Sexuality and War: Literary Masks of the Middle East

213 Pages·1990·13.943 MB·English

by  Evelyne Accad

SEXUALITY AND WAR
FEMINIST CROSSCURRENTS
EDITED BY KATHLEEN BARRY
American Feminism: A Contemporary History
GINETTE CASTRO
TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH BY ELIZABETH LOVERDE-BAGWELL
Lesbian Texts and Contexts: Radical Revisions
EDITED BY KARLA JAY AND JOANNE GLASGOW
Sexuality and War: Literary Masks of the Middle East
EVELYNE ACCAD
SEXUALITY AND WAR
Literary Masks of
the Middle East
Evelyne Accad
n
NEW YORK UNIVERSITY PRESS
NEW YORK AND LONDON
Copyright © 1990by NewYork University
All rights reserved
Manufacturedin the United StatesofAmerica
LibraryofCongress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Accad, Evelyne.
Sexualityandwar: literarymasksofthe Middle East/ Evelyne
Accad.
p. cm. - (Feministcrosscurrents)
Includes bibliographicalreferences.
ISBN 0-8147-0595-2(alk. paper)
I. Arabicfiction-lebanon-History andcriticism. 2. Arabic
fiction-20th century-Historyandcriticism. 3. Lebanesefiction
(French)-Historyandcriticism. 4. Sexin literature. 5. Feminism
in literature. 6. Violenceinliterature. 7. Lebanon-History-
CivilWar, 1975-1976-Literatureand thewar. 8. Sexualanimosity
Lebanon. 9. Sexualanimosity-Arabcountries. I. Title.
II. Series.
PJ8082.A23 1990
892'.736093538-dc20 89-14278
CIP
NewYork University Pressbooksareprintedon acid-freepaper,
and theirbindingmaterials arechosen for strength anddurability.
Bookdesign by Ken Venezio
Contents
Foreword by Kathleen Barry vii
Acknowledgments xi
Introduction
PART I
UnveilingSexuality in War 9
1 Sexualityand Sexual Politics: Conflictsand Contradictions
for Contemporary Women II
2 An OccultedAspectofthe Warin Lebanon 27
PARTII
Women Unmask War 39
3 Hanan al-Shaykh: Despair, Resignation, Masochism,
and Madness 43
4 Etel Adnan: Courage, Engagement, and Self-Sacrifice 64
5 Andree Chedid: Determination, Vision, Endurance, and
Beliefin Humanity 78
6 Active Nonviolence Versus Victimization 91
PARTIII
War Unveils Men 95
7 Tawfiq YusufAwwad: Revolution, Ethics, Revenge,
and Destiny 99
v
8 Halim Barakat: Despair, Fear, Revolt, Tradition,
and Heroism 111
9 Elias Khoury: Ambivalence, FearofWomen, and
Fascination with Death and Destruction 135
10 War/Masculinity Versus Life/Freedom 160
11 Personal and Political Action for the Transformation ofSociety 165
Bibliography 175
Index 195
vi CONTENTS
Foreword
Evelyne Accad's studyofsexualityand warin the Middle Eastbrings to the
surface once again the most basic assumptions of international feminism:
confronting the issues particular to any group of women is in the best
interest of the liberation of all women, and in the very particularities of
race, culture, and national identity there is commonality to women's expe
rience ofoppression. Under patriarchal power, sexuality constitutes one of
the most personalized forms ofdomination, ranging from sexual objectifica
tion to violence. Sexuality is fundamental to women's control of their own
bodies, and how it is socially constructed will in large part determine how
women become sexual subjects to themselves-how much they are inti
mately colonized or what autonomy is left to them. And while sexuality is
one ofthe most unavoidable and radical issues ofwomen's movements, it is
the issue that is still the most difficult and painful for women to speak of,
write about, and confront because it is often so terrifyingly personal. More
than once, in more than one way, its colonization ofwomen has extended
into ruptures and fragmentations in the women's movement.
For feminists, coming to terms with liberation ultimately means coming
to terms with sexuality. While others have written about and documented
rape as aconquering strategyin warand prostitution as an r&r industry for
warring men, Evelyne Accad foregrounds the issue of sexuality as being
"centrally involved in the motivations ofwar." Sexuality is causal; it is the
conclusion; and when transformed, it can be the hope. But what we learn
here is more: coming to terms with militarization, war, and peace means
confronting the deployment ofsexuality through them. This radical thesis
confronts the very cornerstone ofwar with the most central issue offemi
nism. Here the novel is taken as a reading of society, one that reveals
hiddendimensions in genderpowerandhierarchy. Andwhatwe learn from
looking at sexuality and war in the Middle East through their expressions
in novels is how men and women look at the same war, see its effects,
experience its ravages, sustain hopes for the future through entirely differ
ent genderedlenses.
vii
The novel is close to Evelyne Accad. For her it has also been the means
by which she has been able to unveil the experiences ofbeing a woman in
the Arab world. Ifshe is able to transport us into the realityofwomen and
the war in Lebanon, it is notonly because she has struck at the core ofthe
issuein focusingon sexualitybutbecauseas apoet, novelist, literarycritic,
andsocialanalystherworkoffersakindofmosaic thatdraws thesemultiple
ways of knowing together to bring us into the subjective reality of women
in the Arab world in the time ofwar. Importantly, Evelyne Accad assumes
that when this subjective reality is revealed to us, we can and will under
stand and that will make adifference. She intends for her readers to know
and care and want to change. In other works, she has given history to
women's place in the recent development of the novel, a relatively new
genre ofArab literature. And in the cool evening breeze ofthe Mediterra
nean, I have heard her singthe songs she has composedabout women, sex,
and war in Lebanon as women from fifteen to twenty different countries
momentarily transcended with her the national and cultural differences
that separated us to be transported into the reality of her and Lebanese
women's experiences.
In fact, Evelyne Accad's hope for transforming the situation in the
Middle East restson theassumption thatin theparticularities, specificities,
and diversities that differentiate the situation ofwomen in the Arab world,
there is acommonality, abasis for mutual understandingand therefore the
possibility that addressing the issue of sexuality in war will resonate for
women everywhere. Isolation is endangering. That is why any work that
successfully brings the issues of women in any part of the world into a
radical feminist international movement must confront multiple hegemonic
ideologies that function to distance Western women from the situation of
women in the Third World. These issues confronting international femi
nism are likewise the blockades to political knowledge that Evelyne Accad
has had to confront in this work: I am speakingof U.S. national isolation
ism, Western culturalparticularism, ThirdWorldmasculinist nationalism,
andWestern feminist reification ofdifferences.
U.S. national isolationism insulates Americans in their individualism
from the rest of the world even as they watch the daily horrors ofwar on
television news. Thisideologyprizes the individualoverthe communityand
ensconces individuals in distinct worlds complete with rights and protec
tions that are meant to enable them to remain dissociated from the rest of
the world. Ethicsofindividualism are basedon privacy, "mindingyourown
viii FOREWORD
business," and can lead to selfishness, "taking care of No. I" in a society
thatexperiencesverylittle external threatand therefore seeksonlyminimal
internal cohesion. In their isolation many Americans live as if they can
afford not to know and even not to care about what is happening in other
partsofthe world.
Western liberal particularism, another mode of dissociation from the
Third World, finds its logic andjustification in what began as a legitimate
reaction against the pseudocultural superiority ofWestern ethnocentrism.
But, as usual in theworldofmalepoliticalaggression, thependulum swung
too far back and antiethnocentrism has fostered a Western liberal particu
larism that says "hands off" to anything produced in Third-World nations
or cultures. This simplistic form of cultural relativism handily reinforces
difference and separationjust when women around the globe are discover
ing the contrary, the possibilitiesofinternational feminist political bonding
and unity. It particularizes the war in Lebanon as a centuries-old battle of
clans and tribes anddisregards the subordinationofwomen through veiling
and excision in the Arab world because they representcustom and culture.
This liberalism wraps war and sexuality in the inevitability ofcenturies of
cultural tradition and bifurcates any idea of universal human rights from
cultural integrity. Then logically, war and sexuality are internal issues of
the Lebanese, for women and men in the Arab world. The weight and
brunt ofexposing these violations must be borne exclusively by its victims,
the very ones isolated by American individualism and Western particu
larism.
Women have been once again caught in the crossfire ofmale aggression
and male antiaggression both in the West and in the Third World. The
"hands off" approach of Western liberal particularism coincides with and
reinforces Third World masculinist nationalism, which, in tellingWestern
nations thatithas nobusiness interferingin the affairsoftheThirdWorld,
is also telling women of the Third World that to demand rights and to
expose male domination are to be disloyal to their country, to violate their
culture. Denouncing all women's movements as Western, Third World
masculinist nationalism attempts to isolate women in their cultures and
identifyWestern women as theirenemy.
Finally, within Western and particularly the American women's move
ment, genuine efforts to confront racism and bias frequently have been
reduced to merely affirming differences among women but in a way that
again separates women into their particularities. This Western feminist
FOREWORD ix