Page 128 - Religion, Media, and the Public Sphere

tention. The Islamists sharply criticized the women’s groups for receiving ¤nan-
cial support from international organizations, labeled the women involved as
“Westernized,” and accused them of conspiring to weaken Palestinian society
by undermining its most central institution, the family. They denounced them
in the mosques and argued that they were not even quali¤ed to take part in such
debates. The very ¤erceness of the public attacks by the Islamists provoked a
counter-mobilization of those defending the legitimacy of holding such de-
bates. Next to human rights organizations, women’s groups, and political par-
ties, the Palestinian Authority also defended the organizers of these debates, less
because it was concerned about the Islamist vision of family relations than be-
cause it worried about the mobilizing power of the Islamist rhetoric. As a result,
the focus shifted from the substance of family law to a debate about freedom
of expression.
While the academic authors highlight the sensitivities involved in debating
family law, focusing on the tensions between the secular women NGOs and the
Islamists, they simultaneously underline that neither the positions of the “men
of religion” nor those of the women’s groups were unidimensional. It is true that
both the Islamists and the religious establishment argued for limiting the right
to participate in debates about Muslim family law to “those quali¤ed” (i.e., re-
ligiously trained scholars), but the ways in which the religious establishment
dealt with these issues differed considerably from that of the Islamists. Once it
became clear that the Islamists were intent on politicizing the issue, the religious
functionaries kept their distance; also, those who considered drafting proposals
as the prerogative of the religious establishment were willing to address is-
sues raised by women activists and to engage in debate with them. In a simi-
lar vein the authors underlined the variety of points of view held by women
activists, paying attention both to those arguing for an optional civil law and to
those arguing for substantial reforms of Muslim family law. They also pointed
to activists’ growing awareness of class differences. If those who were better
off could afford to criticize the concept of the male breadwinner, lower-class
women may well have a greater interest in the implementation of women’s
maintenance rights.
Still, the emphasis on the oppositional positions taken by the “Islamists”
and the “women NGO activists” has left one particular category, the Islamist
women, largely out of the picture. Little attention has been paid to the points
of view of women associated with Islamist movements, many of whom were
very critical of women NGO projects. The visual information provided by Subhi
8
al-Zobaidi’s documentary ¤lm, Women in the Sun (1998), is helpful here. It is
true that the messages al-Zobaidi intends to convey in his ¤lm about family law
debates tally neatly with the lines of argumentation present in the academic
texts mentioned above: the various participants to the debates and their argu-
ments are well presented. But as a visual means of communication the ¤lm also
includes layers of information concerning issues such as comportment, body
language, and styles of dress that the articles do not provide. Authors of written
texts may have a number of reasons to refrain from informing readers about

Representing Family Law Debates in Palestine 117