What our travelers say...

WOMEN IN LIBYA

Throughout our tour of Libya, I can’t recall seeing or meeting any women on the streets of the old towns we visited. The men did all the shopping. We saw only men enjoying a night out.

Yet, today, Libya ranks extremely high in the field of rights for women due to a change in attitude of President Qaddafi later in his regime.

Islamic traditionalists were particularly pleased by Libya’s President Qaddafi’s Green Book's agreement with Koran Muslim strictures regarding the role of women when became president. The Prophet himself had especially warned against corruption leading to general moral laxity. Regarding women generally, the Koran says that "men are a degree higher" and that "righteous women are devoutly obedient." In like manner the Green Book echoed that "motherhood is the female's function" and while that man is "strong and tough. . . because he is created in that way," woman is "gentle not because she wanted to be, but because she is created so." And it agreed with the Koran that "there is no absolute equality" between men and women.

Did Qaddafi believe this when he wrote his Green Book and then change his mind over a period of years? Or was it merely lip service designed to calm the fears of religious Libyans suspicious of his socialist revolution, even as he was beginning to implement programs that would up?grade the status of women? Either way, his programs created a confrontation between Libyan women and Muslim fundamentalists with himself squarely in the middle.

Two of these programs Qaddafi instituted in particular emancipated Libyan women from the restricted role symbolized by the Muslim practice of veiling the face. The first was Qaddafi's nationalization of many of the Libyan oil fields early in his regime. This resulted in greatly in?creased production, creating thousands of jobs. There was a mass shifting of Libya's population from the deserts and mountains to the oil fields and refineries near the cities.

A whole generation of women grew up in urban areas as different from their tribal settings as they could be. They were introduced to attitudes and ideas about women's roles that would have been unthinkable in the villages and tribes of their forefathers.

The second program had an even more far? more reaching effect. Qaddafi made education available to women on a scale never before known. Girls who for?merly would never have seen the inside of an elemen?tary school were now completing twelfth grade. Women were becoming as literate as men and far more literate than men had been in the past. The last barrier came down when free college education was made available to women. From the religious Muslim point of view, an educated woman was not the obedient wife and mother glorified by Islamic tradition. Matters came to a head at the Libyan General People's Congress held in February 1984.

. Qaddafi wanted the Congress to rubber-stamp his plan to draft women to serve alongside men in the nation's armed forces. Pressure against this proposal came not just from the fundamentalists, but from a wide spectrum of Sunni Muslims as well. Military offi?cers and other men also opposed it. Men outnumbered women heavily in the Congress. The plan was not approved. Qaddafi put it into effect anyway.

Today there are women not only in the army but also in all areas of Libyan life. The majority of them neither wear veils nor try to conform to the feminine role defined by Islamic tradition. Fundamentalists see them as visible proof of the breakdown in religious values, and so women are prime targets in their efforts to unseat Qaddafi.

Not all Libyan women defy the militant imams. Many who oppose Qaddafi's economic and military policies are drawn to the fundamentalists as the orga?nized opposition most likely to overthrow his regime. Others, viewing Libya as increasingly corrupt, mate?rialistic, and godless, embrace fundamentalism in a quest for their roots. They wear the veil proudly and conform to the Islamic ideal of womanhood. For them it is a matter of reclaiming their spiritual identity.

Jo Weiss

Traveled to Libya November 2004