"I was looking for freedom to hug my mother," "My last dream was to visit my mother's grave," prisoners Mahmoud al-Ardah and Ayham Kamamji told their lawyers after they escaped from Gilboa Prison and were caught. These sentences indicate the deep emotional connection that exists between the Arab mother and her sons, and her presence in their lives even after they have become adults and have families.
These sentences also join well-known proverbs and hadiths from Arab culture such as: "The mother is the world," "A child without a father is not an orphan," "The mother builds a nest while the father runs away," "Paradise is spread out at the feet of mothers," or in other words, whoever honors and serves his mother is considered a believer and guarantees a place in paradise.
While a son's love for his father is "a kind of core trapped in a veil of fear and terror," Naguib Mahfouz wrote in his book "A House in Cairo," a deep emotional bond develops between the son and his mother that increases his commitment to ensure her personal and financial safety for the rest of her life.
Documentation of a failed murder attempt in the village of Qara // Use under section 27A of the Copyright Law
The family in Arab society is considered the main agent of friendship, and is more important than the individual and more influential than the state. The commitment and loyalty of the individual is first to the family and only then to the state and society. The family provides a sense of belonging, security, protection, food, clothing, identity, good name and respect for its members; mediates between the individual and the public sphere; regulates the economic activity of its members; defines their social status in the community; educates children to observe their customs, traditions and cultural heritage; And in times of crisis supports family members and helps them emotionally and materially. In return, its members are required to show loyalty, obey and subordinate personal aspirations and interests to those of the family.
From an understanding of this division of roles in the patriarchal family, and an understanding of the important status of the Arab mother in the eyes of her children, the great respect they feel for her and the fear of her honor being violated, Arab mothers and grandmothers should be mobilized to fight violence with the help of local authorities, clerics, and public figures who enjoy respect and esteem in the community. Alongside the use of harsh police and legal power, soft cultural power must be employed and a civil guard of Arab mothers should be established to patrol the streets of Arab communities at night and be accompanied by a propaganda campaign telling the man: "Shame on you, you are the man (Isthi Ala Halek Anat Al-Rajel), who instead of protecting us, kills us, leaving us no choice but to take to the streets to protect our families."
The President and his wife hosted women and mothers from the Arab sector who lost loved ones in murder incidents // Photo: Yoni Rikner
The cultural norms of honor and shame must be mobilized this time, not to oppress the Arab woman but to restrain the delinquent men. Arab mothers who are forced to leave their homes at night in order to restore personal security to their families may shame the delinquent men and confront them with their betrayal of the basic role of the Arab man – protecting the institution of the family and the personal security of its members. If the delinquent men dare to harm these women, they will break the barrier of fear against them and increase the motivation among many Arab citizens to cooperate with law enforcement, law enforcement and justice officials.
When Arab women took the streets with their feet during the uprisings that erupted in 2011 (the Arab Spring), they challenged the rules of syntax that defined the interaction between gender and the public sphere, as well as the walls and barriers that the patriarchal regime deployed to prevent their progress.
They invented shortcuts and improvisations that deviated from the instructions for using space set by the patron father in the family and the state, and the march allowed them to create a sense of feminine community within a space free from patriarchal male supervision. As a community, it was much easier for them to criticize conservative patriarchal views, express forbidden dreams and aspirations, and especially imagine other economic, social and family lives. In their physical and vocal presence, they expressed their ability to act as individuals and as a group and dismantled, at least temporarily, the rigid social perceptions imposed on them. Some of these brave women may have been relegated to the domestic sphere, but many of them serve as sources of inspiration and role models for many women throughout the Middle East and around the world.
Protest against violence in the Arab sector, photo: Oren Ben Hakon
This is the time for Arab mothers to say "no" to the experiences of exclusion, marginalization and silencing, as women and human beings; "No" to the partial rights granted to them; "No" to dehumanizing and treating them as if they were witches or devil and instigators; And "no" to their perception as unintelligent creatures enslaved to the men of the family and whose main job is to give birth. This is the time for Arab mothers to give new meaning to the concept of "honor" and change the emotional reality of life that accustoms girls to feeling fear, and boys to feel anger and act violently whenever someone dares to injure their masculinity and push them to a low place in the family or social hierarchy.
However, in order to bring about social changes in societies in which the patriarchal order is deeply ingrained, it must be done from within culture and religion, in cooperation with the existing social structure and in accordance with the current needs of the changing society, and not through revolutionary means that are interpreted as rebellion against tradition and central social values, as some Arab scholars claim.
In a reality of incessant violence in Arab society, more than a hundred murdered since the beginning of 2023, brave and different thinking is required – this is the time for mothers to have their say, and the sons will have to prove that they do respect their mothers.
Minister of Public Security, the eyes of the Arab mothers who lost their children are now on you, help them establish a women's civil guard alongside aggressive and intensive police activity.
Author: Dr. Ronit Marzan, researcher of Palestinian society and politics, Chaikin Chair in Geostrategy at the University of Haifa.
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