The sexy business of political uprisings Bin Laden’s wife and the stereotyping of Muslim women

I lived through a revolution. I saw my 21-year-old brother holding a gun. I slept with a knife under my pillow. I have a close friend who was shot and is now blind in one eye. I was lucky. I didn’t have thugs break into my house. I wasn’t tear-gassed. I wasn’t shot at. But I have friends who were. I have friends who have friends who died. And compared to the revolutions going on in Yemen, Syria, Bahrain, and Libya, Egypt was lucky.

these big ass Arab boobs on this chick.. Marwa (Arabic:مروى) is a Lebanese pop music artist. Her work is popular in the Arab world. Marwa began playing music at the age of eight, when she played the accordion at school. Later on, she started singing the works of Layla Nazme, Shadia and Wardaal Jazaeria, as well as performing on stage. Marwa has developed her own style of music after mastering her talent in the hands of professor Foad Awwad, and honed her ability to sing Kahligi, Lebanese, and in the Egyptian dialect. Today I heard a new song by Sijal Hachem, a Lebanese singer I’d never heard of before.The lyrics are a man complaining about his nagging, materialistic wife, who wants pearls and cars while he only has flowers to give her—nothing new. Here’s a sample: (Arabic lyrics here) You nag and nag (Raise your voice) My heart and soul [are tired] of your nagging (Raise your voice) If people were able to build the Great Wall of China Then I can shut you up and not hear criticism Chorus: Enough. Enough nagging. Enough Your nagging makes my livelihood disappear I’m killing myself I work day and night I wouldn’t have given it a second thought if I’d heard it on the radio. But I was watching the music video, which features women as sexy riot police standing in formation behind barbed wire as men charge them: For a while after, all I could do was sit there with my jaw hanging open. “No,” I thought. “I must have misunderstood. Surely the song isn’t equating men standing up to their nagging wives with people revolting against dictatorships? Surely it isn’t sexualizing state security and torture? Surely is isn’t capitalizing on the revolutions in such a demeaning and infuriating way?” I’m still in shock that out of the dozens of people who must have worked on this music video, not one person thought that it was perhaps a bad idea. Not one person thought it was insulting to the memory of the thousands of people who died and are still dying around the Arab world? To the thousands upon thousands of people who are tortured in state prisons? The imagery in the music video is disturbing on so many levels. To see scenes we witnessed in real life paralleled in a music video—of barbed wire, billowing smoke and burning tires and paper; of groups of men wearing masks to protect themselves from tear gas while holding sticks and rocks; and of state security standing in rows and hosing protesters standing peacefully with gallons of water—makes me shiver involuntarily. It was real, it was horrible, and it was traumatic. Before the revolution, before I saw burned out trucks in front of my eyes, a similar image on television wouldn’t have provoked a blink; we’ve become desensitized to imagery of war, of human suffering. The video associates the imagery of war with sexy women in short shorts and stockings, gyrating, stripping, and pouting. Let’s sexualize torture. Let’s replace the imagery of men beaten by state security until they no longer resemble human beings with the idea of sexy state security rubbing against prisoners to get them to talk. And let’s degrade the calls of the revolution. Let’s have the men in the music video shout what all the youth in the Arab world are shouting now: “Enough, Enough!” Let’s have the scene in 3:06 look exactly like it did in real life. Let’s throw in the Palestinian scarf for good measure. All the better. Because, you know, men revolting against their wives is serious business. This video was not produced a long time ago. It was released last month, right in the middle of the Arab Spring. But, hey. The revolution has been televised. Why not merchandized and sexualized? AMAL AHMED AL-SADAH Bin Laden’s wife and the stereotyping of Muslim women BY SARA YASIN, MAY 27, 2011 Women played an interesting role in the account of the final hours of Osama Bin Laden's life. Three wives, as well as nine of his children, lived in the compound where he was killed, along with the families of two Pakistani brothers. Initially, it was erroneously reported that Bin Laden had used one of his wives as a human shield. However, as we began to learn more about the compound in Abbottabad and the events that made it so famous, one of the most discussed members of Bin Laden's family quickly became Amal Ahmed al-Sadah. In spite of the considerable number of people living in the compound, Bin Laden's youngest wife has garnered a huge amount of attention. A bride at the age of 17, Sadah moved to Afghanistan, and then to Pakistan with her new husband. While some articles speak of her being "gifted" to Bin Laden, this is contradicted by other reports that she "dutifully accepted" the proposal arranged by an aide of Bin Laden in Yemen. While Sadah's family recently provided some details of her life with Bin Laden, they have not seen her since her marriage in 2000, so there is still very little concrete information about the realities of her life in the compound. According to Sadah, she "never left" the upper floors of the three-storey compound during the five years that she was there. But it is difficult to know whether or not this was a result of Bin Laden's extreme religious views or of life on the run, much like testimony from the wives of other well-known terrorists. Either way, the construction of Sadah as the pitiful child bride of Bin Laden reminds me of the language used in relation to Muslim women in Afghanistan after the attacks of 9/11. Such images risk provoking the problematic question of whether or not certain Muslim women need "saving". For me, this takes away from one of the most important victories of the Arab spring – the shift in perspective regarding the coverage of Arab and Muslim women. Rather than focusing on stereotypes, media images of women playing an active role in creating social change have begun to paint a much more nuanced picture of the diverse struggles faced by women in the Arab world. This considered, I believe it is imperative to focus on the realities of the lives of women attached to religious fundamentalism, such as Sadah, as opposed to turning them into sensationalistic soundbites and images. The fixation on Bin Laden's personal life is significant for a number of reasons. In the past 10 years, what Bin Laden represented, and thus the image that was constructed of him, was almost as significant as the actual pursuit of him. Since his death, many people have wondered how the son of a wealthy and seemingly cosmopolitan family could become the face of the "war on terror". The actual roles and agencies of family members in Bin Laden's work and life are therefore crucial to identify, not least as US officials attempt to determine what should be done with those currently in custody. However, it is my belief that the focus should be on what actually occurred in the home of Bin Laden, rather than sensationalising the details of life on the compound or generalising from them. I am wary, for example, of comparing the relationship between Bin Laden and his wife with that of other Muslim marriages in Pakistan: for in Pakistan, the relationship between gender and religion is complex and varied, and I would not want to perpetuate the essentialising of Muslim women. Furthermore, I think it is hard to relate Sadah to the wider context of Pakistan because of the different cultures that are involved. Since she is Yemeni and Bin Laden is Saudi, it is difficult to persuasively tie them or their actions to Pakistan, or even understand their relationship to it beyond a hideout. I could relate Sadah to the general context of Muslim women, but once again, I think this risks essentialising her and Muslim women in general. Like many American Muslims, I am hopeful that Bin Laden's death will be the closing of a chapter. Not just one of a violent ideology – but also of a sensationalistic and oversimplistic approach to discussing such incredibly important world issues.