Webinar: Women, Power and Politics in the Middle East

Transcript Webinar: Women, Power and Politics in the Middle East Dr Alanoud Alsharekh Director, Ibtkar Strategic Consultancy Laury Haytayan Middle East and North Africa Director, Natural Resource Governance Institute Azadeh Pourzand Executive Director, Siamak Pourzand Foundation Chair: Tim Eaton Senior Research Fellow, Middle East and North Africa Programme, Chatham House Event date: 22 July 2020 The views expressed in this document are the sole responsibility of the speaker(s) and participants, and do not necessarily reflect the view of Chatham House, its staff, associates or Council. Chatham House is independent and owes no allegiance to any government or to any political body. It does not take institutional positions on policy issues. This document is issued on the understanding that if any extract is used, the author(s)/speaker(s) and Chatham House should be credited, preferably with the date of the publication or details of the event. Where this document refers to or reports statements made by speakers at an event, every effort has been made to provide a fair representation of their views and opinions. The published text of speeches and presentations may differ from delivery. © The Royal Institute of International Affairs, 2020. 10 St James’s Square, London SW1Y 4LE T +44 (0)20 7957 5700 F +44 (0)20 7957 5710 www.chathamhouse.org Patron: Her Majesty The Queen Chair: Jim O’Neill Director: Dr Robin Niblett Charity Registration Number: 208223 2 Webinar: Women, Power and Politics in the Middle East Tim Eaton Hello and welcome, everyone, to this webinar on Women, Power and Politics in the Middle East. My name is Tim Eaton and I’m a Senior Research Fellow for the Middle East and North Africa Programme here at Chatham House. I’m delighted to be chairing this discussion on such an important, yet underdiscussed, set of issues. We saw in 2019 that women were front and centre in pop – protests across the region, as populations demanded reform and the attitudes of male-led political establishments were challenged. But with such a major set of challenges emanating from the global COVID pandemic, declining oil prices and entrenched political elites, there’s limited room for public opposition in many contexts. So, where and how does this discussion around female leadership and women’s rights fit? So, to explore this, we are going to look at a big set of questions and discuss them. These include: how can women’s economic empowerment be prioritised and promoted? To what extent have efforts to consolidate women’s rights reached beyond elites? How can we move beyond the glamorisation of female protestors to institute meaningful gender-based – gender-focused political change in future? And in this current context, as COVID-19 accelerates digital transformation, how can virtual spaces provide new opportunities for mobilisation and inclusion? We have a great panel, who will be looking to explore these issues, from their own experiences, in a very different set of contexts from across the region, from Kuwait, to Lebanon and Iran. I’m delighted to be joined by Dr Alanoud Alsharekh, who is the Director of Ibtkar Strategic Consultancy, also by Laury Haytayan, who is the Middle East and North Africa Director of the National Resource Governance Institute, and by Azadeh Pourzand, who is the Executive Director of the Siamak Pourzand Foundation. So, Azadeh, welcome to this meeting. Let me start off with you and the issue of the protests. Looking at the pre-COVID-19 lay of the land, what has been the role of women in 2019 and 2020, uprisings in the region, and have there been nuances in ways in which women’s engagement with protests can be compared across different countries? Azadeh Pourzand Yes, thank you very much for this and an important question, I think, to start the conversation with. Well, as I think we all know, 2019 in particular was quite a year, when it came to protests and the power of collective power. And in a way, it was inspiring that even after the failures of the Arab uprisings in 2011, perhaps a newer generation still showed that they believe in collective power in the Middle East. In the world, really, but also, in the Middle East, in particular, we saw a range of countries, witnessing protests, like Iran, Iraq, Algeria, Lebanon and so on. I focus my conversation, my points about Iran, because that’s what I closely follow. What was very interesting about the November protests, which was one of the largest protests that Iran had witnessed after the Islamic Republic, and also, one of their protests in which the Islamic Republic of Iran, the Government of Iran, showed absolutely no mercy on the peaceful protestors and, unfortunately, we had quite a high death toll and many, many arrests. What I find interesting about the Iran and November protests and the role of women is that after decades of women’s rights activism and women’s, sort of, a women’s rights movement in Iran that has been weakened by government repression, the government seem to – the Islamic Republic seem to somehow acknowledge women’s leadership in uprisings in a very peculiar way. 3 Webinar: Women, Power and Politics in the Middle East What they did is that they tried to vandalise women’s role as leaders in these protests by arresting, well, men and women alike, but bringing a woman, particularly, on TV con – televised confessions, saying that she had some sort of leadership, and so on. And so, they tried to, kind of, bring in leadership, from a very negative perspective, with violence. And while I would say that women were quite present and visible in the streets alongside men, leadership in such a complicated environment, where it’s really difficult to mobilise and to have, sort of, steady demands in the street, it’s very difficult to define in Iran. So, I wouldn’t go as far as leadership, not just for women, but for anyone or for any segments of the population, and more on a collective power. And also the fact that, and I think that this may be the case in some of the other countries in the Middle East, women, Iranian women, because of the many systematic discriminations and societal discriminations that they have faced over the years, over the decades, they have a very strong under – I would say a strong movement under the skin of the country that no matter how repressive one President is over another or one era over another, the movement somehow continues. If it has to attend to economic challenges, it attends to economic challenges. If it has to attend to structural and legal changes, then it does so. If it becomes a politicised movement by the government, it tries to find other ways to still, you know, address issues like labour rights, and so on. So, I would say instead of leadership, necessarily, on the street, which it would run the danger, in my opinion, to, sort of, stereotype or generalise or simplify a complicated environment, I would say that the ongoing activism of both people, women who call themselves activists, but also, ordinary women, in a country like Iran, and I think in other contexts in the Middle East other colleagues can probably address that, as well, is more of a steady and continuous leadership role that I see in the region. Tim Eaton Thank you very much, Azadeh. Laury, bringing you in here and, of course, widespread protest has been witnessed in Lebanon, very high profile, clearly major issues at stake, do you have thoughts or comments on the various narratives that have accompanied the widespread participation of women in the protests? And what has been the role of the media in either empowering or disempowering women in the – in relation to their role for – within the civilian resistance movement in the region? Laury Haytayan Yeah, so, first of all, thank you for having me, and second, let me say that change is very slow in the region, but we need to keep on fighting and not stop, ever. Yes, the 2011 uprisings or protests were a failure, maybe, yes, but that gave the momentum for other waves of protests. And I guess until the changes that we want happened, we would still have waves of protests coming in and it’s really – it was really interesting to see how women were in the frontline of these protests, at least what we’ve seen in Lebanon and in Sudan, for instance. And about the narratives, talking about narratives, it was really interesting that at the beginning of these revolutions, we had women that were used as icons to just push people to keep on going on the streets. So, we all remember the Sudanese young lady, with her finger and hand, talking to people, wearing these very symbolic clothes on her and it was viral, it went viral. And she was spreading all this – and to the other – and for people to go on the streets and for women to participate on the streets. Actually, like, in Sudan there, I think there were more women on the streets than man. So – and then, in Lebanon, the early days, like, I think maybe on the – in the – during the first day or second day of the protest, the, what I call the ‘kicking woman’, yeah, or lady. So, a Bodyguard of a certain 4 Webinar: Women, Power and Politics in the Middle East political figure was on the street and he was surrounded by the protestors and he wanted to attack this woman and she kicked him.

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