Endangered Species

A little story with big implications has almost snuck under the radar. The trial of failed Iraqi suicide bomber Sajida Mubarak al-Rishawi began in Jordan today. This young lady, that's right lady, joined Al Qaeda in Iraq and traveled to Annan, Jordan with the intention of detonating her suicide belt in a Western-owned hotel there. Three others "succeeded", she failed when her belt did.

This woman is the rarest of creatures, the female "terrorist". Like other endangered species, she will no doubt be studied by many observers (I suppose myself included). We in the West are always told that women in the Middle East are treated as no better than property. They are controlled by their men and ordered to wear veils and birqas; these demonstrate their submission to patriarchy. What women would choose that life we think, reasonably given our cultural norms?

Sajida Mubarak al-Rishawi, beyond the label of suicide bomber, is already becoming the subject of criticism because of her choices. Jordanian authorities claim she even got married just to become a suicide bomber. How dare she be so brazen? Marriage is sacred, isn't it? You don't just use people to get what you want; men might behave thus but not women. So what if her brothers were killed by the Americans in Iraq. That doesn't give her the right to forget her place. Suicide bombing and all those sweet virgins are for men; women need not apply.

But increasingly it seems they are.

Ironically given imperial America's supposed goals of dragging the Middle East into the modern world, "terrorist" organizations are more egalitarian than the corrupt governments they aim to replace. Hamas, Al Qaeda in Iraq and other "terrorist" groups it could be argued are extremely progressive in some areas. Like the women of the armament factories in World War Two, women are being drafted to help combat the "Great Satan", many making the ultimate sacrifice. After World War Two, in the West women had proved themselves and slowly began to claim more and more rights over the years. Will this happen in the Middle East? Perhaps history will judge Sajida Mubarak al-Rishawi a pioneer.

Being alive and on trial, however truncated, she can become a symbol. If the state kills her, which is likely given Jordan's record, what does this say about the agency of women? If she is released or jailed she remains a living symbol of women choosing another path other than marriage and motherhood.

What will her sisters that follow in her wake achieve? Perhaps legal abortion will come to the Middle East; maybe divorce will become even more common and, gasp, maybe all Arab and Muslim women will win the right to vote. But maybe they'll embrace violence as she has done. Does it take the end of a war to begin the real fight?

Of course the counter argument could be made and it could be said that in choosing (whatever that means) to be a suicide bomber Sajida Mubarak al-Rishawi was being manipulated by men all along. This is a compelling argument as well.

What cannot be argued is that this important trial and its impact on its society will be just as compelling and perhaps revolutionary.