I kept asking myself: why did you immediately agree
to write about such subject and not take your time to think and maybe apologize
for not doing it?... Can feeling shy to say no to your friends affect your
conviction to keep a distance between you and the decision maker or the regime?
I asked myself as I actually have no detailed
information about the character, composition and life of the wife of the
president. I believe such information may only be available at the family. I
also had fear that some may think I’m writing this to play hypocrite to the
current regime, and was even more afraid that some might think – in light of
the literature that maybe published in the same edition of Hawaa magazine –
what I’m writing is a contribution to imposing a public role for this lady, the
thing which may remind us of some ex-presidents’ wives that were once very
well-known for their influential roles in the public domain and who even kept
asking for more.
Despite that, writing for Hawaa magazine for the
first time is a tempting experience as it’s a magazine specialized in women
affairs and women have a distinguished role in our lives– and mine in specific
–not to mention that I have memories with Hawaa magazine since I used to search
for it and for “Bent An-Neel” magazine in Tanta streets for my elder sister and
mother to read them and take “le patron”.
Also, writing about the leading role of women is not
less important if not more important than other things, as the Egyptian woman
played and still is playing an undeniable role in deciding the political
choices in the very critical times. In addition, there were women who reached
the status of being regarded sacred by the Egyptians. In such regard, I’d like
to remind you that our beloved Egypt is distinguished by the many braids it
has, as we have the young girls’ braids, braids woven from the dry leaves of
palm trees, braids of robes woven from the dry fibers surrounding the palm
trees’ trunk… we also have other cultural and civilization braids that no one
else on earth has, like the braid of Khamsa we Khemiesa as Khamsa
means five in Arabic while Khemiesa is the smaller form of five.
Khamsa we Khemiesa is thought to be the amulet protecting Egypt from the evil eye,
any envious enemy and against evil in general. I kept searching until I found
out that the Egyptian five or Khamsa is different to the Hebrew one with
the hand palm stained with blood decorating the entrances of houses as the hand
is immersed in the blood of the carcass then printed over the doors lest death
angel comes searching for the inhabitants of the house. Its origin has to do
with the curses mentioned in the Torah that prophet Mousa or Moses put on the
Egyptians including the curse of death for the first-born child or animal. When
Moses’ followers asked him: “How will the angel of death distinguish our houses
from those of the Egyptians?” He asked them to have a carcass and dip their
hands in its blood then print it over the doors and so the houses would be
marked by this sign.
As to the Egyptian Khamsa, it means the five
holy families that visited and lived in Egypt and blessed and got blessed in
return from it. They are the family of prophet Ibrahim (Abraham) and his
family, prophet Ya’qoub (Jacob) and his family– meaning prophet Youssef (Joseph)
and his brothers –prophet Mousa (Moses) and his family, the Holy Family of
Eissa (Jesus), Mary the virgin and Youssef El-Naggar (Saint Joseph) then Ahl
al-Bayt or People of the House of prophet Muhammed– peace be upon him –who
chose Egypt as a safe refuge protecting them against the Umayyad.
As to Khemiesa or the incomplete Khamsa
or five, meaning three, it’s really an amazing thing to tell as I found out
that those three are the three women Isis, Mary the Virgin and Sayyidah Zainab
daughter of Imam Ali and sister of Imam al-Hussain whom the Egyptians called
her Um Hashem the Virgin. It’s really strange that the Egyptians called
Sayyidah Zainab with the title virgin just like Isis the virgin who gave birth
to her son Horus without having sexual intercourse with her husband and brother
Osiris killed by the God of Evil Set who mutilated his body and threw its
pieces in the then-more-than-forty branches of the Nile. Later Isis reassembled
those pieces, put them back together, laid down next to them and then got
incorporeal conception with the God of Good Horus.
As to Mary the Virgin, she too gave birth without
getting married. Her story is already known when the Jews and Roman decided to
kill her son and we all know what happened in the Holy Week and Calvary when
she was crying in patience.
Then we come to Um Hashem whom the Egyptians granted
her a great status and called her virgin despite that she got married. They did
so because she too lived the hardship of her family and killing of her brother
al-Hussain in the battle of Karbala. She also protected his son Ali Zayn
al-Abidin with her body and headed the procession of slaves of prophet
Muhammed’s grandsons standing before Yazid bin Mu’awiya.
These three women are the Khemiesa protecting
Egypt. This reflects how the loyal sacrificing patient women are revered in the
Egyptian consciousness. So, it’s loyalty, fidelity, sacrifice and patience that
give women their revered status in the consciousness of the Egyptians and
nothing else since the Khemiesa of “Isis-Mary the Virgin-Um Hashem” was
taken as a symbol for protecting our beloved Egypt along with the five holy
families.
Egypt witnessed tens of women who played roles
recorded in history as either positive or negative ones. However, it was proved
that making up roles and imposing them– even by soft power and in a stealthy
way –cannot guarantee the targeted status even if otherwise appeared.
In contemporary and modern Egypt, meaning since the
time of Bonaparte’s campaign on Egypt or “The French Campaign” prior to the end
of the eighteenth century until now, Egypt witnessed women of the two kinds we
mentioned. When the Family of Muhammed Ali Pasha became well-established in
their rule of Egypt and hence an Egyptian royal family existed, the social role
of the one bearing the title of queen or those having the titles of princesses
came to light. Therefore, titles and decorations for women in specific were
awarded like “Her majesty the queen”, “Her majesty the queen mother”– such
title was given to the king’s mother who was a queen before –“Her highness the
princesses” and also “Lady of high social standing”; the title granted to the woman
awarded the decoration of perfection. Um Kulthoum was awarded this decoration
and hence she had that title after King Farouq had attended a party for her in
which she sang a song and mentioned his name “my king” in it.
On the other side, there were popular leading women
like Safiyya Zaghloul; wife of Sa’ad Zaghloul, Hoda Sha’rawi and many others
like Saiza Nabarawi. The Egyptian people came up with other titles parallel to
the official ones, and so we had “Star of the Orient” given to Um Kulthoum,
“Queen of Singing”, “Lady of the Arabic Cinema Screen” in addition to other
titles. That was until the July 23, 1952 revolution erupted and the Royal era
came to an end. As a result, there was no queen, no highnesses and no ladies of
high social standing; however, the decoration of perfection along with other
decorations and medals remained to be awarded for both women and men.
Turning into a republic, all people were equal and
titles were cancelled. Work and national affiliation were the two standards
defining worthiness of people, men and women. The door opened for popular
classes of the middle and poor ones to join. The big move was when the Egyptian
women gained the right of voting and running parliamentary elections. Then we had
the first Egyptian female minister Dr. Hekmat Abu Zaid. Afterwards, Egypt had
many female journalists and prestigious academic scientists in all fields.
With July revolution, especially when Gamal
Abdel-Nasser assumed the office of presidency, this era of titles came to an
end and almost all forms of pomp that used to appear in every social party
attended by “their highness the princesses” and “Ladies of high social
standing” disappeared where they used to show off their jewelry crowned with
the most precious gemstones and designed by the most famous and prestigious Luxury
jewelers known worldwide along with fortune-worth fur coats in addition to many
other things. Those parties of so-called charity works, Lions and Rotary clubs
were the big sign having all this beneath.
With revolution and republic declared, slogans like
“We’re all masters” and “We’re all workers” starting from the president and
reaching to the simple peasant were coined. With whole classes climbing the
social ladder from poverty level and others declining, the titles were
cancelled as I said before and those “auctions” of showing off wealth of
jewelry, fur coats and latest fashion disappeared. Most importantly and above
all this, there was no heiress to “Her majesty the queen” as Nasser, the Arab
Egyptian man from Upper Egypt burdened with his country’s problems, rejected
all those forms of pomp and luxury, and so he kept all the traditions and
habits governing his life when he was still a lieutenant colonel young officer after
he had become president; he kept his barber, tailor and also style of food and
clothes.
Meanwhile, his wife, a daughter of a well-off family
trading in carpets, looked like her peers of the middle class. In the same
time, she had the same qualities for which the Egyptians revered her like Isis,
Mary the Virgin and Um Hashem, as Tahiyya Kazem knew what it means to sacrifice
the security and stability of her family since she knew, in a way or another,
that her husband was heading a secret group in the army to overthrow the royal
ruling regime. She also knew how to share responsibility with her husband
regarding his tough working conditions when he headed for the battle field in
Palestine during the 1948 war. If anyone read the correspondence between them
during that time, he would have known the sacrifice this woman made.
She kept the same conduct even when her husband
became a leader, not only for Egypt but for the whole Arab and third worlds.
She maintained the same limits defining her role as the mother and wife supporting
her husband and keeping his secrets. She also lived in the same standard as
most Egyptians had, since the president and leader husband, in case of noticing
any deviation from their normal standard of living, he used to ask immediately:
“Can the rest of the Egyptians do this or afford this?”
With sacrifice, patience and ability to give
unlimitedly, Tahiyya Kazem was able to win the people’s hearts. They kept
venerating her to the extent that they gave her the title of “The Honorable
Lady” who kept wearing mourning black dresses after her husband had died… how
dramatic things changed after he left.
Those who witnessed the start of those changes tell
an account saying that the wife of the new president Anwar Sadat invited the
wives of the big officials to dinner after forty days had passed since Nasser
died. Those invited were dressed with no sign of pomp or provoking jewelry,
like they used to do when Nasser was alive, then the lady of the house laughed
and said loudly to everyone: “what is this that you’re wearing?... where are
the fancy clothes and jewelry?... get them out… the one you were afraid of is
dead now”!
In fact, president Sadat loved pomp for he
transformed the official residence of the presidency to Abdin palace and
preferred to live in a luxurious villa looking over the Nile. He also liked to
wear very elegant clothes, whether in the civil costumes like suits or the
military uniform, as he’s the one who decided to wear a military uniform more
close to the famous Nazi-style ones. He also allowed photographers to capture
photos of him while he’s shaving his beard and dressed in underwear or in training
suits.
That was like a clear permission for his wife to set
off in her role. It also happened that the Egyptian people were shocked when president
Sadat let a foreigner– a president of another state –drop a kiss on his wife’s
face or when he let one of his daughters dress in a shoulderless clothes in
front of foreigners in an official ceremony whose most important attendee was Menachem
Begin. When Hussein al-Tohami, then councilor of the president, tried to cover
her shoulders, the president rebuked him saying: “let her alone, Hussein.”
In such environment, there was an insistence to
replace the title of “Her majesty the queen” with “Egypt First Lady”. Parties
raising signs of so-called charity and social activities began to take place
and women competed to get close to the powerful lady whose influence extended
to giving, banning, ending and renewing the services of minister-ranked big
officials. However, that made the president’s family a target for his enemies
both abroad and on the domestic level, as many who disagreed with Sadat’s
policies and stances made use of such thing to criticize and attack him and also
target his wife. An example of this is what Muammar Gaddafi said about the
president’s wife, the thing that severed the relations and waged war between
the two countries. However, the worst is what people said in the slogans they
chanted amid the uprising of Jan. 1977 as very obscene words were used.
Jehan Sadat, who has a grandmother from Malta, was
the first one to start such thing of “Egypt First Lady” which later changed to “The
First Lady” in the time of Hosni Mubarak. Here the phenomenon became even more
complicated as the new First Lady “Suzan Thabet”, who has an English mother,
had what Jehan Sadat didn’t have, as she’s more cultured– although Jehan Sadat
had a doctorate degree in literature from Cairo University –and stricter in
dealing with the ministers and presidency staff starting from the chief of
staff and going down. It even happened that Suzan Thabet interfered in a
presidential matter in public in front of TV cameras and asked the president to
hold the Egyptian flag and wave it in a football match when Field-Marshal
Tantawi, then-Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, said to her: “No… we’re
the ones who hold the flag and salute Mr. President… not him.”
Although, there were positive sides for the
activities of Jehan Ra’ouf or Jehan Sadat and Suzan Thabet like the two
projects of “Al-Wafaa w Al-Amal” and “Reading for all”, those positive
things were associated with authoritarianism and exceeding their limits. The Egyptians
didn’t forget this and we all know how the Egyptians regard both of them after
falling from power.
Tahiyya Kazem was a supportive wife for her husband
when he was heading the Free Officer’s secret group and during the time of the
revolution. Jehan Ra’ouf, meantime, did not hide that she said to her husband
when he was asked to participate in the July, 1952 revolution: “If you got
jailed, I will not ask about you”. It looks like he knew this already, so he
went to the movies in the night of revolution to prove that he was there in
case the revolution was crushed.
Moreover, those who saw what happened after Jan. 25,
2011 in the presidential palace said that Suzan Thabet was the most obstinate
one refusing to let her husband step down even if the whole Egyptian people were
slaughtered. Before this, she didn’t help her family limit their hunger for
power as everyone knows she was the one behind that scheme of preparing her son
to be the new president, as according to what some people said, she wanted to continue
enjoying her authority even if her husband left presidency since her son would
have been the new president, just like the case in the royal era; she wanted to
be “Her majesty the queen mother” like Queen Nazli, mother of King Farouq, was
called.
Now, I’d like to say that President Sisi’s wife is
not and shall not be like her ex-counterparts whether Tahiyya Kazem, Jehan Ra’ouf
or Suzan Thabet, for she should be what she is. Also, she should make her
choices in light of her culture and awareness of her own human circumstances within
her family and what surrounds it provided that, first, she chooses well the
ones to counsel and who can help her define her role. Second, she should be
aware enough of the history of ruling and presidency in Egypt. I guess she
would be surprised of the events and conflicts that took place in the royal and
presidential palaces either in public or in the shadows.
Translated into English by: Dalia Elnaggar
This article was published
in Hawaa magazine in February 4, 2017.
To see the original article,
go to:
#Hawaa_magazine
#ahmed_elgammal #Egypt #president’s_wife
