Gender and National Identity: Women and Politics in Muslim Societies.

Reviewed by Grace Stewart

One evening years ago, sitting on the floor in front of a coffee table surrounded by three Palestinian males - Christian, Jewish and Muslim - all trying to explain to me what was going in Palestine, I wondered if the interpretation by the women of the region would have been different. This collection of essays partially answers my question.

I am tempted to quote extensively from the editor's preface, introduction and overview since Moghadam has so succinctly encompassed the genesis, intent, and purpose of this volume, which she asserts began in a research program "to elaborate the gender dynamic of processes of political and economic change in an international perspective." The book does just that. Aided by indexes, a glossary and excellent documentation, authors from Algeria, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, and Palestine examine what happens in a revolutionary situation to women, to the ideals of developing nations, and to interpretations of the spiritual texts that guide some Muslim countries.

Frequently, and certainly at UN Conferences on Women, feminists and nationalists have different priorities: release from the oppression of women for the former and the establishment and stabilization of a nation for the latter. The polarity may remind readers of the tormenting questions of the Sixties with respect to racism and feminism. Many sisters fought in the civil rights movement, working to effect change, only to find themselves left cooking, tending babies, or footing the bills for the household. Double fights - against racism and sexism - or triple fights against racism, sexism, and imperialism - tend to create schizoid feelings and tension in those involved. In this book's final chapter, "Nationalism and Feminism: Palestinian Women and the Intifada," Nahla Abdo claims, "In almost all liberation movements where women were actively involved, a general reversal of their roles became the fact of life after national liberation and the establishment of the nation-state." Americans might remember Abigail Adams pleading with her husband to "remember the ladies." And we all must remember the challenging, continuing connection between feminism and racism in this country.

In Cherifa Boutta's chapter, "Feminine Militancy: Moudjahidates during and after the Algerian War," the vibrant voices of interviewees, Houria and Farida, picture for the reader active, militant women who (according to Farida) have had to remind other women to be vigilant if not militant. The mudjahidates and women's full participation in the fight for political power have been erased from the Islamist history in Algeria. According to Doria Cherifati-Merabtine, in her chapter, "Algeria at a Crossroads: National Liberation, Islamization and Women", "Islamism tends to demolish the model of the mudjahidat, setting up in opposition to it women's figures who conform to the Islamic projection of society." Her chapter explains clearly among other issues the symbolic role of the veil. Indeed, Moghadam, in her own chapter, "Women in Afghanistan," reminds us, "Westerners who have been quick to impose their own ethnocentric perceptions should note the value of this seemingly anachronistic custom [veiling] for a people under siege whose very survival is at stake."

Salma Sobhan's chapter succinctly depicts the effect of "religious fundamentalism . . . on the women's movement in Bangladesh." Her claim that women are the focus if not the target of all three brands of Islam being propagated is a strong, disturbing forewarning of possible effects of radical religious movements in the United States. Nayereh Tohidi, in "Modernity, Islamization, and Women in Iran," adds to that warning her negatively critical focus on the recent developments, political and economic, that "have interactively contributed to the recent revival of patriarchal Islamist fervor."

This book is important. Global feminism depends on women's understanding the tenets of this book, for as Tohidi explains, "One fundamental challenge for global feminism is that the conception, objectives, and strategy of feminism in different nations and regions have become intertwined with very different economic, socio-cultural, and political conditions." By understanding the pressures at work in other countries, American women can more fully understand themselves, the issues affecting them in this nation, and their relationship to the world.

Grace Stewart is Director of the Focus on Women Program at Henry Ford Community College, Dearborn, Michigan.