Saddeka Arebi

Saddeka Mohammed Arebi ( Arabic صديقة محمد عربيي, Ṣaddīqah Muḥammad `Arabī, b. in Tripoli , Libya ; . died July 2007 in Libya) was a Libyan - American anthropologist and author.

childhood and education

She immigrated to the United States with her family in late 1970 . The family eventually settled in Northern California . In 1983 she received her Masters of Arts in anthropology from California State University, Sacramento . After obtaining her Ph.D. she worked as a professor of anthropology at the University of California, Berkeley , San Francisco State University and Saint Mary's College of California . She was also an active member of the Islamic World League , one of the largest Islamic non-governmental organizations with Muslim clerics from 22 countries. She died in July 2007 while visiting relatives in Libya.

The book "Women and Words in Saudi Arabia"

In May 1994 Arebi published the book Women and Words in Saudi Arabia: The Politics of Literary Discourse , in which she analyzes the works of nine contemporary Saudi Arabian women authors and their influence on the Arab discourse . Based on interviews and text analyzes, the study found that female authors make a significant contribution to the definition and interpretation of history, religion and tradition in Saudi Arabia, regardless of the cultural, political and religious restrictions to which they are subject as women and authors. In this groundbreaking work, Arebi relies on ethnographic and literary evidence to demonstrate the uniqueness of Saudi Arabian women writers who “act not only as subjects of discourse, but also as proponents of discourse by producing their own texts and their own concepts for the Design understanding of the universe. Since the late 1970s, despite the overwhelming power of the discourse about them, the words of women have stubbornly and courageously addressed their challenges. "

She cites a fatwa by Sheikh Abd-al-Aziz ibn Baz from 1978, which summarized the fundamentalists' views on women who wanted to change the authors. The opinion is: “To attack male leadership over women is an insult to God and an attack on His book and prudent rights. According to the unanimous opinion of the ʿUlamā ' of Islam, this is important to God (Kufr akbar) ... It is absolutely necessary that the newspapers be publicly punished by ceasing their publication. The woman who wrote and the editor-in-chief must be questioned and punished in a terrifying way. "

Her book answers a question she posed: "How do women themselves use words as a political strategy to question concepts, ideas and institutions when it means using the language and aesthetics of the powerful who are used to suppress them?"

Arebi argues that these authors do not necessarily agree with Western feminist ideas of resistance or their definition of patriarchy. In another previous work, Arebi made an important remark about Muslim women:

“There are three reasons why Muslim women in general find it difficult to adopt a Western model of feminism that is supposedly based on universally applicable premises. First, Muslim women do not perceive family and kin ties as an obstacle to women's liberation; second, there is resentment against the Western identification of the problem of Muslim women as a religious problem; and third, wages have not necessarily functioned as a liberating force, as Western feminists claim. "

- Saddeka Arebi

In her book Women & Words in Saudi Arabia: The Politics of Literary Discourse , Arebi uses Foucault's idea of ​​discourse to analyze how Saudi women authors grasp their position in a larger context of power and perceive their work as creative or journalistic writers when it does means disrupting the “verbal machinery” for the purpose of theorizing the roles and behavior of women. It breaks down the various stylistic approaches used by Saudi Arabian women prose writers to establish a dialectic between opposition to some aspects of society and the reinforcement of most cultural values ​​and institutions. Arebi argues that recognition of these approaches is essential to understanding how Saudi women writers gain access to the field of cultural policy and bring in their own interpretations of Islam, gender relations and the possible roles of women in society. She postulates that:

“Authors are always multipliers, if not even creators, of a culture, but at the same time are seen in Saudi society as its custodians, advocates, protectors of the canon and interpreters. The purpose of writing, as defined by the powerful, is to produce a conception of reality in accordance with and guided by the ideas of those powerful. "

Chapter 1, "The opportunities for women and the social organization of Writing" ( English Women's Opportunities & the Social Organization of Writing ) examines the social relations of literature and the legitimacy basis of the authors and the structure of their opportunities to engage in literary activities.

Chapter 2, "history of the present and the presence of the story: changes in symbols, knowledge and experience" ( English History of the Present and the Presence of History: Traffic in symbol, Knowledge, and Experience ) focuses on three authors. The poet Fowziyha Abu-Khalid is interested in the relationship between literature and religion. She believes that "the right to debate and participate in the discourse should be granted to everyone" She further believes that change depends on the masses, not the intellectuals. Known as a short story writer, Ruqayya Ash-Shabib focuses on ordinary women who have changed history significantly. Two examples are Scheherazade and Balqees, Queen of Sheba . She believes “that the problem is not male dominance, but rather female active participation”. Raja'a Alem , a pioneering playwright, thinks that the main function of literature is "the liberation of the individual".

Chapter 3, "solubilizing to victims Literature: The Poetry of Justice and the Politics of Representation" ( English Victimization Literature: The Poetics of Justice & the Politics of Representation ) focuses on three short story writers. Sharifa As-Shamlan “Draws most of her stories from the real life of women with whom she has contact as a social worker , especially women in prison”. Khayriyya As-Saggaf explains that she “does not write for someone in a hurry who reads or reads in the car while doing something else”. Najwa Hashim's stories deal with women who “struggle with the discrepancy between reality and the ideal”.

4 "Redefine the topics: The Politics of Re-Vision and the production of differences" chapter ( English Redefining the Issues: The Politics of Re-vision & the Production of Difference ) examines three of the most famous Saudi essayists. Juhayer Al-Musa'ed's skill lies in her ability to ask the right questions without necessarily presenting answers. Not only popular with female readers, Juhayer is seen as someone who “declares her alliance with men and thereby emphasizes the premises of the prevailing discourse”. Fatna Shaker believes that the problem of how societies organize “can only be solved if it is understood in broader terms and explored as structural dependencies.” Sohaila Zain Al-Abedin is “ believed by other authors to be in agreement with the prevailing discourse “Viewed.

Chapter 5 "Literary exclusion and displacement of the public into the private" ( English Literary Marginalization & the Privatization of the Public ) deals with the critical reaction to the letter of the authors, in which a shift from "women as a private person" as a subject of public discourse to a situation in which the published results are shifted from female thoughts to the private.

In the final chapter "Conclusions and Implications" ( English Conclusions and Implications ) considered Arebi on a theoretical basis, the implications of the roles of authors in their culture and the discourse defining culture apparatus. It tries to answer the question of whether we will be condemned if we see women's efforts as a kind of resistance, considering that they establish a dialectical relationship between opposition and affirmation of core cultural values ​​and institutions.

In the field: interviews and data collection

After three years of trying to get a visa to conduct field studies in Saudi Arabia, she finally received a three-month visa from March 1989. During the three years of waiting, in addition to fulfilling her duties as a lecturer, she familiarized herself with the subject by identifying and reading most, if not all, of the most important Saudi women authors. On the spot, she obtained most of the information through face-to-face meetings with contemporary authors, as well as with some women who had only occasionally written or ceased their literary activities. The interviewed authors were also curious about Arebi himself:

“Although their assumptions about me were difficult to find out, I think they didn't see me as too far from them… We had a lot in common in terms of identity - being a woman, being an author, being an Arab and a Muslim, all equally important . But most importantly, we saw each other as people standing in the middle, between two worlds, the effects of which had forever become part of our existence. The question that all authors asked me was: How do you deal with Western civilization and what challenges do you live with in American culture - without 'selling yourself' to them - how do you perceive yourself and your own Identity? The question reflects their interest, almost an obsession for some, in how to find a way in which West and East can meet without threats, fear, hostility or the pursuit of domination. Persecuted by the idea of ​​being shattered in time and space, an idea dominates their writings, which they perhaps saw embodied in me, their vision and hope for the power of diversity and perhaps also the power of equanimity. "

motivation

Arebi dedicated her work to her mother and father, Mohamed Al-Soghayyer Arebi, whose firm belief in Allah was firmly rooted in their family that with fairness, hard work, balance and tolerance one can achieve other truths and thereby achieve greater humanity. From them she learned the important Islamic concept of “being in the middle” ( Arabic وسط, DMG wasaţ ) does not have to mean “being in between”, “being torn” or “being on our ground”, even as a child, but can be a fixed and advantageous position from which one can see both sides more clearly. Arebi explained that this positive image of the wasaţ broadened her research position between two discourses and two civilizations and symbolized her efforts to bring these two worlds to a common understanding.

lectures

Arebi has been a popular speaker at various conferences on Islam and women in the Arab world . On October 4, 1997, she took part in the 51st annual conference of the Middle East Institute in Washington, DC , entitled "The Middle East on the Way into the 21st Century" ( English The Middle East into the Twenty-First Century ) part. The conference attracted over 400 journalists, diplomats, business people, non-governmental organizations and academics. When concluding panel Arebi explained with Fadhil Chalabi from the center for Global Energy Studies ( English Center for Global Energy Studies ) as the changing dynamics of the oil export, the economic and political situation in the Persian Gulf will change. She has lectured at numerous events organized by the Muslim Students Associations, including the 1998 Islam Awareness Week at Stanford University entitled Politics of misrepresentation; Women and power in Islamic societies. On February 22, 2007, she gave a public lecture entitled Discerning Islam: Access, Voice and Contexts of Interpretive Responsibility for the Center for Islamic Studies of the Graduate Theological Union at the University of California, Berkeley . In one of her last appearances, Arebi gave a presentation on March 1, 2007 at an event of the Muslim Student Alliance at Santa Clara University about her experiences during the pilgrimage to Mecca ( Hajj ).

Publications (selection)

• Women and Words in Saudi Arabia: The Politics of Literary Discourse . Columbia University Press, 1994, ISBN 0-231-08421-8 (English).
• Gender Anthropology in the Middle East: The Politics of Muslim Women's Misrepresentation . In: The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences . tape 8 , no. 1 , 1991, p. 99-108 (English).
• Waging War, Waging Peace: The Poetics and Politics of Women and Words in Contemporary Arabia . University of California, Berkeley, May 1991 (English, doctoral thesis, Ph. D. in anthropology).
• Powerful Mothers, Powerless Daughters: Libyan Women and the Bitter Fruits of Change . Department of Anthropology, UC Berkeley, 1984 (English, unpublished scientific work).
• The Changing Role and Status of Women in Libyan Society An Anthropological Perspective . Ed .: California State University, Sacramento . 1983 (English, Master of Arts thesis in anthropology).

literature

• William Ochsenwald: Religious publication in Saudi Arabia, 1979–1989 . In: The world of Islam . tape 41 , no. 2 , July 1, 2001, p. 135-144 , doi : 10.1163 / 1570060011201295 (English).
• Caroline Seymour-Jorn: Etidal Osman: Egyptian Women's Writing and Creativity . In: Journal of Middle East Women's Studies . tape 2 , no. 1 , 2006, p. 95–121 , doi : 10.1215 / 15525864-2006-1004 (English).
• Camillia Fawzi El-Solh, Jud Mabro: Muslim women's choices: religious belief and social reality . Berg Publishers, Providence, New York City 1994, ISBN 0-85496-836-9 (English).
• Laura Nader: Orientalism, Occidentalism and the Control of Women . In: Cultural Dynamics . tape 2 , no. 3 , July 1, 1989, pp. 323-355 , doi : 10.1177 / 092137408900200304 (English).

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Libya: News and Views - Letters ليبيا وطننا: أخبار وآراء: رسائل. Retrieved February 6, 2017 (Arabic). 
2. ^ NGOs and civil society entities. World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), accessed February 6, 2017 . 
3. ^ ^{A b} Saddeka Arebi: Women and Words in Saudi Arabia: The Politics of Literary Discourse . Columbia University Press, 1994, ISBN 0-231-08421-8 (English).
4. ^ Gender Anthropology in the Middle East: The Politics of Muslim Women's Misrepresentation . In: The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences . tape 8 , no. 1 , 1991, p. 99-108 .
5. ^ Synopses of Middle East Conferences. searchforcommonground.org, archived from the original on January 24, 2002 ; accessed on February 6, 2017 . 
6. ^ Second Annual Islam Awareness Week. (PDF; 29 kB) Stanford University , April 1998, accessed on February 5, 2017 (English). 
7. ^ The Center for Islamic Studies: 2007 Public Lectures by Faculty Director Candidates. In: gtu.edu. Archived from the original on August 29, 2008 ; accessed on February 5, 2017 . 
8. ↑ This Thursday the Muslim Student Alliance is putting on a free Hajj Reception. There will be free Afghan Food catered by Parwana for the first 350 people. Music by Aza Trio, and a speech by Dr. Saddeka Arebi on her experiences at Hajj this past year. UCSC Chatter, February 28, 2007, accessed February 6, 2017 .