Wearing nothing but a pair of stockings, red ribbon in her hair and pair of flat red shoes, the black and white shot would not look out of place in a nude photography book. But this is no ordinary art project.Aliaa Magda Elmahdy, a 20-year old university student from Cairo, has sparked outrage in the Middle East with the controversial full-length image, posted on her blog last week. Elmahdy is a self-professed atheist since she was 16. An outspoken feminist, liberal vegetarian, she seems to tackle many controversial issues.
Aliaa Elmahdy apparently thought she was striking a blow for sexual equality and free expression in Egypt when she posted nude photographs of herself on a blog. Instead Ms. Elmahdy set off a wave of outrage here, stoking conservative Islamist sentiments that many liberals fear will undermine their prospects in the country’s parliamentary election next week.
It is hard to overstate the shock at an Egyptian woman’s posting nude photographs of herself on the Internet in a conservative religious country where a vast majority of Muslim women are veiled and even men seldom bare their knees in public. In Egypt, even kissing in public is taboo.
The girl posts a picture of herself in full nude on her blog and Twitter becomes infested with angry comments in Egypt.
One such issue is the stark contrast noted between Egyptian society and sex, as well as Hollywood depictions of Western mentalities. In the age of near instantaneous access to information on a global scale, cultures are always coming in contact with each other and differences in culture become quite obvious to people. Egypt’s exposure to Hollywood movies loaded with scantily clad and promiscuous women (in comparison to Egypt) has helped provide steam for many people to want change in Egyptian society, but are their actions helping them get there?
Usually, society changes bit by bit as new generations come to power and bring their values to the table. As each new generation explores the fringes of society’s values, the shape of that society slowly transforms. But when individuals leap past the fringes into the taboo to challenge the status quo the results can often cause society to retreat from that area, undoing progress.
Some liberals feared that the posting by 20-year-old university student Aliaa Magda Elmahdy would taint them in the eyes of deeply conservative Egyptians ahead of Nov. 28 parliamentary elections in which they are trying to compete with fundamentalist Islamic parties.
Nudity is strongly frowned upon in Egyptian society, even as an art form. Elmahdy's posting is almost unheard of in a country where most women in the Muslim majority wear the headscarf and even those who don't wear clothes exposing the arms or legs in public, are rarely.
The issue has become a debate in Twitter under the #NudePhotoRevolutionary hashtag. While some praise Elmahdy for being a revolutionary, most people have replied negatively to her actions.
“The lighting is awful and the composition is dreadful. Break all the social boundaries you want, but don’t call it art,” prominent Egyptian blogger Lilian Wagdy posted in the discussion.
"This hurts the entire secular current in front of those calling themselves the people of virtue," Sayyed el-Qimni, a prominent self-described secular figure, said referring to Islamists.
"It's is a double disaster. Because I am liberal and I believe in the right of personal freedom, I can't interfere," el-Qimni said Wednesday night on one of Egypt's popular TV political talk shows, "90 Minutes."
The April 6 movement, one of the most prominent liberal activist groups that led the 18-day uprising against Mubarak, issued a statement denying claims by some on the Web that Elmahdy is a member of the group.
The posting prompted furious discussions on Internet social media sites, with pages for and against her put up on Facebook.
Comments ranged from the overtly religious warnings of sin and punishment in the conservative camp, to genuine concern expressed by liberal activists. Ali Hagras, another Egyptian blogger expressed his concern for the ramifications of Elmahdy’s actions.
“Let’s just hope Salafi Sheikhs don’t get word of this. They’re going to throw it on the liberals and seculars.”
“Elmahdy really seems to support freedom of speech,” said Islam Kamel, an Egyptian Engineering student at the American University in Cairo, to bikyamasr.com. “She is even supporting Denmark for the drawings they made.”
“#nudephotorevolutionary was the most daring conflicting act I’ve seen for a long time but was also the worst thing that happened to the liberal movement in Egypt,” Kamel continued. According to Kamel, he feels that her actions have caused more harm than good. Her actions have done “nothing but stir a debate and allow the conservatives to have one more reason to call for an Islamic state and blame liberals and seculars for this. You will probably see one of them saying this is how all women will act if Egypt isn’t saved by an Islamic leader.
“She is very young,” Kamel added. “There is also the chance that she has a philosophy behind her actions but it is not thought out properly.”
One activist, Mahmoud Hossein, told Bikyamasr.com he felt her actions were brave, but ultimately foolish. The general feeling coming from the liberal camp is that she should not have tried to be so bold. “She should think of the consequences of her actions.”
Another activist Ahmed Awadallah praised her in a Tweet, writing, "I'm totally taken back by her bravery."
A supporter, who identified himself as Emad Nasr Zikri, wrote in a comment on Elmahdy's blog, "We need to learn how to separate between nudity and sex." He said that before fundamentalist influence in Egypt, "there were nude models in art school for students to draw."
Some 100 people liked his comment, while thousands flooded the site with insults. Some denounced Elmahdy as a "prostitute" and "mentally sick" or urged police to arrest her.
Elmahdy did not reply to attempts by The Associated Press to contact her.
Women rights activist Nehad Abou el-Qomsan said conservatives "keep adding layers to cover up the women and deny their existence."
But, she said, what Elmahdy did "is also rejected because posing nude is a form of body abuse."
The fear is that such acts of expression are such delicate issues and any massive and sudden disruption to the way the system works will inevitably lead to more conservatism as people shy away from what ‘liberalism’ may bring.
“The only thing she accomplished is giving the conservatives a better way to win the elections using this single blog as their method,” Kamel stressed.
Perhaps Elmahdy’s actions were rash, but the debate has certainly stirred many different opinions. Perhaps Egypt is a few decades away from having such expressions of freedom accepted. Until then, sex and shame are inextricably linked together, and Egypt’s sexual taboos remain firmly (on the surface) in place.
Elmahdy wrote on her blog that the photographs, which show her standing wearing only stockings, are "screams against a society of violence, racism, sexism, sexual harassment and hypocrisy." The blog has since received over 1.8 million hits and almost 10,000 "likes."
On her blog individuals made comments like "prostitute" and "mentally sick" under her photos.
"Whatever her message was/is it was gone unnoticed.even if it was a simple expression of freedom, the message didnt get because sadly, people payed [sic] attenion [sic] to her body and not the message, I think the message would have been more effective if a bunch of men did it 'cause no one will be talking about their bodies. Still I support her choice to do whatever she likes with her body 'cause its her body after all," @EgyptianLiberal posted.
Elmahdy, who is seen in one photograph wearing only stockings, includes the caption "[the photo] screams against a society of violence, racism, sexism, sexual harassment and hypocrisy."
"I have the right to live freely in any place," Elmahdy wrote on her blog. "I feel happy and self satisfied when I feel that I'm really free," she said.
She posted multiple other photographs of naked people, both male and female.
Elmahdy and her boyfriend Kareem Amer, also a controversial blogger, have challenged Egypt's social strictures before. Earlier this year, they posted mobile phone video footage of themselves debating with managers of a public park who threw them out for public displays of affection.
Amer, who spent four years in prison for blog posting deemed insulting to Islam and for calling Mubarak a "symbol of tyranny," chided liberals who condemned Elmahdy.
"I think we should not be afraid of those in power or Islamists, as much as we should be worried of politicians claiming to be liberal," he wrote on his Facebook page. "They are ready to sacrifice us to avoid tarnishing their image."
The posting comes at a time when Egypt, a nation of some 85 million people, is polarized between Islamists and liberals ahead of the elections, the first since the February ouster of former President Hosni Mubarak.
Aliaa Magda Elmahdy is one of many Middle Easterners who have utilized social networking as a political action tool.
Elmahdy's "freedom of expression" is a parallel to other recent social upheavals, such as the Arab Spring and the Occupy Wall Street movement.
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