What Hind Did

Charles Paul Freund | January 27, 2005

Lectures from Islamists about supposed Western degeneracy are often not about Western practices, but rather about a neo-Victorian obsession with maintaining appearances. That's why a current paternity scandal involving a publicly pious actor is rocking Egypt. Ahmed el-Fishawy has been charged with fathering a child out of wedlock, which he denies. But the scandal is not over whether he may be found to be a pious hypocrite. The scandal is that the woman involved is seeking redress. Her reward thus far has been vilification.

Neil MacFarquhar's fine NYT account begins this way: "The standard three-step program for any unmarried upper-class Egyptian girl who becomes pregnant is an abortion, an operation to refurbish her virginity with a new hymen and then marriage to the first unwitting suitor the family can snare."

The woman involved is a 27-year-old movie costume designer named Hind el-Hinnawy, who decided to skip the traditional three-step program and have her baby. El-Fishawy, the alleged father, is well known "as the host of a now canceled television talk show dispensing advice to devout Muslim youth," according to MacFarquhar. El-Hinnawy "contends that the two had what is known as an urfi marriage, a practice in Sunni Islam that allows couples to marry in private with a contract they draft." She wants a DNA test, which, if administered, would be a novelty for Egypt.

"The importance of this case is that it is out in the open," says one of el-Hinnawy's supporters. "The whole society has to question whether it is only her, or whether the society is changing. Young people want to make love without getting married."

Egypt's society is certainly facing change. Issues involving sex, courtship, and marriage are debated frankly all day long on Arab TV, usually in talk-show formats hosted by women (both secular and veiled). By the way, I've seen one of MacFarquhar's hymen-restoration clinics portrayed, suprisingly, in a recent Egyptian movie, where it was represented as an extremely busy place. The same film even presented a young, unmarried couple together in bed and about to have sex, a scene that the film offered sympathetically. As it happens, there was another character at the window, secretly videotaping them so as to blackmail the woman into having sex with him, too. Not your traditional Egyptian movie.

Comments

|1.27.05 @ 6:18PM|#

A pious hypocrite, you say, or a Republican congressman?

|1.27.05 @ 6:25PM|#

A pious hypocrite, you say, or a Republican congressman?

The Hit and Run comments section is kind of like a jukebox with only song.

|1.27.05 @ 6:32PM|#

I just wanted to say it before anyone else did. :)

Tim Cavanaugh|1.27.05 @ 6:45PM|#

She wants a DNA test, which, if administered, would be a novelty for Egypt.

They've got Maury Povitch in Egypt now?

|1.27.05 @ 8:18PM|#

Woah, this is big. This reminds me of a highly uncomfortable conversation in Egypt between my mom, girlfriend and I regarding illegitimate children and their acceptance in general society.

My question, why the hymen surgery? Why not just say that the lady enjoys equestrian sports? One would wonder, since the upper class is the one that runs the government, why they would get behind Bush's anti-abortion and contraception position at the UN when it would make their hypocrisy (the MidEast upper class') apparent in their own society. Of course, even if it was illegal, they'd still get 'em.

Tim, that was freakin' hillarious. I await the episode where they send the impudent el-Hinnawy to boot camp in Dubai.

|1.27.05 @ 11:14PM|#

Actually Tim, I beleive Maury was the asshole who hosted some "we don't have a god damned thing to fill out tonight's prime time slot" Fox special a few years ago, where they opened some pharoah's tomb for the "first time ever" "live" and pretended to find lots of important shit.

It was the most hilariously stupid piece of television I've ever seen. But yeah, Egypt's had the Maury for some time.

|1.28.05 @ 8:07AM|#

Fox special a few years ago, where they opened some pharoah's tomb for the "first time ever" "live" and pretended to find lots of important shit.

Worse than Geraldo Rivera starring in "Al Capone's Vault"?

|1.28.05 @ 9:51AM|#

Mo, for a little perspective, is there anything Americans do that Egyptians consider as batshit insane as hyman reconstruction surgery appears to me?

|1.28.05 @ 2:02PM|#

Hmm, let's see. Gay marriage strikes them as batshit insane. My dad told me when he was growing up he thought the entire civil rights movement was anti-American propaganda because discrimination based on skin color struck him as nuts (of course, it strikes all of us as nuts nowadays too). They think it's pretty crazy that Bush won reelection, when I described Kerry, they thought the fact that he won the Democratic nomination was pretty crazy too.

But as batshit insane as hymen restoration surgery, well maybe some episodes on Springer.

|4.27.05 @ 2:12AM|#

GO HIND GO GO. FREE ARAB-CANADIANS ARE ALL WITH YOU, AND WATCHING CLOSELY YOUR CASE. AND HERE THROUGH OUR HUMAN RIGHTS ORGNIZATIONS AND THE WORLD NEWSPAPERS WE WILL MAKE SURE THAT OUR VOICE AND YOURS IS HEARD WIDLY AND LOUDLY.
WE SUPPORT YOU AND WILL BE WITH YOU IN YOUR CONFORONTATION WITH THIS SICKENING MENTALITIES.


(Reply to this)

Until when?
(Anonymous)
2005-04-27 05:53 (link)
Until when? Arab will keep their discriminatory behaviors against women. WHY he walks away without obeying the court decision to have DNA test? Was he arrested for that? The answer is simply NO. Why there?s no social or law enforcement in this case. She holds her baby and weeps her tears and he walks away. If this case was in a fair society she should even refuse that her daughter holds his name.