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| Africa North |
| Maghreb viewers react to Saudi woman poets on-screen activism |
| 2010-04-06 |
| [Maghrebia] Maghreb television audiences have been following the saga of a Saudi housewife whose televised recitation of poems blasting extremist preachers and "evil" fatwas has brought her death threats. Several militant Islamist sites have posted messages menacing Hissa Hilal, who has used her appearances on the popular televised competition "The Million's Poet" to deliver verses condemning clerics "who sit in the position of power". The burkha-clad Hilal, a mother of four, has become a sensation in a region where poetry is revered. Her poetry has been well-received by both the judges and audiences of the show, which is broadcast on satellite television across the Arab world from Abu Dhabi. Audiences have cheered Hilal's denunciations of those she says are "frightening" people with their fatwas and "preying like a wolf" on those seeking peace. And the 43-year-old, who was previously a poetry editor for a Saudi newspaper, has even won a place in the competition's April 7th final. The climactic showdown in Abu Dhabi will bring together five finalists from Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, with the winner receiving 5 million UAE dirhams. "The Million's Poet", launched in 2006 by the Abu Dhabi Authority for Culture and Heritage, is now in its fourth season, and has featured 48 contestants from 12 Arab countries in this series. This year's public bout between a poet and fundamentalists is keeping Maghreb crowds spellbound. "I've been following the programme since the first episode, and I really admire the talented and distinguished poet Hissa Hilal," a Nouakchott University art major, El Alia Mint Mohamed, told Magharebia this week. "Hissa Hilal is the voice of millions of women in the Islamic world who have been affected by narrow interpretations of religion." Hilal's poetry is widely viewed as a reply to Sheik Abdul-Rahman Barrak, a high-profile Saudi cleric who recently issued a fatwa calling for the death penalty for those who advocate the mingling of men and women. But according to Mint Mohamed, Hilal "has never, in any of her poems, deviated from the official position of her country, Saudi Arabia, which calls for deliberation on the issue of individual fatwas and for reviewing the concept of intermingling of [the sexes]". Oum El Vadel Mint Sidi, a Mauritanian housewife, echoed many who spoke with Magharebia when she asked: "Why should the life of poor poet Hissa Hilal be threatened just because she expressed her convictions about the personal ijtihad of some clerics in our Muslim world? The woman has challenged neither the Holy Qur'an, nor the sunna, nor the consensuses of the nation. Why, then, all this harshness?" Saudi women have made inroads in the public arena in recent years, Tunisian lawyer and feminist activist Saida Garrache told Magharebia in a statement. |
| Posted by:Fred |