Egyptian feminist activist Nawal El Saadawi died two days ago at the age of 89. Below an extract from his book The hidden face of Eve – Women in the Arab world,, Released in 1977 (French translation in 1982) in which she tells how her sister and she was excised. It is this excision that determined all his life and which was the starting point for all his fight.
“One night -I was six years old -I was in my bed, warm and in peace, in a pleasant half -sleep; In my head stole tender childhood dreams with their procession of nice fairies. Suddenly, I felt something stir up under my sheets, it looked like a huge hand, cold and harsh, which palpated my body, as if to seek I don’t know what. Almost simultaneously, another hand, just as cold and rough, fell on my mouth, preventing me from screaming.
I was brought to the bathroom. I do not know how much they were and I do not remember their faces if they were men or women. The world seemed to me to be wrapped in an opaque fog that veiled my sight. Maybe I had covered my eyes. All that I remember is that I was afraid, that they were many and that a iron grip grasped my hands, my arms and my thighs: I could no longer resist or even move. I also remember the cold bathroom tiles under my naked body. The buzzing of unknown voice was cut from time to time by a scraping and metallic noise similar to that produced by the butcher when he agitates his knife before proceeding to the sacrifice of a sheep for the EID.
My blood froze in my veins. I thought bandits had entered my room and kidnapped me in my bed. They were now going to cut my throat, because it was always what happened to the disobedient little girls like me in the stories that my grandmother loved to tell me.
I stretched the ear to try to identify this scraping and metallic noise. He stopped, and my heart stopped beating. I saw nothing and I had the impression that even my breathing stopped. However, I imagined that the metallic thing that caused the scraping noise approached me. She did not approach my neck, as I expected, but from another part of my body. She was looking in the region of my lower abdomen something hidden between my thighs. It was at this moment that I realized that my thighs had been dismissed as much as possible and that they were held by iron fingers which did not release their grip. I felt the knife or the blade go directly to my neck. And all of a sudden, the object of sharp metal plunged between my thighs and cut part of the flesh of my body. Despite the hand plated on my mouth, I yelled because it was not a simple pain, but a devouring flame that pierced my whole body. The next moment, I saw that my hips bathed in a pool of blood.
I didn’t know what they cut me off, and I didn’t want to know. I cried and called my mother to my rescue. To my great horror, I discovered her by my side. It was her, I was not mistaken, in the flesh, in the midst of all these foreigners, speaking to them and their smiling, as if they had not tried to murder her daughter a few moments before.
They bore me to my bed. I saw them seize my sister, two years younger than me, just as they had done with me. I yelled with all my might. No! No! I saw my sister’s face held in huge and harsh hands. She was pale like death and her gaze with big black eyes crossed mine for a second. I will never forget the terror which was reflected in it. Then we brought her to the bathroom that I had just left … The look we exchanged seemed to mean: “Now we know what it is. We know what is our tragedy. It is to be born of a special species, the female sex. Our destiny is to touch the deepest of miseries and see our body mutilated by cold, insensitive and cruel hands. »»
My family was not from those who, in Egypt, received no instruction. On the contrary, my parents had had the chance, both, to enjoy what we could consider at the time as a very good training. My father had done university studies and was promoted that year (1937) Inspector General of Education for the province of Menoufia in the Delta region north of Cairo. My mother had attended French schools, driven by her father who was director general of army recruitment services. Despite everything, the excision of the girls was very widespread, and a girl could not escape the amputation of her clitoris, that her family lives in the countryside or in the city. When I returned to school after the intervention, I spoke to my comrades and my friends of what had happened to me, and I discovered that all, without exception, had passed through the same torture, whatever their social origin (upper, medium or lower class).
In the families of poor peasants, all the girls are excised, as I could see in the family I have in Kafr Tahla. This custom is still very widespread in villages and even in cities, where many families believe that it is a necessity. However, the generalization of the instruction and a greater understanding on the part of the parents make that, more and more, they give up to excite their daughters.
The hidden side of Eve Nawal El Saadawi
The memory of excision continued me for a long time like a nightmare. A feeling of insecurity had grabbed me, I feared the unknown who watched me with every step that I would take in life. I did not even know if my mother and my father, or M grandmother, or the people around me did not have other surprises for me. Since the day I had opened my eyes, society had made me feel that I was a girl and taught me that the word bint (girl) was almost always accompanied by a frowning.
I reached adulthood and I became a doctor in 1955, but I could not erase from my memory the painful incident which had ended my childhood abruptly and still prevented me, when I was married, to enjoy my sexuality and life fully, which is only possible to those who have a satisfactory psychological balance. I have long been haunted by this kind of nightmares, especially when I was practicing my profession in rural regions. I frequently happened to treat young girls who required home care, suffering from abundant bleeding after excision. More than one has paid the inhuman and primitive way in his life in which the operation was carried out, already barbaric in itself. Others suffered from serious or chronic infections, sometimes for the rest of their days. Most of them, if not all of them, were later exposed to sexual or psychological deformations resulting from this experience.
I also dealt with women from different Arab countries, including Sudanese. I was horrified when I noticed that a Sudanese girl is subject to a much more cruel operation than that practiced in Egypt. Here, we usually make the ablation, usually not complete, of the clitoris. In Sudan, all external genitals are removed, that is to say the clitoris, the two external lips (Labia Majora) and the two interior lips (Labia Minora). Then we dwell the wound. The external opening of the vagina is the only part that is left intact, not without having assured that, when the wound is closed, some additional stitches shrink the orifice. As a result, during the wedding night, this orifice must be enlarged at one end or both by means of a scalpel or a razor in order to allow the penetration of the male organ. If a Sudanese divorces, the external opening is narrowed again so that it cannot have sex. If she remarries, we react to the opening.
Listening to women to explain to me what is happening during an excision in Sudan, I felt anger and revolt riding me. These feelings still increased when by going to Sudan in 1969, I discovered that this form of excision was still as widespread, whether in rural regions, in villages or in cities.
Despite my instruction and my medical studies, I was not able, at that time, to understand why girls were subject to this barbaric tradition. I kept wondering, “Why?” I never found an answer to this question which nodded to me more and more, any more than questions that tortured my mind the day my sister and I had been excised. »» Nawal El Saadawi.
