking to their employees about the impact of tax increases on small business. But do those small businesses want to see infrastructure and education spending cut to the bone? Imagine Hurricane Sandy without Federal backup for the states and local communities.
I’ll be reading the The Suffolk News-Herald for the next six days, trying to get myself into the frame of my Virginia neighbors. It reports that Suffolk, which weathered the hurricane well, swung hard to Obama over McCain in the last election (by 13 per cent), but no one knows what will happen this time around. Donations to Romney are running marginally ahead of Obama’s. Virginia is still up for grabs, though Polltracker at the moment has Obama up by two percentage points and some.
The front line in this contest runs through Tidewater Virginia. I am pleased to be heading there.
PS: Polltracker this morning says the race is tightening in Virginia, with the President still up by a point and some.
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