The Lioness - Huda Sha'arawi

[Music] Hello, I'm Frank Turner. Welcome to Tales from No Man's Land, a podcast that accompanies my album No Man's Land. It's about 13 women from history who you probably haven't heard of but definitely should have. Their stories are fascinating, moving, funny and most importantly, worth celebrating and sharing. This episode of Tales from No Man's Land is about Huda Shahrawi, a pioneering Egyptian feminist leader and the founder of the Egyptian feminist union. When I was writing the record, at a certain point I realised I was in danger of only writing about people from Europe and the UK and North America. And I wanted to make sure that my scope included people from all over the world. I was chatting to some of my friends, many of whom are also history nerds, and an Egyptian friend of mine mentioned Huda's name, which wasn't one that I knew. So I started reading up on her and quickly realised just how important she was to the history of feminism in Egypt and the wider Arab world in general. Huda was born in 1879 and raised in an upper class Egyptian family. And when she was 13 years old, she was married off to a much older cousin and raised in a harem, which was the segregated women's quarters of the household. Despite all of this, she managed to find a way to educate herself and gain some degree of independence. In the lead up to the first while war, she was active setting up some of the first social services for poor women and children in Cairo, and she led demonstrations against the continued British presence in Egypt after the war attended. But her most famous moment was in 1923 when she arrived at Cairo station on a train returning from a feminist conference in Zurich and removed her full face mail in front of a crowd at Cairo station, which sent a shockwave through the Arab world and was a radical step forward for wounds rights in Egypt. She became known towards the end of her life as the lioness, which I used as the title for my song about her. When looking around for somebody to talk to about Huda's life for the podcast, I was amazed to discover that her granddaughter, Sanya Shaharawi Lafranchi, is still alive and is an active feminist in Egypt to this day. So I managed to get her on the phone to discuss the life and work of her famous grandmother. Hello Frank. Hello, let me begin Sanya by saying that it's a real honour to talk to you today and say thank you very much for taking time out to speak to me about your incredible grandmother. Well, it's an honour for me too. I was wondering what made you write about her and all the other women? Well, I stumbled into writing songs about historical female figures. I had like two or three songs that were coming together and it seemed like it was a it was a theme, you know, it was an idea. And then while I was writing, I realized whilst I was trying to choose a wide range of people to write about that most of them were people from Western cultures, you know, white people essentially. And I wanted to reach out beyond that in terms of my subject matter. And I was talking to a lot of my intelligence and historically knowledgeable female friends and your grandmother's name came up more than once. So I started to read about her and try and learn some some more about her life and her history and the impact of the things that she did. Yeah, well, she did a lot of things. Yeah. Well, I wanted to begin talking about what is for me in my ignorance quite a loaded term, which is the term 'haram', because as you know, reading about her and her writings and everything, talk about her being raised in the haram. Now that's a word that for me as a Westerner has certain kind of connotations and I'm not sure that they're correct. So I was wondering if you could explain to me exactly what that means in practice being born in 1879 in Egypt, what it was like to be a woman raised in a haram. Well, the only place where I saw a haram was in Turkey at the top capy museum. There's a whole part of the museum that is consecrated to the haram where women lived and a site from that I've never seen one. My grandmother grew up in an environment mainly of women and this is considered the haram, the part of the house where the women stay. The men of the family would go out to sort of an office at the entrance or perhaps another villa where they would stay and talk business or whatever among men. So the way men would be set a party, if you want to say. Right. Would it all be family members together in the one place? Yeah, usually they were in the same house and when men had something else to do some kind of business or something, they would move out to sort of an office or a sitting room exactly like we do now I guess. Sure, but it would sexually segregate it as it were. Is that true of education as well? I was reading. Yeah, well education, yes, but that was in the whole world, wasn't it? Oh, very much so completely. But as I understand it, who used to steal books from her father and was very keen on education? Yes, she wanted to learn. She was full of curiosity, which I suppose is the greatest quality if you want to lead an interesting life that is and I think that was one of her main passions knowledge. But also then to change that society as well. I mean she lived in the period of history where there were a lot of changes happening in Egypt, you have the festival war and the revolution in 1919. Do you think that gave her more opportunity to move beyond the world into which she was born? Well, she had already studied quite a bit. She had French ladies or her friends and they were coaching her and she learned a lot of things and then during the first world war, I think we mean on both sides south and north. I think this is where the feminist movement began that is in absolute hatred and horror of the war where the sons and husbands and fathers died, especially the Great War. There was a real massacre of young and older men because they went to the front and the women suffered a lot from that and hated the violence and decided that they had to do something about it. You know, Monten said that wars are the proof of our stupidity. So I suppose women thought the same. Yes, absolutely. Also earlier in her life, who there was married and I was wondering if you could tell me about the nature of that marriage because she married a cousin who was older than her and I wonder if you could tell me more about that. Yeah, well, she married her cousin. They didn't stay together for a long time. She was too young for him. He was too old for her. They both suffered from it. They had not married mainly to preserve the family fortune and so the marriage didn't last and it wasn't a real marriage anyway because he didn't fancy. He was no pedophile if you see what I mean. He's a fancy. So he spared her the trouble and he ran to his first wife and she encouraged him to do so but she stayed legally married to him. And so she used the years after this to study. She stayed with her friends, with her Egyptian friends, with anyone who could teach her, who could lead her to books and to reading and to develop knowledge. And at some point she, I mean, the most famous instant in her life in 1923 at Karros Station. I think I'm right in saying she was coming back from Switzerland, is that right? From Rome. From Rome. Yeah, you see there was a manifestation against the British occupation because of course, no, you wanted to protect her. You need to be in Egypt and the British were about to impose one. And so she decided that if the women led a walk in the middle of Karros, this would be noticed all over the world and the British wouldn't kill them because the women and public opinion would resent that. So they did that talk but they were fully veiled. They had the face veil on and this manifestation attracted the attention of the women in the West. And this was when the international lines for the suffrage of women began to center the invitations to go abroad. They held conferences all the time. I mean, one thing anyway. Also, Madame Juliette Adon began to write to her. She was a very famous journalist, a republican in France. A friend of Victor Hugo and Georges Sond and all those intellectuals and they made friends. I was going to ask about that. So who does spoke French? I'll take it. She publishes the magazine "Legitie Pseun" on my right hand side. Yes, she published "Legit Pseun" and she also spoke Arabic very well and wrote Arabic very well. And so she had another magazine that was aimed at the women of the Arab world and that was called "Al-Masraya," the Egyptian woman. Many of the articles in "Legit Pseun" were translated and published on "Al-Masraya." Women were increasingly aware of the importance of the media. And so was she, of course. Yes, she was a skillful journalist from what I can see. She could write 12 and she talked very well. She had a fascinating voice. Is it a voice that you remember at all? Because I know that your lives crossed over briefly. Yeah, well, I was very small. I do remember, maybe vaguely, her voice. I remember most of all her steadfastness, how she held one and one felt safe in her arms, which was great. And I remember also people's attitudes towards this woman who was guiding me and they were sort of very respectful and they listened to her. You know, children would be impressed by this kind of thing. That's lovely. I definitely, in this discussion, want to talk more about the things that happened after this, but the 1923 instant at the station is very famous. So she comes back to Cairo on a train. Yeah, she came back by ship. First of all, they sailed back to Alexandria and her son in law was waiting for her to port and she asked him what he thought about casting off the veil. There was a season of a ravi with her. She was younger and she was very insistent that they had to do it. My grandmother cared less about the veil than about the occupation. But she says I was really insistent. And so she said, all right, we'll try it. She asked her son in law, would you mind very much if I did that because her husband was dead by then? Mahmoud Samir, her son in law said, no, I would not mind actually. It's become quite necessary to do that. It's exactly as you tell it in the song, she came out of the train onto the platform and Bavaya Musa, who had gone to Rome with the most back and had prepared the whole mediatic aspect of this whole thing. There was a whole crowd of women standing there waiting to acclaim and waiting for the two of them. When they came out of the train and removed the veil, they had a way of, they removed the face veil and turned it around their heads. And then all the women looked at them in absolute struper and took off their veil as well. After that, the veil was off for a very long time, you know, until the 70s, I think. Why did it start to come back, do you think? Because we had President Sadat as the Muslim President. And all sorts of clerics began to struggle with ideas about how you have to be veiled. And you know, feminine is most launched by a man in Egypt. He's a Muskasim Amin. And the main idea for Kasim Amin was education, the education of women would make the mothers like schools for their children. So in the action of taking off her veil, that's interesting to me because so there was some support from the men of Egypt for this action as well. Yes, absolutely. There was this fabulous generation of men who were the liberal constitutionalists. And many of them were occupied in teaching many of the professors were men. Of course they were men, but they were also sort of writers, philosophers, journalists. When they were supportive of who does action of feminists. Absolutely. Some of them had been calling for that. But was there much opposition from within Egyptian society for this action? Not a bit. The point is people thought the world of her was easy for her to do it and the country was ready for it. And that was it. So from my reading, I was seeing that a lot of the legislation that she was pushing for in her lifetime about age of marriages and education women and this kind of thing. A lot of them didn't actually come to fruition in her lifetime because she dies in 1947. So the suffrage that she couldn't get immediately, she wouldn't have anything to do with inheritance laws because men in her double what women in her. But on the other hand by Egyptian law, by sharia law, women are in full control of their possessions of whether it be money or anything else. They are ones who are supposed to decide what to do with it. There's an interesting point in there for me. I hope you'll excuse and forgive my ignorance on this topic. But it's interesting to me. So who there was a practicing Muslim, she was interested in the content of I think I'm right saying it jihad is the kind of struggle for equality but very much rooted in Islam and in Muslim ideas and this kind of thing. And obviously nowadays in the modern world there are some people. I do not include myself among them who have kind of ideas about the role of women within Islam and who does seems to me to be somebody who punctures that idea in an interesting way. Yes, well jihad, I mean the great jihad in Islam is supposed to be internally fighting against your own drives and your own murderous instincts and your own defects anyway. So it's an inner struggle. This is what the real jihad is supposed to be. As to the other jihad which is the smaller jihad undertaken in wars, well wars happen everywhere. Unfortunately, what can you do? And they are proof of man's stupidity. Very much so. I find it really sort of interesting and inspiring that who there was a Muslim woman who was also a feminist and that's a necessary corrective to some of the stereotypes and narratives that we live with today. Within that I'm also interested in sort of the role that you see for her reputation and the impact for actions after her death, particularly in recent years and let's say in the Arab Spring and things like this is her reputation still relevant in Egyptian politics and in the broader Arab and Muslim politics today. Yeah, well she was remembered because much of history had been forgotten, you see. In the early days of the 1952 revolution, there were big changes and large chunks of history will left out and people forgot and well I suppose life was complicated. Well, yes, I think I've seen photographs of demonstrators in Tarih Square in places carrying pictures of her. Yes indeed. And so do you think that she has a voice in her writings and her actions have an important role to play in current developments within Egyptian society? Yes, you know, a casting of the veil has been translated by me into French, La Chouette du Valle and Italian one that my daughter did and its entitled Avoltos Coperto. Then there's this Arabic version that just came out to a cache of a Tua Gaha, this is how it's entitled. It's being read and I must say that many people are really enthusiastic, perhaps even more men than women. One of them is a great writer, he's written a wonderful article about it. There were movies made about her life and she's back on stage, Broadway isn't she? Yeah, well so do you see your role as a writer now in writing the book about your grandmother as continuing her work and continuing to spread her ideas? Yeah, well this is what my eldest sister, unfortunately, is no more now. She said to me when I was very young she said you can write, you're going to write her biography because I can't write and so you're the one who's going to do it. And so I had to live with this burden back on my life and then it caught up with me and I began to travel, absolutely travel to go on her tracks and find things out about her from the other side. You know I went to let her dance property, Dame Marjory, Covid-HB, I don't know, you name it. I sort of have a two part question here. The 1923 veil thing, it shouldn't be the only thing that she's remembered for, it shouldn't be the defining event of her career, is that fair? It's one of the defining events but there are many. Why do you think that that particular incident is remembered so much? Well it's glamorous but the march in the middle of Cairo, the veiled women's march was quite glamorous as well, it's also remembered. Yeah, as I understand she was standing in the full heat of the middle of a car a day, facing down the soldiers for some time. That was Lord Russell's fault. He stopped them, he had them co-owned into sort of small precinct and he said he would leave the putties there to suffer and then when he was tired of making them suffer he just told them to go home. Quite a card I would say. Yes, well a colonial occupier. Yeah. What do you think that gets forgotten about her? What are the things that about her that don't get talked about enough? And possibly outside of politics, you know, her as an individual as a person? Well as an individual as a person there she was very much loved by everyone who surrounded her, especially the women who worked with her but also the men I have seen some pictures of her with people like Ahmad Lothi Said who was the philosopher, president of the University of Cairo. He was so affectionate with her, it was his expression, his body language. There was a lot of affection around her. I'm very interested in the title of your song, The Lioness. You know there's a an ancient Egyptian Linus was a goddess called Segment. - I did not know that. - And she protected the Pharaoh. Segment was, I mean, they all invoked her for protection, for safety, for a motherly figure. She could sort of communicate very well. She networked like anything. She was surrounded by young people. She delegated tasks very easily. - Do you approve of the title, The Linus, for the song? - Oh yes, I love it. I think of Segment, and I think it's, I love it. And then I love, of course, the main tune. She's not going to hide her face anymore. She isn't going to know her place anymore. This is really catchy. I'm sure everyone's going to sing this in the streets, very soon. I certainly hope so. I wanted to write the song about her, and to celebrate her and her life and her achievements. Almost in a way, in the action of writing a song, one simplifies, one draws out things that are good for a chorus or whatever. Part of the reason I want to make this podcast and talk to you about her and all the rest of it is to make sure that I'm not just kind of presenting a one-dimensional version of the person that we're talking about. - No, I think it's actually miraculous. Those two lines that she's not going to hide her face anymore. You got the face of the veil into it. I mean, the casting of the veil. And the other part is about her later life, everything she did, because she really didn't know her place anymore. And you know why? I carried out this research. I went to so many places, and I saw so many people. And she was doing so many things and inventing this and inventing that. And I said, "Grandma, please, for God's sake, stop it. I'm getting tired." [LAUGHTER] - But that's a wonderful thing to encounter a full life. - Oh, yes, it is, definitely. She died like she lived. She died because of the division of Palestine. She had a massive heart failure at that point, and she died from it. She was horrified. She thought Palestine should not be divided. It should stay whole. And it would be better for peace. And she thought a lot in terms of kindness. You've got that title for another song, Be More Kind. And I feel-- yeah, you probably have things in common, then, at least in your heart. I would be flattered by that statement and hope it to be true. Again, forgive my ignorance, asking this question, because I've never been to Egypt, and I'm sorry that I didn't make it to Cairo for this podcast. To women, why the veil in Egypt now? I mean, with the majority? - Well, some of them have a few very few people now after the year of Muslim brotherhood, presidency, and the defeat now they are removing the face veil. But they keep a little scarf on their heads. And I think it's a way of-- they think the Quran said you have to cover her heads, which I think is not true, because the Quran just took it for granted that bad women had their heads covered. So that's one thing. But they-- - I did it. - They feel actually-- feel they are more attractive if they wear something on their heads. I don't know what that is about, but you know. - I mean, if you'll forgive my asking, do you wear a head mask for the person itself? - No, I never did. - You never did, OK? - No. - And that's not problematic in any way for you? - No, not at all. Not at all. I was at an exhibition two days ago, and it was an exhibition of women, Caligruffers, and all the girls were there. They were wearing scarves and everything. But I mean, it was like they fell in love with me. They wanted to take pictures with me. Every one of them would grab me, come here, and we would have a selfie together. They were absolutely adorable. - That's all right. - I don't know. I think the veil is a misunderstanding of sorts. They just feel sexier, because unless you're very interesting, why should you wear a veil? - Well, yes, that's a good question. I mean, I was wondering, what do you think that Hooder would have thought of these developments of Saudi Arabian clerics and the revival of the idea of the veil? - She was very flexible, but she would have tried to help, actually, I think she would have gotten all her money and given it to those people. I don't know. This was the way she functioned. That was her mechanism. You know, she actually said once that she couldn't sleep at night because she thought of the poor. - How do you think she would feel about the state of Egypt today? - The state of Egypt today is much better than a couple of years ago. And we had this Islamist regime on when churches were burned, when Christians were sadly killed, where lovers were caught in the streets and murdered. Dreadful things happened in some of the cities, especially Madele, to upper Egypt. But it's improving now in the last couple of years, you were saying? - Yes, definitely. - Well, that's good news. - Absolutely. - Well, Sunny, thank you so much for your time today and for telling me all about your grandmother, I thought I know much more about her now than I did when we started this conversation. - I hope to see you live one of these days. - I would love that. Sunny, if it's okay with you, I'm gonna pick up my guitar and get ready to sing some music. And in fact, you know, it's a guitar that was built in 1946. So it is a guitar that would have been around very briefly when Huda was still alive. This is the song that I wrote for "Huda Sharawi" and it's called "The Lioness" and it goes a little something like this. (upbeat music) ♪ They said the times are hard for honest men ♪ ♪ But she didn't give a damn ♪ ♪ She wasn't one of them out of mean to imply ♪ ♪ That she ever told a lie ♪ ♪ But she was raised in the harming told to keep quiet ♪ ♪ She isn't gonna hide her face anymore ♪ ♪ She isn't gonna know her place anymore ♪ ♪ Married off young and set aside ♪ ♪ Who'd have always been bright ♪ ♪ And she wasn't one to hide ♪ ♪ She told herself languages and poetry ♪ ♪ She told herself to speak so she could set herself free ♪ ♪ Look on her work, see my team and she opened up the harm ♪ ♪ They can close it up again ♪ ♪ She stepped off a ladder, let herself feel free ♪ ♪ She stepped off a train and it's a history ♪ ♪ She isn't gonna hide her face anymore ♪ ♪ She isn't gonna know her place anymore ♪ (upbeat music) ♪ Who'd have shot a raindrops a lioness name ♪ ♪ A heart well fed eyes inflamed ♪ ♪ A face on cover showing what she overcame ♪ ♪ Who'd have a raindrops she won't be tame ♪ ♪ She isn't gonna hide her face anymore ♪ ♪ She isn't gonna know her place anymore ♪ ♪ Everyone should know her name ♪ (upbeat music) ♪ The lioness will not be tamed ♪ (upbeat music) ♪ Everyone should know her name ♪ (upbeat music) ♪ The lioness will not be tamed ♪ - I'd like to thank Sanya for that wonderful conversation. It was so great to talk to somebody, so closely involved in the life of one of the people that I've actually chosen to write about. I hope you enjoyed the episode. You can of course subscribe to the podcast and leave a review of it wherever it is that you've listened to podcasts. And if you do that, I will appreciate it hugely as it helps spread the word about what we're doing here. You can find the song "The Lioness" wherever it is you get your music from because the album "Lowman's Land" is out now. The next episode of the podcast is about my song "Rescue Annie" and the mysterious tale of a young woman who drowned and never ever sang. (upbeat music) I'd like to thank my producer, Hayley Clark, the executive producer Peggy Sutton, the additional producer's Paul Smith, Steve Ackerman, Josh Gibbs and Charlie Kaplow. Tales from "Lowman's Land" is produced by me, Frank Turner, extra mile recordings, and something else. (upbeat music) (upbeat music)