This is my weekly column published in The National (UAE) today.

France has gone all burqa-phobic again. As of Monday, it will be illegal in France for anyone to cover their face in public. The ban has been on the horizon for some time, so nothing much new here, but the wider context has intensified.

courtesy ska-p.net

The leader of the far-right Front National, Marine le Pen, is campaigning hard against Muslims and immigration, and her popularity is increasing. She has compared crowds of Muslims praying in the streets outside mosques to the Nazi occupation.

Not to be outdone, the president, Nicolas Sarkozy, this week organised a debate on secularism and the role of religion. His prime minister, François Fillon, refused to attend, saying that it would further stigmatise Muslims. Abderrahmane Dahmane, who was fired from his post as Sarkozy’s adviser on integration for criticising the debate, called on Muslims to wear a green star in protest against the discussion. It is aimed to echo the yellow star that Jews in Europe were forced to wear during the Nazi era.

With such emotive references on both sides to the Nazi era, it’s clear that France still needs to come to terms with its own history in dealing with minorities.

Despite arguing that the ban and the debate are in defence of secularism, Sarkozy has had no qualms in simultaneously praising the “Christian heritage” of the country.

And even though a 1905 law separated church and state, churches and synagogues still receive indirect subsidies from the state. If mosques were included in this it might help put an end to the lack of space in them that forces worshippers to overflow onto the streets.

It is easy to understand the motivation behind the ill-conceived debate on secularism held this week, as it is the political context for the ban on face veils in public.

However, this would fail to illuminate the bigger picture. By pandering to the far-right to gain votes, Sarkozy is giving anti-Muslim sentiment legitimacy and a national platform that it does not deserve and that could have long-term and dangerous consequences.

courtesy politicshome.com

He is not the only leader guilty of this. Germany’s Angela Merkel was keen to score cheap political points last year when she stated that the “multikulti” project had failed, and pointed her finger at Muslims. Merkel would do well to remember that Germany’s earlier mono-culture project in the 1930s and 1940s did not work out so well.

Following hot on her heels was the UK’s prime minister, who repeated the same vacuous mantra in February this year at a conference in Munich.

He told world leaders that state multiculturalism had failed in the UK and pledged to cut funding for Muslim groups that failed to respect basic British values such as freedom of speech and democracy. Strange words from a government that harped on about “stability” when the protesters of Tahrir Square were demonstrating for democracy.

Europe must be more principled in its approach to dealing with its Muslim populations. Countries such as the UK and France are taking bold actions in Libya to support the movement towards freedom and democracy. At the same time, domestically they wish to suppress Muslim self-expression.

You can’t have it both ways. Freedom, self-expression and democracy need to be accompanied by one more value to be meaningful: a consistent standard for all.

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How it feels to be a grown up. Courtesy of Grim and Proper Cards

In my heart, I am still four years old. I look at a picture of me at that age, glowing skin, exuberant smile, cheeky glint in my eye. I’m still that girl, running around the garden, kicking a football, laughing in the summer sunshine, looking for my parents’ approval as I explore nature.

I am still seventeen. Waiting for the results of my university application, tense with anxiety about how my future will unfold, studying hard to achieve the grades that will take me into my degree course. I’m full of hope and innocence that life will open its arms to me.

I am still twenty one, dressing for my first day at work. Savouring each day as I get up bleary eyed and commute across town to my job, my first grown up paid full-time work. I go because I am thrilled to be in the work force, not because they pay me. That’s just a bonus.

I am still twenty five, trekking across deserts to explore the world, arranging last minutes flights to unplanned destinations, free of responsibility but laden with hunger to experience as much as I can. I’m learning about myself, about the world; making friends that will last.

I’m still a child, still a girl, still a youth, still a young woman. In my heart, what I am not, is a grown up.

Yet when you look at me, you will emphatically disagree. You will tell me: you have a house, a mortgage, a car. And then eyes popping at me you will say firmly, and now you have a baby. You are most definitely grown up.

What exactly is a grown up, and do I have to be one? Inside I’m still the free, independent, unshackled young woman, who craves experience, joy and adventure. My happiness at playing in a beautiful garden, enjoying the adoration of those who love me, of laughing through sheer contentment still persists. But outwardly my shape has been moulded into the straightjacket of grown-up-ness. Children look at me and call me ‘Auntie’, the ultimate push into adulthood. How and when did all this happen?  Where did the days – nay, the years – go? And will I be asking myself the same thing as the golden days of my autumn set in?

These days – now I’m in the new mummy phase – life passes as more of a blur.  The morning wake ups, the feeding, the nappies, the crying, the cuddling. Each day is the same, but each different, observing the little life growing in front of me. Days pass by, and I lose track of the dates. But you have a new baby! You cry. You tell me that this is normal.

But this is not just about my current phase. This increasing blurriness of passing time just speeds up each year. Tasks and activities get planned, and milestones must be reached. All necessary, all admirable, all expected. We want to move house, go on holiday, visit friends and family, get a new job, look after our loved ones, drink a good cup of coffee, tend the garden, throw surprise parties.

In this routine which is made up of the wonderful, yet simple and mundane pleasures of living a good life, it is easy to forget the need to factor in living the good life.

Finding your place in the scheme of life is the first step towards doing that. For me, one of the moments of epiphany was seeing myself not just as a daughter, but as a mother, a link in life’s ongoing chain. The question is what kind of link do I want to be? And how will I ensure that what I pass on is worth perpetuating?

I can – and choose – to be contented, irrespective of the labels of child, youth or adult. Being a grown up brings certain privileges – the ability to choose how to live, the self-awareness to know your place, and the acceptance of who you are. But the best part is that inside, you can still retain the joy and free-spiritedness of being a child.

As for that four year old I was telling you about? She’s still running around with unbounded happiness in my heart, willing to embrace life and to love with abandon those around her.

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This is my weekly column for The National.

My name is Shelina and I want an iPad 2.

All morning on March 25, the day of the global launch, I wondered if I should go and queue up outside my nearest Apple Store. Should I be one of the anointed legion of iPad 2 pioneers?

image courtesy of http://video-commerce.org/2011/03/ipad-2-preview-2/

I had to restrain myself from lining up to receive the sacrament of Mr Jobs’s latest offering. I pictured myself in the queue: woman in a headscarf, big pram, breastfeeding my newborn baby whilst waiting for the 5pm launch. Would I have traded in my baby to get to the front? No comment.

I used to mock the Apple zombies, with their illogical dedication to gadgets that are never quite the best available pieces of technology. I’ve concluded that Apple-worship is like being a Trekkie – either you get it or you don’t, and there’s no middle ground. And with the launch of the iPad 2 I’ve crossed over to the dark side. My computer screen is covered with drool as I gaze lustfully at its images online.

What’s not to love about the slender curves of metal and glass? It’s thin, it’s light, it connects to your TV, and it has a slidey-foldy cover that comes in at least eight colours. We won’t talk about the price tag. Or the fact that I don’t really need one. Or that a newer version will probably be released just as I’ve become accustomed to the sweepy-slidey finger movements that operate this gorgeous little beast.

Or that it seems to be a slimmer version of the children’s toy Speak & Spell that I had when I was six. Oh, that was a fabulous gadget, complete with liquid crystal display and a keyboard made of squiggly buttons. Perhaps that was the gateway drug to my current gadget craving.

The smaller and slicker these gadgets become, the more appealing they are. Especially if you’re a woman fighting the perennial problem of the overloaded handbag. And the new iPad 2 – like many other gadgets – is now teeny enough to slide into all but the smallest of purses.

According to the UK shopping chain Debenhams, the weight of the average British woman’s handbag was a staggering 3.3kgs in 2008, the equivalent of carrying three and a half bags of sugar (and the same as my newborn baby). But, as paper organisers have been replaced by multipurpose phones and laptops that themselves have become lighter, this figure is now a much more manageable 1.5kg.

It’s not the weight of the handbag – nor the gadgets that reside within it – that are fascinating; it’s the cost of the contents of the typical handbag. This comes in at more than £250 (Dh1,471). And that doesn’t include those luscious gadgets; it is just the cost of all the make-up that women carry with them wherever they go. According to Debenhams, a woman’s supply of warpaint alone is worth as much as £256 on average. In fact, nine out of 10 women said that they wouldn’t step out of the house without their mascara.

With the entry-level iPad 2 coming in at £399, it doesn’t feel that different in price to all the make-up in the handbag, and probably a whole lot less heavy to carry.

So now I have to decide: gadget or face goo? Both are about good looks and sleek finishes. The marketing hype for each tells me that I can’t live without them. The solution might be an iPad application to replace the make-up the average woman needs. It could be called iWorthit.

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My weekly column for The National UAE.

It seems the world around us has had nothing to offer recently but horror and torment. How is it possible to remain cheery in the face of all this disaster?

The Middle East’s new year was filled with excitement, triggered by relatively peaceful revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt. But recent, more violent, events in Libya, Bahrain, Yemen and now Syria have cast a darker shadow across the hopes of millions for reform in their countries.

On the other side of the world, Japan has been suffering the effects of a huge earthquake followed by a tsunami, and now the subsequent troubles with a nuclear plant.

It feels inappropriate to smile, yet alone search for humour while millions continue to suffer under natural or man-made tragedies. And yet, strange creatures that human beings are, we still have the urge to look for humour even in the worst of times.

Incompetence is a traditionally rich seam for jokes. Consider this error committed on Fox News during the Japan disaster. The broadcaster displayed a map identifying all the nuclear plants in Japan, including one named “Shibuyaeggman“. On later inspection it turned out that “eggman” was in fact not a nuclear plant, but a nightclub in the Shibuya district.

“Comedy” goes the famous saying, “is simply tragedy plus time.” And when you don’t have time, then distance can do the job just as well.

There’s a cartoon depicting the floods in New Orleans in 2005. A man is shown at a police station describing how his house was swept away by the water, down a hill and washed into the ocean. The policeman responds: “OK, I’ll just put ‘no fixed address’.” It feels very close to the recent events in Japan. Is it funny? I’ll let you decide.

Laughing at another person’s tragedy can be considered tasteless, but for those in the middle of the particular situation it is a way of releasing overwhelming tension.

One Bahraini activist chuckled at her own plight on Twitter. In regards to the drama involved in the protests, she tweeted: “Being followed by many eggs … I can make u all a Mexican omelette.”

Humour isn’t just about releasing tension. For those involved in trying to bring about regime change, it can be a powerful weapon.

The Nazis knew this. Joke-telling was illegal and punishable by death. As one Nazi prosecutor of the time said: “The better the joke, the more dangerous its effect, therefore, the greater punishment.”

The Libyans are aware of the political power, as well as the cathartic energy, of jokes. According to a Reuters report, eastern Libya is running wild with anti-Qaddafi humour. Graffiti on walls show him as a “Super Thief” in a Superman costume with a dollar sign instead of an “S” on his chest. Another shows him in a dustbin labelled “history”.

Mockery signals the end for an unwanted leader, and no mockery is as fine as that which points to the subtle symptoms of hubris. In Muammar Qaddafi’s case, his crazy hair is the ultimate target for satire. One cartoon urged him to “surrender himself to the ‘national council of hairdressers’.”

Whatever catastrophes and tragedies the world may be facing, if this coming week sees Qaddafi go, then that would certainly put a smile on my face.

What happened in Japan (courtesy cartoonaday.com)

What we wished had happened in Japan (courtesy of cartoonaday.com)

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Somewhat belatedly, here is my monthly EMEL column. Please note it was written at the end of February, so events have definitely moved on since then…

One ordinary individual can be the catalyst for change.

On December 17th 2010, a 26-year old Tunisian fruit seller set himself on fire in front of a government building. The graduate, who could not find a job, was trying to earn a living with his stall. On that fateful day, he was halted by a police officer who seized his goods, claiming that the man was working without the necessary legal permit. It is not clear what happened next: did the police officer slap him, or did he go into a centre for unemployed graduates to complain of his treatment only to be faced with laughter and insults? We will never be sure. But this much we do know: what the young man did next has sparked a regional revolution.

courtesy of paul-wakefield.co.uk

Eighteen days later, on January 4th, he died of severe burns. Ironically, he was even visited in hospital by the man he was protesting against, President Zine El-Abidine Ben Ali, and a photo was released of the meeting by the presidency.  The death of the young man, Muhammad Al Bouazizi, was seen as a symbol for all the young college graduates who were unemployed; a catalyst for the demonstrations that led to the fall of the President and his departure from the country.

Having seen what was possible in Tunisia, Egyptians gathered the courage to follow suit. An unknown young woman’s [Asma Mahfouz] YouTube video encouraging people to protest in Tahrir Square was one of the triggers for unrest in Egypt, and as I write this, the will of Egyptian people has led Mubarak stepping down. They were ordinary people, engaging in acts that a few months ago would have been extraordinary. Courage filled their bellies. The King of Jordan has also seen the writing on the wall and dismissed his cabinet, realising that if he does not pre-empt change, then he himself will be its casualty.

History has many names filling its books, of men and women who through their actions have brought revolution and improvements. These include familiar popular heroes like Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela. Individuals like these are held up as inspirations of what one person can achieve. However, it is those whose names may well be forgotten, but whose actions and their consequences will live on – like Bouazizi, like the video protagonist – which I find particularly motivational. These are ‘ordinary’ people, like you and me, with no label, pedestal or distinction. The risk with ‘great names’ is that we put them on a pedestal, and believe that we are unable to effect the change of these great personalities. The weight of history can intimidate us, feeling that we are not ‘great’ in our selves, that we are unworthy of making our mark on the human course of events. But this is simply not true. Al Bouazizi and countless others show us that one single individual can be a catalyst for change. I am not advocating that we go round setting ourselves on fire – self-harm is contrary to Islamic philosophy. However, a single action can have potent repercussions. Even a word said can resonate over time and place to create change. There is no more popular and oft-repeated phrase today than Martin Luther King’s “I have a dream.” These four words continue to evoke a passion for change.

Prophet Muhammad’s birthday in February also reminds us what an enormous impact one individual can make. None of them set out to be great, they all simply set out to do the right thing to the best of their capacity. It was the cumulative effect of each action going towards a better world that has set them up as individuals to inspire us, and it is the choice to make each action the right action – and for each action to count – that is important. One of my favourite children’s stories from Islamic history is that of Prophet Ibrahim when thrown onto the fire by King Nimrod for denying Nimrod’s divinity. The little ants scurry around trying to put out the fire. As a child, I recall how a conversation between one of the angels that descends and one of the ants that is busy ferrying drops of water from a nearby puddle onto the enormous inferno is played out. “Why are you bothering?” asks the angel. The ant replies very simply, “Because at least I know that I have done my part.”

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My weekly column in The National was published today.

It was the time for me to become a woman once again. A short but excruciating amount of pain would leave me radiant and glowing, assured of my truly feminine status. I was at the beauty salon to “have my eyebrows done”.

Why oh why do I do this to myself? It’s a strange form of addiction, exchanging pain to get the temporary high of “beauty”. The gorgeous arc of the eyebrow “opens up my eyes” and makes them sparkle, apparently. But eyebrow-shaping is also one of the worst forms of self-inflicted persecution I know.

The beautician (for which read “torturer”) summons me into her small room and beckons me to lie down on the narrow treatment bed. She tuts at the horror of my bushy brow overgrowth. To me, they still look presentable, but she informs me that they are unsuitable for public display.

She leans over my face, her ample bosom precariously close to my face, the smell of her perfumed uniform is at once comforting but also a signal of the pain I am about to endure. And yet here I am, month in month out.

I’ve bought into the notion, which the beauty industry has sold to me, that without pain there is no gain. But this industry is not only those nasty faceless conglomerates that churn out various white creams that will moisturise, nourish, cleanse, rejuvenate or anti-age me. It also includes well-meaning friends, mothers, bossy aunties and colleagues who advise on what it means to be womanly. And having perfectly shaped eyebrows is part of womanliness. It is you know, it really is.

“Can you hold here?” she dictates, drawing me in to participate in my own torment. I close my eyes, and use one of my hands to depress and gently pull down my eyelid while using my other hand to winch up the skin above the brow. With the eyebrow held taut she begins work to excavate my long-lost luscious brow. She has wound a piece of white cotton thread (it’s always white, I don’t know why) between her hands and her mouth. Holding it tight she pulls away lines of hair from above, below and between my brows. A thousand hairs are yanked without any ceremony from right above my eye, and tears start streaming down while I suppress a scream. Real women don’t scream when they are becoming woman-ified.

Sometimes, I wonder if men notice. Are you tuned in to the trouble that most of the women around you go to? The comedian George Carlin says: “Ladies, here’s how much men care about your eyebrows: Do you have two of them? Good, we’re done.”

I’m not going to go through this trauma without due recognition, however. I’ve trained my husband to notice when my eyes have gained their freedom from eyebrow overgrowth. If the compliment is not spontaneous, I stand directly in front of him in obvious anticipation.

But is it the male species that we do it for? I don’t think so. The shaped eyebrow confirms our eligibility into the “real woman” club, a small but effective signal that says: “I am a woman who cares about myself.”

If a woman doesn’t care about how she looks, then what kind of woman is she? I’d like to say I’m the kind of woman who hasn’t bought into the social pressure to conform to being what is considered a socially acceptable “real woman”.

But I have.

And after each torture session, I can’t help but admire my luscious curved brows and newly liberated sparkling eyes.

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My weekly column in The National was published today.

If you’ve ever felt nervous before delivering a speech to a high-powered audience, then spare a thought for India’s foreign minister. He stood up to address the Security Council at the United Nations, but instead of giving his own speech, he read out the notes of the Portuguese minister. An Indian official had to stop him as he read out statements of pleasure at seeing other Portuguese speaking officials in the audience. Oh dear.

Ordinary folks like me might be forgiven for thinking that the role of foreign minister is only ever occupied by those of the highest professional standards, and who have somehow been immunised from embarrassing gaffes. Not so. Reading out the wrong speech might have left the individual a little red-faced and provoked giggles from the audience. But it’s not uncommon for slip-ups to have more serious repercussions.

Jack Straw, during his tenure as foreign secretary of the UK, was infamously photographed shaking hands with Robert Mugabe. He claimed that although he had previously worn glasses, he had just started wearing contact lenses, and through his blurry vision had failed to identify the Zimbabwean president in time.

Of course ministers can and will get in a pickle and do embarrassing things. The trick is to ensure you have a credible excuse that explains it away without compounding the shame.

courtesy of the-spine.com

This week, the UK’s foreign secretary, William Hague, has failed to do exactly that. There must have been a lot of burning cheeks and nervous laughter at the failure of the James Bond-style SAS mission that was authorised to go into Libya. Eight operatives, at least six of them from the SAS, were dropped by helicopter near Benghazi at 3am, and suspicious local rebels took them prisoner. The irony is that the rebels suggested that there was no need for subterfuge, and the British would have been allowed entry to the east of Libya – all they had to do was ask.

So what is Mr Hague’s excuse for the macho mission? Er, it wasn’t my fault; it was the military. If you’re going to pick someone to blame, Billy-boy, I wouldn’t pick the guys with the tanks.

You might find these incidents to be the funny side of diplomacy. But poor judgement in the international arena can have serious consequences.

France’s foreign minister offered Tunisia help in restoring order shortly before the fall of the Ben Ali regime. In simple terms, France was advising on how to put down the protests. Definitely on the wrong side of history.

As the Quartet’s envoy to the Middle East, Tony Blair is a foreign minister of sorts. His words with regard to Hosni Mubarak of Egypt were so ludicrous that one might be forgiven for thinking he himself was having a go at satire. In February, as the Egyptian protests began to gather momentum, Mr Blair said with a straight face that the Egyptian president was “immensely courageous and a force for good”. If the consequence of his words wasn’t so deadly serious, it would have been funny.

Foreign ministers hold a high degree of responsibility for peace between nations. Their errors are funny exactly because of the contrast between the stupidity of some of their actions and the high pressure stakes under which they operate. When their actions remain on the side of humour instead of crossing the line into horror, then we feel safe to chuckle, as we have at the French and the British in the past few weeks. But if things had gone wrong in Tunisia or Egypt, I don’t think any of us would have been laughing then.

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I came across two stories yesterday about women in the Arab world that could not have been more different.

The first was a press release I was sent from the “Network of Free Ulema” in Libya. I don’t know anything about them (other than the fact that the press release was in English, which I thought was quite curious. I’m assuming there was an Arabic version too. And the info that they’ve carefully written up in Wikipedia. They are very media savvy. Good for them!)

The press release was on the occasion of International Women’s Day in order to:

“celebrate your heroic political, social, scholarly and economic achievements. We congratulate you, and promise you that all of us, women and men, will work together towards a Libya of equality and fairness for all.”

I haven’t copied out the whole text, but I did like this line at the end:

“May the significance of this special day, become an inspiration for a New and Free Libya.”

Women’s actions can and should be an inspiration not just for women, but for everyone. I like the recognition of this.

It’s great to see this worldliness in the Ulema, and their recognition of the importance of women and the status and respect that they deserve. It gives me some hope for change. It also underlines a point I made in an article earlier this week that the up-front participation by women in the revolutions of the Middle East has forever changed their status.  It’s re-iterated in a piece written by Naomi Wolf on The Middle East Feminist Revolution.

Contrast this with a heartbreaking piece in The National yesterday about the prevalence of women in Saudi Arabia who are being forced NOT to marry by their fathers and brothers. The article writes:

Amal Saleh would like to marry and have a family, but she needs her father’s permission. And he won’t give it. A university professor in her mid-thirties, Amal has had numerous suitors asking for her hand, but her father always refuses. “They are not rich, or he doesn’t like their fathers or they are not from the same social group,” she says. Work colleagues who proposed were turned away because they were not from the same tribe. Her brothers support her father, she says, because they fear “that if I had a partner he would share in my money”. For her male relatives, Amal says, “I am like a horse. They don’t treat me as a human being. They treat me as if I belong to them and they should decide what to do with this ‘thing’.” The National is not publishing Amal’s real name because her father threatened to kill her if she sought help outside the family.

It seems that a number of reasons lie behind fathers and brothers witholding permission to marry – permission which is required under Saudi Arabia’s guardianship laws for women to marry. The woman’s salary is lost to the family. They are worried that she will take away her share of the inheritance. They don’t like the family of the intended.

Even though such behaviour on the part of the family is against Islamic law – and the country’s chief mufti has stated it to be so, adding that it should bring a penalty of imprisonment, this tribal custom persists. In fact,women who protest against such behaviour are taken to court by their families for ‘disobedience’, and bafflingly the court upholds this.

Amal’s words wrench my guts. She uses a similar analogy to the period of jahiliyyah that I’ve used before. She says:

“Before Islam, they had this practice of killing a girl when she is just a baby [because] they were ashamed of her as they wanted a boy,” Amal had said in the interview. “Now I’m saying that history is being repeated. They kill us when we have emotions and can understand and are aware of our rights. Maybe if they killed me as a child it would be better than now.”

courtesy of susiesbigadventure.blogspot.com

Two corners of the Muslim world, two very different stories. On the one hand there is hope that respect for women and a recognition of their equality and status is now on the horizon. On the other hand, despair that there is still a long way to go.

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This is my weekly column, “Her Say” published today in The National (UAE).

The old clichés that the women of the Middle East are backward, uneducated and complicit in their oppression have been wrenched away from the global discourse. It was a narrative that sought to take away your voices by claiming to know better than you what you want.

Egyptian women shout slogans in Cairo's Tahrir Square. Photographer: Pedro Ugarte/AFP/Getty Images

But you have changed all of that. Around the world, we’ve seen your presence across television screens, in newspaper pictures and throughout the internet. We’ve heard your voices on the radio, in interviews and speaking to friends, colleagues and global citizens. We’ve felt the strength of your emotions and beliefs translate into political change – which was unforeseeable three months ago – change that has occurred thanks in great measure to your participation. We have seen you side by side with men demanding justice and freedom. Irrespective of religion, ethnicity, geography and education, you have had your say. And your say has made a difference.

On January 18, a 26-year-old woman in Egypt, Asmaa Mahfouz, uploaded a video on YouTube, urging her fellow citizens to go out to Tahrir Square, to fight for their country. The video went viral and it is suggested that her say was one of the catalysts that sparked the revolution. She is just one example among many of how a woman’s voice can be clear, true and unafraid; how a woman can and must make a change; how a woman must be listened to and respected. In this case, Mahfouz had her say, which helped to inspire a nation.

We should pause at this moment in history to recognise the voices of such women at the front line of carrying the aspirations of their people into visible change. Even more important is that society has come to realise that women have voices, that they have something important to say. And more critically, they must be listened to.

Those in power – whether at the level of high political office, or simply at home – have realised that a woman’s say is fundamental to a healthy and dynamic social fabric. If women’s voices – “her say” – were not recognised, valued and listened to before, the time is now for them to be acknowledged for the importance and value that they hold.

This column has the most appropriate title for a piece of my writing at this moment. And it is even more poignant because March 8 will mark the centenary of International Women’s Day. Who can say if a century ago I could have written to express my views so freely?

“Her say” might have been considered inappropriate, might still be considered as such in some quarters, but the seeds of change are flowering today.

There are those who claim that women should restrict themselves to the private domain. But recent events have proven otherwise. It is only when men and women have come out together, when men and women have raised their voices together, when her say as well as his are articulated, that change can happen.

The importance of her say in public and political events is clear, but this applies equally to the private domain. Whether you are a man or a woman, take a moment this week to turn to the women in your lives and ask them: “What do you want to say?” Then make sure to listen clearly to her aspirations.

The answers might surprise you.

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My regular “Her Say” column was published over the weekend in The National (UAE), inspired by the events across the Middle East.

Charlie Chaplin in The Great Dictator

Colonel Muammar Qaddafi, Hosni Mubarak and Zine el Abidine Ben Ali – they’ve all been dominating the headlines over the past few weeks. They’ve a lot in common. They’ve presided over their countries with all sorts of clichés: ruling with an “iron fist”, failing to see the “writing on the wall” for their regimes and not listening to the “voice of the people”.

They also have one specific genetic factor in common: this career is for men only.

Although I support gender equality in all walks of life, this is one area where I wouldn’t be in a hurry to see women taking a more equal role. Female dictators are a rare breed. And I’m quite happy for feminism and dictatorship to continue being unlikely bedfellows, thank you very much.

There are a few that have come close. Indira Gandhi ruled under emergency law, claiming it after widespread communal riots in India and effectively having quasi-dictatorial powers for a few years. Jiang Qing exercised a great deal of power in China as the health of her husband, Mao Zedong, declined, so much so that she was tried along with the Gang of Four. Romania’s Elena Ceaucescu was executed along with her dictator husband for her contribution to his house of horrors. And Imelda Marcos? Now a member of Congress, she is remembered more for her excesses in taste while husband Ferdinand ruled the Philippines.

By and large, the women practised a twisted form of marital companionship, supporting and goading on a husband in his ruthlessness.

There are some obvious reasons for so few female dictators. Dictators often achieve power by working their way through the military and then staging a coup. Until recently, women were almost absent from the armed forces. And, in countries where dictatorial power flourishes, all people generally – but women in particular – have precious little themselves.

Some people say women are inherently selfless and just don’t want to oppress others. It’s the “women are nicer human beings” argument. Others reckon we have better things to do. Personally, I like to spend time with family, enjoy good food and, if I have some time left, maybe squeeze in a manicure or facial.

I just don’t have the time and effort to brutally suppress, torture and massacre people consistently over time with the kind of obsessive focus and dedication you need to achieve dictator status. I mean, if you’re going to do it, you don’t want to be the dictator that time forgot. You want to go down in history as a cat-stroking, out-of-his-mind madman and badman.

The last week has seen plenty of madness, badness, horror and tragedy. The brutal consequences of dictatorship are not to be mocked or satirised. They are not part of the war on sexism or the humour that makes us laugh at the gender gap.

Instead, in the countries where courage has filled the bellies of its people, both men and women have taken what power they do have to ensure they have a hand in bringing the dictatorship to an end.

But it is the participation of the women that has been incredible over the past few weeks and has made me feel so proud. Heads held high, fists in the air, they have played an active part in bringing down those who have oppressed them.

Dictators beware: however you got to power, whatever your gender, your time is over. Step aside.

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